I’ve had this post slated for this day for a week now. How ironic that it would run the same day as Armed Liberal’s post about the extraordinary kids of Carl Hayden High… and how appropriate.

Paul Loeb has written a book called The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. It leans left, and there’s some material in it whose tone and therapeutic orientation reflect the left’s current state rather than offering vital self-reflection. So why bother with it? Because there’s also a lot of good material and truth, stuff that crosses party lines and ought to speak to citizens of all political affiliations - or none. I’m on the email list, and this is an example that was just crying out to be shared. I’ve received permission from Paul Loeb to do so.

I’ll start with the money ‘grafs, then continue on to the full article below the fold:

“In many cultures, there is a disembodied force that demands that every action be ethical: honor. “Bog, Honor, Ojczyzna,” or “God, Honor, Country,” is the Polish national motto. My stays in Poland introduced me to otherwise empty-handed activists who faced off against Nazis, Communists, and now, capitalism, with relentless personal power. “Burnout” and “apathy” were not in their vocabulary. Even when serving time in prisons that appeared on no map, they felt visible. Honor recorded their every deed, and ensured that it mattered.

I suspect that we all have our three-in-the-morning moments, when all of life seems one no-exit film noir, where any effort is pointless, where any hope seems to be born only to be dashed, like a fallen nestling on a summer sidewalk. When I have those moments, if I do nothing else, I remind myself: the ride in the snow; the volunteers at the food bank; the Nepali peasants who fed me. Activists like the Pole Wladyslaw Bartoszewski who, decades before he would earn any fame, got out of Auschwitz only to go on to even more resistance against the Nazis, and then the Soviets. Invisible, silent people who, day by day, choice by choice, unseen by me, unknown to me, force me to witness myself, invite me to keep making my own best choices, and keep me living my ideals.”

Amen. Your deeds matter - and you are never powerless. There’s lots more good stuff in Danusha Veronica Goska’s essay - here’s the whole thing…

The Bush administration’s assertion that North Korea transferred uranium to Libya is now under attack in the press, specifically, the Washington Post. The Post claims the administration (wait for it . . .) lied! by concealing intelligence that Pakistan was the intermediary / facilitator / wholesaler of the uranium sale:

Pakistan’s role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington’s partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity.

The bloody hunks of chum in water quickly drew schools of sharks. Typical of the over-the-top, under-the-facts hyperventilations was this comment, posted on The Marmot’s Hole:

i hate reading things like this. why should anyone believe bush/cheney anymore? they have lied to the american people to justify war in iraq, and now they’re lying to our allies to justify coming down on north korea.

isn’t the case for putting pressure on north korea strong enough without making stuff up? the u.s.a. is starting to become the boy who cried wolf. when we really are serious about something, they’re not going to believe us.

South Korea’s largest newspaper echoed the allegation in its headline, although buried in the middle of the article was an allusion to a significant problem with the story.

Aside from the fact that the real Iraq intel scandal may not be quite as advertised, one wishes the Bush administration would have just come clean and said something like this when the story first broke:

American and Asian intelligence officials say it is unclear whether North Korea knew that Libya was the ultimate destination for the chemical, called uranium hexafluoride. One senior official with access to the intelligence data said it was possible that the North Koreans only knew that it was transferring the fuel to members of Dr. Khan’s network. “We don’t know how much they produced, or if it was shipped elsewhere,” the official said. “It’s one of the questions we have to get answered.”

But of course, it did—to the New York Times on February 9, 2005, suggesting that the WaPo story is a thinly-sourced, non-story editorial in drag. If the Bush administration “concealed” this information from its allies, you have to wonder why it let the New York Times in on the plot.

But the Libya story first broke on (irony alert!) Groundhog Day, so it’s always possible–though not especially plausible–that the administration said one thing one week and something else the next. No actual, um, evidence supports that, however, and this statement from the U.S. Embassy flatly denies it:

The United States has not misled allies or anyone else about the matter. United States officials informed allies of the intelligence community’s assessment of the most likely source of certain nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through the A.Q. Khan network. . . . Whether the intended recipient was the A.Q Khan network or Libya is irrelevant to our proliferation concerns regarding North Korea.”

And here is the White House’s response, the gist of which somehow never found its way into the original story:

“U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export,” the March 20 front-page story about nuclear material exported to Libya, was flat wrong. Our allies were not “misled” by the United States about North Korea’s proliferation activities. We provided an accurate account of the intelligence assessment of the most likely source of the nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through A.Q. Khan’s network.

The reporter asserted that “Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang’s guilt.” In fact, the Khan network was cited several times, but the key point is that the briefing made clear that the nuclear material transferred to Libya went through the Khan network. The U.S. government has no evidence that the transfer was authorized by Pakistan’s government.

Whether the intended recipient was the Khan network or Libya is irrelevant to our proliferation concerns regarding North Korea. The fact that nuclear material found its way out of North Korea to any destination is a source of serious concern for the United States and other participants in the six-party talks. That is why we brought the matter to their attention.

Now, I realize how unfashionable it is to believe anything the government says, even when it’s the most plausible and best-supported hypothesis in light of the NYT story. Let’s not forget the self-serving motives of China and South Korea to find some excuse to bail on the entire project to disarm North Korea, either. Indeed, the WaPo’s unsolicited editorializing that Bush alienated “allies,” presumably South Korea and China (since Japan doesn’t appear to be alienated), flunks the laugh test. According to the WaPo’s story, those same “allies” were blithely unconcerned about North Korea selling UO6 to A.Q. Khan’s network. Allies indeed.

The ichthi-analogies extend no further. You have my solemn oath.

As they say in Beijing, the North Korean and Pakistani nuclear programs were as close as lips and teeth. The fact that North Korea may have sold uranium recklessly or through a shadowy middleman rather than directly and intentionally is neither reassuring nor particularly relevant. The goal here is to protect ourselves from proliferation, not to choose between murder one and manslaughter. It is the presence of an unacceptable risk, not the intent, that matters. The point is that North Korea is cranking out uranium for sale to the highest bidder and doesn’t care whose briefcase it ends up in.

What’s most telling about the WaPo story is that Post’s anonymous disgruntled sources appear to confirm that North Korea was the original source of the UO6, which is a giant leap across the “red line” almost any way you look at it.

What the Washington Post Owes Its Readers

Dafna Lizner and Glenn Kessler need to explain why this story is (1) true, and (2) news. If they can’t, they should lose their jobs and the Post should retract the story.

Kessler has already distinguished himself for journalistic awfulness since he wrote this Potempkin vignette about “vibrant and thriving” Pyongyang last summer. The story was essentially ghost-reported by Jack Pritchard, a leading U.S. advocate of buying more expensive mendacity from the North Koreans that will ultimately leave us back where we were in 1994—with a flawed agreement the North Koreans won’t keep. Contrast Kessler’s reports with those of blogger Ari Sharp’s visit to Pyongyang here and here, which don’t exactly paint a picture of vibrancy. Ari doesn’t have the million-dollar journo diploma, but he could teach Kessler plenty about reporting with honesty and healthy skepticism.

This piece is also posted at Sortapundit

I’ve been reading a lot recently about the FEC’s attempts to regulate political speech online - specifically ruling that a link to a campaign website constitutes an ‘in kind’ contribution, opening the blogger up to a number of penalties for exceeding the limit. I agree with many that, at some point in the near future, there will be some sort of constraints placed on what you can and can’t say on your blog. The severity of the laws I’ll leave to your paranoid imagination.

The question is, what are you gonna do about it (apart from the obvious initial response of blogging angrily about the FEC)? It’s 2008. You want to keep Hillary out of the White House because she’s running on a platform of mandatory spaying but it’s illegal to endorse her competition without wading through a stack of disclaimers the size of Hillary’s ego. So why not just bypass the laws? If it’s illegal in the US to link to a campaign site, you can make all the contributions you want by outsourcing the job here to the UK. Ask me to post your thoughts. Ask Norm Geras. Ask Samizdata. We can write about whatever candidate you support with impunity. What are the FEC gonna do? Extradite us to Gitmo?

John Smith in New York can e-mail me his commentary and I’ll blog it. His email doesn’t count as a political contribution as it’s intended for an audience of one and is password protected. As soon as it lands on my blog, though, it’ll become a public communication. But what laws have been broken? All you did was link to this here site. You’re not endorsing anyone. No, no, no. Look, here’s a picture of your cat - which is, of course, the real reason you blog. Nothin’ to see here.

If the FEC wants to delve into regulating the Internet we have the upper hand, because we’re all geeks who were here when they launched the mouse. We were around when the main selling point of a computer were that you could make a cool wavy line after writing only 300 lines on code. We’ll beat them with computers because we’re better at it than they are. We’ll just find different ways of promoting out chosen candidates.

Think about it. You don’t want the government to get their hands on your hard earned drug money? Send it to the Caymans. You don’t want to be fined by the FEC? Blog-by-proxy.

Imagine it - instead of requesting the use of the webspace of individual foreign bloggers, how about a group blog of political posts hosted in the UK but written by a stable of US bloggers, with me receiving posts from the US by email and putting them up online moments later. You’re not breaking any US laws. As far as you’re concerned you’re sending a private email to a foreign friend, and he unaccountably keeps letting them escape into the public domain, darn it.

Now, I’m not quite sure about the legal issues that would arise from outsourcing political speech. It’s been several years since I studied law (UK law, and I was no great shakes back then anyway). The closest doctrine I can find that could be used to prosecute a US blogger is ‘active personality’, a doctrine used to prosecute citizens at home when they commit crimes overseas. There are a couple of problems with that, though. First is the fact that it probably only applies to criminal charges, and a breach of current FEC regulation is usually dealt with in the civil courts - though imprisonment is a possibility. The other problem is that political speech on blogs isn’t regulated in the UK, so it could easily be argued that no breach occurred.

Still, wouldn’t it be fun to watch the FEC try to prosecute a US citizen as an accessory to a British blogger writing political commentary on British soil using British equipment? The best part? You can blog all about it.

The PRO-liberation left-wing bloggers at Harry’s Place are in the running for The Guardian’s political commentary blog awards. Here’s where you can vote, and return the favour to The Guardian for Operation Clark County during the 2004 U.S. elections.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Europeans are backing off, which means Paul Wolfowitz looks like a lock for the top job at the World Bank (and not a minute too soon).

The Wall Street Journal has a good article about Bush’s recent international appointments that extends my recent “Reshaping the U.S. State Department” post. They will help you understand the internal logic behind these moves, whether or not you agree with them.

For the external logic, I’d like to draw your attention to an excerpt from the Washington Post. It illustrates some cold home truths about international politics that we forget at our peril, and ties in very nicely with a great STRATFOR analysis the Discarded Lies team discussed back in January. We’ll start with the WaPo:

Read the Rest…

From the comments section at the BBC :

I hate to say this to Iraqis, but I pray for chaos and civil war: it’s the only way to stop Bush’s policies and show that peace can never come through force. If Iraq gets peace, Bush wins credibility. It cannot be allowed to happen.
Nina, Toronto, Canada

Hat Tip : Iraqi Expat

This was posted earlier on Joe Gandelman’s blog The Moderate Voice.

Talk about controversy: President Bush nominated Deputy Defense Secreatary Paul Wolfowitz, a top neocon thinker and leader, to head the World Bank and if you can’t yet call it a firestorm, you can safely say sparks have been flying here and abroad.

But how much of it is due to info at hand about Wolfowitz, and how much of it represents justifiable fear, and how much of it represents accumulated gut political reactions??

In reality, even though Wolfowitz played a key role in the Iraq war and in drawing up the administration’s game plan that holds that combating terrorists in their neighborhood would make the other neighbors want to throw other terrorists and autocrats, there’s no proof yet that he’s a bad choice or even a great choice: it’s too early. Yet, his nomination has already generated emotions on all sides and is even sparking an outcry in some quarters.

Is he totally inexperienced? According to the New York Times (no Wolofwitz fan) as “American ambassador to Indonesia from 1986 to 1989, Mr. Wolfowitz developed a passion for development and aid issues.” And the Times notes that he has the President’s trust — but in an editorial today the paper wonders why he was picked at all:

Even those who supported the goals of the invasion must remember Mr. Wolfowitz’s scathing contempt for estimates that the occupation of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of troops, and his serene conviction that American soldiers would be greeted with flowers. Like the nomination of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador, the choice of Mr. Wolfowitz is a slap at the international community, which widely deplored the invasion and the snubbing of the United Nations that accompanied it.

This seems to be this administration’s style. Some call it “bold,” but above all controversial. Extending olive branches doesn’t come naturally to this administration and some Europeans and others are upset about this nomination. It seems the British don’t mind but others see it as GWB placating his right flank:

The German development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said that “the enthusiasm in ‘old Europe’ is not exactly overwhelming.”

ActionAid, a British- and South African-based aid organization, called the nomination “an unwelcome step.” Referring to the selection system, Patrick Watt, a policy officer with the group, said in a statement that the announcement “speaks volumes for the need to reform a process which is neither transparent nor based on merit. . . . As well as lacking any relevant experience, he is a deeply divisive figure who is unlikely to move the Bank towards a more pro-poor agenda.”

The Financial Times bluntly headlines: “Wolfowitz nomination a shock for Europe,” saying it’s the second shock, after the nomination of the verbally combative Bolton was named for the UN. (Would they have preferred Michael Bloton?) But the Washington Post, in an editorial, urges everyone to take a nice, deep breath:

But this hostility is mostly unjustified. Mr. Wolfowitz is the best qualified of all the recently rumored candidates for the World Bank job. He has been a valued member of the Bush administration; by selecting him rather than a peripheral figure, Mr. Bush is showing that he understands the World Bank’s importance. The bank’s leading shareholders — principally the Japanese and Europeans — should welcome Mr. Wolfowitz’s nomination, not use their positions on the World Bank’s board to obstruct it.

Unlike several of his predecessors, Mr. Wolfowitz would come to the World Bank presidency with real knowledge of development. He served as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia in the late 1980s, when that country was one of the World Bank’s biggest clients and a poverty-reduction success story. Mr. Wolfowitz is also a persuasive communicator, an essential quality in the leader of an institution that is frequently attacked by ideologues on both the left and the right. And Mr. Wolfowitz has experience as a public-sector manager. The World Bank is an unwieldy, 10,000-strong bureaucracy. Mr. Wolfowitz’s stint as No. 2 at the Pentagon should have prepared him for that.

The Christian Science Monitor as usual has a highly thoughtful piece, which makes several points including this:

Others note that Wolfowitz going to the World Bank after the Iraq War would follow the example of former Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara, who headed the global institution after the Vietnam War. And even those who do not consider themselves Wolfowitz fans note that he is a past dean of the Johns Hopkins school of international studies and has a long-time interest in democratization.

Our view? The cases can be made against and for Wolfowitz and given his background it’s worth giving him a chance. His ability to communicate and the fact he was intimately involved in U.S. tsunami relief efforts and toured the poor nations hit by the death tidalwave are huge pluses. Also: ties to GWB mean instant access to the highest levels of the U.S. government.

UPDATE: Al Jazeera’s headline says:”Choosing Wolfowitz definitely benefits Israel.” Because of his stand on Israel (and they don’t say it but because he is a J-e-w). The story notes that Israel officials are as pleased as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s top poverty advisor is not:”It’s time for other candidates to come forward that have experience in development,’ Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Annan adviser, said.”

BUT THERE ARE OTHER VOICES WITH VARYING VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT. HERE’S A CROSS SECTION:
—Glenn Reynolds has a ton of links and his most interesting one is where he shows (using boldface) how a Times news story on this is riddled with personal biases delivered via politically slanted phrases. A MUST READ. (If I had submitted a story like that for some of my editors at the papers for which I worked and contributed they would have edited that stuff out, unless it had an ANALYSIS label or was on the Op-Ed page).
—The Mahablog:”“Stupidity as a strategy” might explain nominating Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank.”
—Daniel Drezner has an extensive analysis plus many links. A MUST READ. A small taste:

No neocon worth their salt would want Bolton at the UN of Wolfowitz at the Bank — because neocons don’t believe these institutions are particularly relevant. What matters is who is ruling the roost inside the beltway. And in DC, the balance of power has shifted to State — and the people that are there have signaled a willingness to listen to the Europeans. Compared to what they faced during the Powell/Rumsfeld wars, this is a much more hospitable environment for European diplomats.

—Kesher Talk:”It’s hard not to imagine Bush thinking, “You guys like Neo-con Zionist Jew International Banker Conspiracies so much? Fine! I’ll give you a Neo-con Zionist Jew International Banker! Have fun!” (And smirking, of course!)”
—Slant Point:

I support Wolfowitz because Bush has us so far in debt that he could rightly claim the US is now a poor nation and then tap the World Bank’s coffers for relief.

But seriously, as the conspiracy theories crop up regarding Paul Wolfowitz heading the World Bank, a more plausible explanation is coming forth - heart and real change. A WaPo article claims tours of devestated tsunami areas helped push Wolfowitz to make the career change. Far from being simply a war hawk, Wolfowitz most likely views this as chance to continue to spread Democracy to developing nations.

—Kevin Drumm:”I don’t know enough about Wolfowitz and Bolton on a substantive basis to have much to say about their appointments. On a PR level, though, the message Bush is sending is plain. A number of pundits inexplicably thought that Bush might settle down in his second term and try to run a more conciliatory, less strident administration, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s trying to make it crystal clear that he has no intention of doing this. Second term Bush will be no different from first term Bush, and don’t you forget it.”
—Orrin Judd:”Do you suppose the Timesmen ever read the U.N. reports on why the Arab world is lagging behind everyone else in terms of development? Who has ever done more than Mr. Wolfowitz and his superiors to bring to the region the three things it lacks most: freedom, knowledge and womanpower.”
—McQ:”But make no mistake about it, the appointment is indeed an intentional spreading of the Bush philosophy, whether you really consider it to be conservative or not.”
—The Belgravia Dispatch:”I think Wolfowitz will make a fine choice for the posting. I think his time in Indonesia and elsewhere, married to his obvious intelligence, will put him in good stead as he grapples with economic development issues there. Wolfowitz, in many ways, has always been the most interesting and complex neo-con that served in Bush’s administration. Widely reviled by many, yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he will now be missed in some unlikely quarters too.”
—Arthur Chrenkoff:”Won’t the left and the Islamofascists around the world have fun with this one: a Jeeeewwww in charge of the World Bank. And not just any Jeeeewwww, but a neo-con. There will be plenty of material to work with, like this: “Senior Israeli officials reacted with satisfaction… to news…” etc. And with Wolfowitz replacing Wolfensohn, who will be the first one to make a crack that only wolves need to apply?”
—Steve Soto:

In fact, Europeans are feeling now that Bush’s recent trip there and his and Condi’s fence-mending were all an act given the subsequent nominations of John Bolton as UN ambassador and now Wolfie to head the World Bank. Suffice it to say that the Europeans are feeling like they were misled once again by Bush rhetoric, and any goodwill that Bush gained from his recent trip has now been squandered.

And ironically, his overseas supporters say that one of his strengths are his administrative abilities, yet the Washington insiders say that the one part of the job that Wolfie hated at the Pentagon were the day-to-day administrative duties, as evidenced by everything that went wrong underneath him.

—Austin Bay:

Think of the Bush nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as an astute police action, with the cop wearing a three-piece suit. International institutions became forums for political warfare during the Cold War, and that sapped them. But “institution-driven” leadership has further weakened international organizations. Corruption has savaged the UN.

Wolfowitz knows these institutions must change. Yes there is a war aim: economic development is absolutely key to achieving a sustaining victory in The Millennium War (as most of you know, I dislike the term War on Terror).

—Roger Simon has a lont analzysis. A tiny part:”You need not be Sigmund Freud or his daughter to realize Euro academics of this stripe see Wolfowitz et al through a prism so distorted and contorted by envy they end up looking up their own nostrils. What will they say if five years from now the whole Middle East is democratic?”
—Charles Johnson also points to the politically loaded phrases in the Times reporting:”Can you tell how the New York Times feels about Paul Wolfowitz?”
—Bull Moose:

While Wolfowitz bears responsibility for the mishandling of the aftermath of the war, he has a world outlook that is fundamentally distinct from Bolton. In truth, Wolfowitz is a humanitarian internationalist in the tradition of Truman, JFK and Scoop. When the DeLays and Lotts excoriated the Clinton Administration on Kosovo, Wolfowitz stood firmly for a humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide. He has demonstrated genuine sympathy for the downtrodden whether they are tsunami victims or the Iraqi marsh Arabs. A few years ago, the Moose witnessed Wolfowitz as the target of hecklers at a pro-Israel rally when he voiced sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.

—The Glittering Eye has a great roundup and concludes:”I can save you a great deal of time. I’m sorry to report that the reactions to the Wolfowitz appointment are essentially a referendum on the Iraq war. Where you sit is where you stand.”
href=”http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/9687”>OTB Traffic Jam.

This was also posted on Joe Gandelman’s blog The Moderate Voice.

Yes, you could say it’s barbaric — but you could also say that it might act as a deterrent.

An Iranian accused of murdering at least 20 kids was executed in front of a large crowd in a most unnice way that might make other child killers in Iran give it at least a passing thought:

Mohammad Bijeh, 24, dubbed “the Tehran desert vampire” by Iran’s press, was flogged 100 times before being hanged.

A brother of one of his young victims stabbed him as he was being punished. The mother of another victim was asked to put the noose around his neck.

The execution took place in Pakdasht south of Tehran, near where Bijeh’s year-long killing spree took place.

The killer was hoisted about 10 metres into the air by a crane and slowly throttled to death in front of the baying crowd.

Hanging by a crane - a common form of execution in Iran - does not involve a swift death as the condemned prisoner’s neck is not broken.

Hanging by crane? Gee, I didn’t think those birds were that tall. But we digress:

The killer collapsed twice during the punishment, although he remained calm and silent throughout.

Spectators, held back by barbed wire and about 100 police officers, chanted “harder, harder” as judicial officials took turns to flog Bijeh’s bare back before his hanging.

Bijeh was stabbed by the 17-year-old brother of victim Rahim Younessi, AFP reported, as he was being readied to be hanged.

Officials then invited the mother Milad Kahani to put the blue nylon rope around his neck.

The crimes of Mohammed Bijeh and his accomplice Ali Baghi had drawn massive attention in the Iranian media.

They reportedly tricked children to go with them into the desert south of Tehran by saying they were going to hunt animals. They then poisoned or knocked their victims out, sexually abused them and buried them in shallow graves.

“Hey, what about rehabilitation?” All murders are contemptible but kid killing is the lowest of the low.

Attorney Eugene Volokh writes:”I like civilization, but some forms of savagery deserve to be met not just with cold, bloodless justice but with the deliberate infliction of pain, with cruel vengeance rather than with supposed humaneness or squeamishness. I think it slights the burning injustice of the murders, and the pain of the families, to react in any other way. And, yes, I know this aligns me in this instance with the Iranian government — but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and in this instance the Iranians are quite correct.”

Yes, seriously: what could be worse than seeing a young life snuffed out before it has a chance to live due to some sick sadistic or sexual needs of an adult? There are several people killed when a kid is butchered: the kid, the siblings and the parents. Scott Peterson should consider himself lucky he doesn’t live in Iran.

This was published earlier on Joe Gandelman’s weblog The Moderate Voice.

In early 1973, a few months before he died, my grandfather Abraham Ravinsky opened for the last time a old, yellowing, musty smelling photo album.

“You see this one, Joey?” he said, pointing to a picture of a child. “He was killed by Hitler.”

Then he’d point to a group shot of family members, all wiped out “by Hitler.” This man who had survived the Czar’s pogroms in Russia, and gotten to the U.S. right the Communists (who he hated) took power later learned that many of his beloved, left-behind relatives had been murdered by the Nazis or died in concentration camps. But his beloved wife Rose, and daughters Ruth, Anne and Helen were safe in the U.S. and he raised his family here.

My grandfather NEVER forgot what happened - and on that day he was again making sure I would never forget as he opened his memory book, glanced at it, then looked at my face to see if it registered, his Spencer Tracy-like face capped by a head of pure white hair then turning to find yet another page to show me with more photos of human beings whose lives were wiped out because of the utlimate act of political and racial demonization.

In Israel on Monday, a special museum was opened. It commemorates the Holocaust — so no one can EVER forget. Even reading a small portion of the Washington Post account will haunt you (if you are human) for days. Here’s a small part (read it all yourself):

JERUSALEM, March 15 — The grainy black-and-white photographs of death shock the senses. But it is the personal remnants of life that wrench the heart — a red-and-white polka-dot bow from a little girl’s dress, a postcard flung from a cattle car by a desperate mother, an entry scrawled in a diary one horrible day more than 60 years ago.

“A sight that I will never forget as long as I live,” Abraham Lewin, a teacher in Warsaw, wrote on Sept. 11, 1942. “Five tiny children, 2- and 3-year-olds, sit on a cot in the open field. . . . They bellow and scream without stopping. . . . ‘Mommy, Mommy, I want to eat!’ The soldiers are shooting continually and the shots silence the children’s crying for a moment.”

Lewin’s diary, the little red bow and a vast array of other personal items displayed in the new Holocaust History Museum — inaugurated by Israel on Tuesday — represent a dramatic transformation in this country’s attitudes toward the dominant event in modern Jewish history, according to historians and museum organizers.

Historians say it is the kind of museum that Israel could not have contemplated 32 years ago, when its predecessor opened. Emotions were still raw then, families of Holocaust victims weren’t psychologically ready to give up personal mementos, and the Israeli national consciousness centered on the entire Jewish community rather than on individuals.

“Until a few years ago, we looked at the Holocaust as a phenomenon of the collective,” said Dalia Ofer, a professor of Holocaust studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “We never thought of how each individual person who was consigned to life in the ghetto tried to live his life. This doesn’t take away the importance of the collective . . . but another element has been added.”

“We’re putting individuals at the center, delivering history through personal stories,” said Avner Shalev, chief curator of the $56 million museum, which took a decade to plan and build.

Yes, it was personal. As personal as my grandfather, pointing to each photo, telling me something about the little boy in the photo who had his brains blown out, about the robust-looking tall, thin man with the long, gray beard who he was told died in a concentration camp, about the group photo showing five people whose final years were filled with unspeakable horrors, grief and pain.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Amira Hass writes:

We remember and feel the pain of that liquidation day by day. Let us confront them with it day by day. For example, let it be inscribed on a large marble slab outside every house in which Jews used to live, where they were deported and where they were murdered. Let every railway station from which the human transports were dispatched provide the information: when, how many trains a day, how many people. Let the names of those responsible for the transport be written down - at the police station, the railway station, city hall.

The way to fight the fading memory is not merely with memorial monuments and ceremonies. It is done mainly with an uncompromising rejection of the master race ideology, which divided the world into superior and inferior races and denied the principle of equality among human beings. We were placed at the bottom of the ladder of the Nazi ideology. Would this ideology not have been criminal had we been ranked in the upper rungs?

An ideology that divides the world into those who are worth more and those who are worth less, into superior and inferior beings, does not have to reach the dimensions of the German genocide to be improper and wrong - the apartheid in South Africa, for example.

In her piece, Hass warns Israelis about falling into the same trap in regards to the Palestinians. And that point is a good issue for another time.

But today, I read about the museum and think about my grandfather showing me that book, turning a page, looking at my face. He had done this before but he did it with more determination that day…that last time.

He didn’t know it would be the last time he would remind and warn me.

But, then, none of us know if it’ll be the last time when we remind and warn young people of what happened.

So we do it when we can — and museums do it when we can’t.

A spark was lit when I read this yesterday :

That’s right, personal responsibility. I still believe in that and I’ll be holding myself as well as all my republican friends responsible for getting that guy elected. At the same time, in my defense, I still don’t think Kerry was a viable alternative. Not because he’s a dem. (I voted for Clinton and would have done it again if I could have) but because I just don’t like the guy.

Similar words have been spoken/written by me several times in the past couple of weeks to close friends. Some have reacted with dropped jaws, some have just nods sympathetically.

I’ve also left similar sentiments in comments on various blogs and, for the most part, they were met with a flurry of clenched fists and righteous indignation, with calls for me to go out and start protesting (or something like that) to prove my regret.

Well…no. It’s not like that. First of all, I am not sitting here admitting to the world (ok, just the minuscule part of the world who reads this) that I regret my vote so I can, oh, get a pat on the head or a clap on the back or a wide-armed welcome back to the fold. I’m not going back to any fold and I don’t seek anyone’s approval.

So what is it that’s causing my “buyer’s remorse” as it’s been called? It’s a combination of things, and most of it stems from the fact that I was a one issue voter in 2004. And now, the issues I ignored in order to give my support to the war on terror are coming back to haunt me.

Social Security. Bankruptcy. The insistence of the far right that they have some kind of religious mandate now and we need to revert back to our Christian roots and morals. And yes, Iraq. I know all about the good things in Iraq. I know about the schools and the hospitals and elections. And I love that. I love the slow spread of democracy. I love the trickle down effect of taking Saddam out of power. But more and more, I’m thinking, at what price? Every time another soldier dies, another bomb goes off, another hopeful Iraqi policeman is murdered, another hostage is taken and another day looms on the horizon with no end in sight, I think at what price?

I’m not about to go stand on some street corner and protest the war. It’s not like that. But my all-out support has certainly waned. I see no clear exit strategy. I just see more of our men and women dying. I just see more innocent Iraqis dying. Every day, first thing in the morning, I bring up my Command Post editing page and look through the morning news. And the stories are always the same. Car bomb. Roadside bomb. Death. Dead. Soldier killed. There used to be much more good news interspersed with those reports. But my hope for seeing this work has dissipated.

I know some of you are ready right now to send me links, to lecture me on why Iraq will turn out ok, why the spread of democracy will come about, why Syria and Iran and North Korea will all fall eventually. That would be great if it was my only gripe with this administration. But it’s not.

And it’s my own damn fault. What did I think would happen down the road as a one issue voter? I didn’t think far enough ahead, I guess, to see how those other issues - with me as gay rights supporting, fiscally conservative atheist - would affect me later on. That once the smoke from the war on terror cleared, so to speak, I would have to deal with the fact that I voted in an administration that stands for a lot of things I’m against.

Not that I would have voted for Kerry. Just because I’m experiencing this regret doesn’t mean I’m going to go running back to the left. I abandoned them with good reason. So I’m back where I was right around September 11, 2001. Standing firmly in the middle, getting a little flogging from both sides. I spent years on the left side of the line and discovered I didn’t like it there. And now I spent a few years on the right side of the line and, frankly, I hate it here. I thought the “big tent” of the Republican party would be home. Turns out it was just a temporary shelter, given to me by the party who knew damn well that I was only as good as my support for the war on terror.

There are others out there like me. I talk to them at work. I talk to them in the parking lot of schools, waiting for our kids. I talk to them in email or instant message, people from across the country who feel that twinge of regret. What we all have in common is this: we feel used. We feel taken advantage of. We feel manipulated.

This is where some people are going to expect an apology. Don’t hold your breath. That’s not what this is about. When I made my vote, I did so with the best interest of my family in mind. I honestly believed I was making the right choice. I wasn’t the one who voted a certain way just because I hated the opponent. I believed in the war on terror. I believed in the war in Iraq. I believed that the other issues weren’t as important. So I’m not looking for forgiveness for anything. And this doesn’t mean that I’m going to suddenly sign up for the Democrat party and start carrying around No Blood For Oil placards. There are people who have seen this “confession” from me already who assume this means I think George W. Bush is an evil person, that I’ve finally joined the BusHitler crowd. No. Hardly. I don’t hate George Bush, much as I don’t hate John Kerry. I just don’t think that either of them is what America needs.

That opens up a lot of questions, most of which don’t have ready answers. What does American need? Who is the right person for this country? How do we fix Social Security? Who will make our future fiscally sound? How do we stop the bleeding in Iraq and at the sam time, keep Iran and Syria at bay, without losing more and more of our good men and women in the armed forces? How can we learn to accept people who are different from us? How can we stop trying to legislate someone else’s idea of morality? How can we teach the people of this country to start taking responsibility for their own lives instead of expecting the government (or trial lawyers) to do their decision making for them? How can we make our education system better for our children?

I placed my wager and lost. Unfortunately, there was no real winning wager this time around. Is there a person out there who will make us all feel like winners? Or is that just a pipe dream? Will there every be a candidate who will please mostly everyone?

I’m not looking for absolution from Democrats and I’m not looking to be reviled by Republicans. I’m just voicing my opinion that I think things have gone steadily downhill since November. I find myself in more and more instances slinking away from the right. But I stop at dead center because there’s no place for me to go. Maybe I just don’t know how to make a commitment. Maybe the fact that I’m a gay rights supporter who drives an SUV and is against gun control, who doesn’t believe in God, who is an un-P.C. person that hates the NEA, who thinks faith based initiatives are wrong and the government should stay out of our bedrooms, who is no longer so gung ho about things in Iraq, means I should do some soul searching.

Or maybe it’s not up to me where I go from here. What does your party or your candidate have to offer me? I’m up for grabs.

So what’s wrong with this story by the New York Times?

In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein’s most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government’s first extensive comments on the looting. […]

Dr. Araji said equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq’s dormant program on unconventional weapons.

Well for starters, the New York Times and the anti-war left have spent the last several years repeatedly claiming that Bush LIED!!! Time and time again they’ve claimed that there was no WMD, and that Bush lied so that he could take revenge on Saddam Hussein for trying to kill his father. So the New York Times own story would seem to contradict their years old anti-war, anti-Bush position.

Then there is this story from the UK Telegraph:

Saddam Hussein’s regime offered a $2 million (£1.4 million) bribe to the United Nations’ chief weapons inspector to doctor his reports on the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Rolf Ekeus, the Swede who led the UN’s efforts to track down the weapons from 1991 to 1997, said that the offer came from Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s foreign minister and deputy.

This prompts conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

Why? If there weren’t any, why? Why start bribing people about this? Two million just to the chief inspector? What was it he doing to some of the underlings? Why bribe anybody if there were no weapons of mass destruction?

Something tells me the media won’t stop the presses to issue a retraction.

The Save Our State rally against Home Depot yesterday seemed to go off well. They were protesting Home Depot's support and work with La Raza, a group that is in support of returning the southwest states to Mexico. They were also protesting Home Depot's support and implementation of day labor facilities on their property for illegal aliens.

Home Depot Employed Rooftop Spotters

The rally went off well with 75 supporters showing up. While they didn't accomplish their goal of clogging up the whole store -- in effect shutting it down they did get Home Depot's attention. Home Depot had a large quantity of extra employee's on hand, had rooftop spotters, undercover agents and apparently even infiltrators who posed as protesters and reported to the store management on their actions and locations.

The protesters also got the media's attention as CNN's Lou Dobbs Show appeared with cameras and several papers showed up including the Los Angeles Times and The Daily Bulletin.

Save Our State

Earlier this week, Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher stated that she expected "business as usual" at their Rancho Cucamonga store in response to our demonstration.

Apparently, "business as usual" consists of placing spotters with walkie talkies and cameras on their rooftop, having "undercover" personnel film and follow various activists from our organization during the entire event. Business as usual also apparently consists of staffing the store with approximately 200 employees. There was nothing typical about Home Depot today.

Inside the store Home Depot had blocked off several aisles, had several employees stationed at the ends of each aisle and had two employees at each of the 15 registers.

Commenter SherriCorrell made this observation on the Save Our State message board after the protest.

It's astonishing how they brought in all the EXTRA people AS IF you, THE LEGAL U.S. TAXPAYING CITIZENS were the enemy INSTEAD OF THE ACTUAL ILLEGAL INVADERS.

What a sad state this country is in.

A sad state indeed when top retailers of our country openly support illegal aliens and the breaking of our country's laws.

See also my previous entry on this protest where there was some heated discussion.

Other Commentary On The Protest:

Michael Williams
faute de mieux
You've Been Told
Darleen's Place who lives down the street from this Home Depot and plans to shop at Lowe's from now on.

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

This is how I’ll always remember him.

This was also published on Joe Gandelman’s website.

If news legend Walter Cronkite is smiling these days it’s probably because he’s finally saying what analysts and various news people have privately said for years: he was not happy being forced to retire and thought Dan Rather was a poor choice to replace him.

That’s putting it bluntly, but if you cut away the nicities, that’s what’s going on right now with Cronkite’s comments to CNN.

As a journalist, I had been told that over the years because invariably the subject of Cronkite’s premature retirment would come up. By network standards Uncle Walter was put out to pasture prematurely — then given very little to do by the network he had served so well and so diligently that he had earned the nickname Old Ironpants for his ability to put in long hours at the anchor seat. It was if they were afraid to use him because it would upstage and upset Rather.

Just look what Cronkite said to CNN...and note how the Washington Post is framing the story: the context in which they place it is a case of what everyone now knows (Cronkite was forced out) suddenly becoming the conventional wisdom as some journalistic nicities melt away:

Just 48 hours before Dan Rather steps down under a cloud as anchor of the CBS newscast he’s helmed for 24 years, the guy he squeezed out said Rather should’ve been replaced years ago.

After nearly a quarter of a century, Walter Cronkite landed the final punch.

While Cronkite has always dismissed the speculation that rising star Rather speeded up his departure from the anchor chair, yesterday afternoon he sure did sound like someone trying to take a few whacks at a guy who had KO‘d him.

Appearing on CNN, Cronkite, who anchored the CBS Evening News from 1962 to ‘81, said CBS News should have given the gig to Bob Schieffer years ago:

“He is, to my mind, the man who, quite frankly, although Dan did a fine job, I would like to have seen him there a long time ago,” Cronkite told Wolf Blitzer.

“He would have given the others a real run for their money.”

POW!!! THWOK!!

All the corporate work over the years to show that Walter Cronkite happily left the anchor seat so he could go sailing and appear once in a while in some minor capacity on CBS has just gone down the drain. CBS didn’t want to lose Rather (who was talking to other networks) so they chose Dan over Walter…and over Roger Mudd who left and found a new low-profile home at PBS.

But it gets MUCH worse for Rather. Cronkite then gave Wolf Blitzer the kind of quote journalists dream about at night:

“Better than Dan Rather would have done?” asked Blitzer, appearing barely able to believe his good fortune to get such a quote out of Cronkite.

“Because [Rather] was perennially in third place in the ratings, behind Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings,” Blitzer added, cueing up the Cronkite Kidney Punching Machine.

“That’s certainly true, and it’s quite a tribute to him that . . . CBS held on to him so long under those circumstances,” Cronkite said, in a swift uppercut to the jaw that you don’t often see landed with such zing by someone his age. “It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long.”

And the final shot the head:

“So you would have been happier if Bob Schieffer would have replaced Dan Rather a while ago?” Blitzer asked Cronkite to repeat, as if he were afraid he’d wake up and discover it was all just a wonderful dream.

“I would have thought so, certainly, if not Bob someone else.”

The Post also notes that Cronkite dissed Rather in the New Yorker, suggesting his replacement was playing the part of a newsman instead of a serious anchor…and he repeated this thought on CNN:

“I think that there was a general feeling among quite a lot of us around the CBS shop and, indeed, some of the viewers, that Dan gave the impression of playing a role, more than simply trying to deliver the news to the audience. . . . It’s a personality question. I don’t think he was thinking of himself of playing the role, although I don’t know that. But that is the impression that came across. “

Cronkite is VERY PERCEPTIVE:

• There is an intensity about Dan Rather that, depending on how it was channeled, could be good or bad: a feeling that he felt cooped up at the anchor desk and really wanted to be out in the field reporting stories, and felt deeply about certain stories.
  
• There is a feeling that he revels in the idea that he is a newsman, on a major network, covering the big stories and that he can do them better than anyone. Remember: a certain amount of ego is necessary to work in the news business (as in blogging by the way). But you get the feeling that if you took the identity and job status away from him, he would be lost.
  
• He seemed a bit infected with the Geraldo Rivera syndrome. Rivera covers each story as: Rivera is covering this story — look and see how it impacts me and how brave and how much I care. Rather is a more serious newsman than Rivera is (anyone on a network newscast is) but he was not the detatched anchor as Cronkite was. Remember that years ago Rivera was considered an up-and-coming practioner of the “new journalism” before he began a steady descent into Saturday Night Live-type self-parody.
  

Cronkite is sure to be blasted for being honest — and some who will blast him will do so because they don’t like some of his views in recent years — but if they read the CNN transcript and put their own biases aside, they’ll see Cronkite is correct, from a journalistic point of view:

Bob Schieffer is cut from the same journalistic mold as Cronkite. Some people on the right and left don’t like Schieffer because he’s not far enough in their camp — but Schieffer clearly seems to take a deep breath and tries do the best he possibly can to deliver and REMAIN ALOOF FROM the news. The story is never Bob Shieffer covering the news.

Similarly, NBC’s Brian Williams has assumed Tom Brokaw’s old anchor job seamlessly — and he has that aura of credibility that comes from a certain degree of attatchment…and perhaps a feeling communicated to viewers that he believes the world would survive if he wasn’t delivering the news.

Cronkite the Judas? Hardly. Cronkite was betrayed by the powers that be at CBS years ago.

UPDATE: Check out RatherBiased.com on this interview. They also note that Cronkite once said Rather should have been fired for walking off the set during a 1987 broadcast. (RatherBiased.com’s Matthew Sheffield appeared on the MSNBC show “Connected Coast to Coast” Tuesday with hosts Monica Crowley and Ron Reagan to discuss Dan Rather’s retirement from the anchordesk.)

Real Bloggers Shafted Again by Clueless Establishment Suits

Drudge says the first “blogger” (his quotation marks AND mine) has been admitted to the White House Press Corps.

Exciting, huh?

Oops, put away the noisemakers and party hats. He’s not a blogger. He’s a corporate tool. Just like Wankette, only without the moronic anal sex jokes.

The “blogger” is Garrett M. Graff, a 23-year-old employee of a company called Mediabistro.com. His official title is “editor.” The “blog” is FishbowlDC, a site decorated with all the little corporate features sites like Yahoo have. A contact email address which doesn’t go to the “blogger.” A disclaimer. A copyright notice. A site map.

The “blog” has no comments, and there are no trackbacks.

Idiots. Real bloggers will never get any recognition as long as establishment hacks continue their incestuous practice of calling corporate sites “blogs.”

Calling this Graff person a blogger is like calling the pimply kid who brings Brit Hume doughnuts a broadcaster.

A blogger pays his own bills. A blogger has comments, if at all possible. A blogger does his own writing or chooses a few friends to help. A blogger has trackbacks. A blogger links to other REAL bloggers, not the mainstream dorks Graff links to.

A blogger is not an “editor.” A blogger does not receive a salary, unless it’s from a corporation he himself formed as a result of making money from a genuine blog. A blogger does not have interns. A blogger—most importantly—has NO ONE to answer to.

Let’s see what happens to little Garrett if he ever goes against the people who pay his bills. Same thing that would happen to Wankette. A quick elevator ride to the sidewalk, and a hastily-chosen successor; probably a receptionist or a janitor with an English degree. New “blogger,” same “blog.” If you’re not essential to your blog’s identity, you are not a blogger. You are what is known in the trade as “a copywriter.”

So the White House has admitted a lowly copywriter to the Press Corps. Wow, what progress we’re making. Meanwhile, if the rest of us showed up, they’d taser us and dump us in the Potomac.

I hope other REAL bloggers will have the brains to realize this is another screw job, instead of taking the bait and burbling, “Ooh, daddy, we’re in the big leagues now!”

NOTE: This is also posted on Joe Gandelman’s blog The Moderate Voice.

The gloves have come off in the incident involving the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the death of an Italian security agent by U.S. forces.

She’s now flatly suggesting that maybe U.S. forces in effect were out to assassinate her. Each statement Sgrena has made has been stronger, more accusatory, and more political as you can see from the updated AP version of this story, which is rapidly turning into a political football with pro and anti-war advocates taking sides according to their beliefs on the war:

ROME - Left-wing journalist Giuliana Sgrena claimed American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire and said Sunday she could not rule out that U.S. forces intentionally shot at the car carrying her to the Baghdad airport, wounding her and killing the Italian agent who had just won her freedom after a month in captivity.

Intentionally is a PRETTY BIG allegation…even if it’s couched in language to allow some “wiggle” room. There is more:

An Italian Cabinet member urged Sgrena, who writes for a communist newspaper that routinely opposes U.S. policy in Iraq to be cautious in her accounts and said the shooting would not affect Italy’s support for the Bush administration.

The White House called the shooting a “horrific accident” and restated its promise to investigate fully.

Sgrena’s editor at the daily Il Manifesto, Gabriele Polo, said Italian officials told him 300-400 rounds were fired at the car. Italian military officials said two other intelligence agents were wounded in the shooting; U.S. officials said only one other agent was hurt.

Without backing up the claim, Sgrena said she believed it was possible she was targeted because the United States objected to methods used to secure her release.

“The fact that the Americans don’t want negotiations to free the hostages is known,” the 56-year-old journalist told Sky TG24 television by telephone, her voice hoarse and shaky. “The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of this practice to save the lives of people held hostage, everybody knows that. So I don’t see why I should rule out that I could have been the target.”

Sgrena said she knew nothing about a ransom payment, and no details have emerged about how authorities won her release. An Italian Cabinet minister said money likely changed hands.

Meanwhile, the new website Watching America (see post below) carries this translation of an inflammatory article in Corriere Della Sera:

ROME - You must be careful, because they want to kill to you.” These were the words of Giuliana Sgrena’s kidnappers before they freed her. Pier Scolari, companion of Giuliana Sgrena, recounted the words of the journalist. “Giuliana had the information.The American soldiers did not want her to leave with her life.”

“The American soldiers prevented help from arriving for some minutes — and they prevented anyone from approaching the car,” Sgrena told Scolari.

Sources within Italian intelligence [SISMI] do not support this hypothesis. “We cannot exclude the possibility that the Americans wanted to kill Giuliana Sgrena, but they would not, however, have wanted to kill a SUSMI agent, which puts at risk cooperation between the U.S. and Italian intelligence services.”

If Scolari’s hypothesis is true, according to Italian intelligence, it was badly handled. “It would have been the simplest thing for the Americans to send their agents to suppress the incident and therefore blame the Iraqis, or to send Iraqis to perform the dirty job, rather than commit the act with friendly fire without even succeeding in the attempt.”

A transcript of her interview with the BBC is here. Also, the Observer gives some info on reports that a hefty ransom was, in fact, paid to free her:”Italian newspapers reported yesterday that Sgrena had been in the hands of former Saddam loyalists and criminals, and that a ransom of between £4 million and £5 million had been paid for her release.”

What is happening now?

• Italy’s leftist parties are using this to demand Italy pull its troops out of Iraq. The Italian government has no plans to do so but has had to scramble “to contain the damage to itself and to US-Italian relations,” the Financial Times reports.
  
• The issue is a huge one in Italy. The dead bodyguard’s body is being honored with an elaborate funeral. Italians have been filing past his coffin.
  
• The issue is going to be completely exploited for propaganda purposes by those opposed to U.S. Iraq policy throughout Europe in Iraq. The question now posed for U.S. policy makers: how can they quickly and convincingly get 100 percent of the facts out (letting the chips fall where they may) to resolve any questions about this incident?
  

In fact, there’s an inherent problem with checkpoints in Iraq, according to Annia Ciezadlo of The Christian Science Monitor.

She writes about all uncertainty zones involved in checkpoints in Iraq…on both sides such as: under Sadaam, idling was risky; American checkpoints often come one right after another and the driver doesn’t realize this. Checkpoints in Iraq are traumatic for the drivers AND the soldiers, she writes:

The essential problem with checkpoints is that the Americans don’t know if the Iraqis are “friendlies” or not, and the Iraqis don’t know what the Americans want them to do.

I always wished that the American commanders who set up these checkpoints could drive through themselves, in a civilian car, so they could see what the experience was like for civilians. But it wouldn’t be the same: They already know what an American checkpoint is, and how to act at one - which many Iraqis don’t.

Is there a way to do checkpoints right? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it seems that the checkpoint experience perfectly encapsulates the contradictions and miseries and misunderstandings of everyone’s common experience - both Iraqis and Americans - in Iraq.

Indeed: contradictions. People with perceptions filtered through a firm belief that they KNOW what happened. And people who are ready and quick to use a still cloudy incident to make a long-held political points.

When the incident took place, it was a news item. Now it has moved into the realm of a political story.

UPDATE: Early this morning a Washington Post-AP report quoted a “U.S. military source” as saying the “main contributing factor” in the shooting death was Italy’s failure to tell U.S. soldiers that it was bringing a newly released Italian hostage along the road to the airport:

According to the military source, who said he spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident is under investigation, U.S. soldiers had established an impromptu evening checkpoint at the entrance to the road to the airport about 90 minutes earlier and had stopped other vehicles. They knew a high-level U.S. Embassy official would be moving to the airport on that road, and their aim was to support that movement, he said. But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena’s rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source.

The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military’s standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq.

UPDATE II: Now it turns out that the Italian bigwigs may have not informed Americans about a huge ransom it was paying to free the journalist — money that it’s clear will help fund the kidnappers’ future operations. The Washington Times reports:

ROME — Italian agents likely withheld information from U.S. counterparts about a cash-for-freedom deal with gunmen holding an Italian hostage for fear that Americans might block the trade, Italian news reports said yesterday.

The decision by operatives of Italy’s SISMI military intelligence service to keep the CIA in the dark about the deal for the release of reporter Giuliana Sgrena, might have “short-circuited” communications with U.S. forces controlling the road from Baghdad to the city’s airport, the newspaper La Stampa said.

That would help explain why American troops opened fire on a car whisking the released hostage to a waiting airplane, wounding Miss Sgrena and killing the Italian intelligence operative who had just negotiated her release.

How much was the ransom? Published reports vary, but it was BIG. The Australian reports:”Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday that the Italian Government had paid a ransom of between E6-8million ($10-13.4million) to buy Sgrena’s freedom. It also claimed the car’s injured driver told Italian investigators the Americans “knew everything about our mission”.

So we have contradictions within contradictions..

ROUNDUP: OTHER VOICES OF VARYING OPINIONS ON THIS ISSUE:

—Wizbang’s Jay Tea says it sounds as if the military was incompetent, given all the shots that were reportedly fired:

I have to say I am absolutely disgusted with our military this afternoon in regards to Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena’s treatment at the hands our military….An anti-American “journalist” for a Communist newspaper is allegedly “captured” by insurgents, then released. On her way out, our forces shoot 300 to 400 rounds at their car. And the result of all that firepower? One killed, three injured — none apparently very seriously. Then they treat them and send them home. Obviously all that money we’ve spent on training and equipment has gone to waste if our forces are performing that poorly.

—Americablog points to the reported ransom:”So Bush’s buddy Berlusconi is paying money to terrorists so they can buy more weapons to kill more US troops and more Americans on airplanes. Isn’t that special. Are we winning yet?…Yeah, wonder if the MSM is even going to look into her charges.”
—Michelle Malkin (as usual) has a ton of great links, succinctly packaged, and notes the “Easonseque” assertions (that Americans deliberately try to whack journalists).

—The Mahablog:”I agree with Dr. Atrios that we should not jump to conclusions about the shooting of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of agent Nicola Calipari. War zones by nature are very dangerous places, which is one of several reasons not to start wars before all other options are exhausted. Ah-hem.”
—Baldilocks:”God rest Mr. Calipari. Too bad he had to give his life to save such a one as this….(Boy, I’m glad I went to church before I read that steaming pile.)Don’t you love the “logic” and the narcissism? The soldiers allegedly got the word from on high to kill her all-important self after the ransom was paid because Washington is opposed to ransom payments. And killing her would somehow stop Italy and other Coalition Partners from paying ransom for hostages taken by terrorists.”
—Little Green Footballs:”Three hundred to four hundred rounds from an armored vehicle … and there were survivors? OK, go ahead, pull my other leg.Why is anyone taking these obviously false statements seriously?”
—Premptive Karma:”Ultimately I think this newest report underscores my concern about what kind of long-term problems we are creating by leaving a swath of collateral damage in our wake. Worst of all, it all traces back to the profoundly unrealistic expectations that this Administration had of how we would be received by the Iraqis once Saddam was toppled. How many on all sides have died or been disfigured as a direct result? We will probably never know.”
—Arthur Chrenkoff:

Now, there are many people from around the world, from Eason Jordan to the management of Al-Jazeera, who think that the US army is actually targeting journalists in Iraq. But if you are of an less excitable predisposition, you have to ask yourself why on earth would the Americans want to kill the nationals of one of their staunchest allies in Iraq. But never mind why; I’m sure some nut will be pretty soon come up with an appropriate conspiracy theory; the real questions is - why that way? The critics think America Machiavellian enough to want to kill the Italians, and at the same time stupid enough to do it a way that created one of the more serious diplomatic incidents since the start of the war. Can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid… Let the proper investigation have a look at the facts, though, before we start invoking Grassy Knolls.

—Diggers Realm:”This woman is ungrateful and very unintelligent. To think that US forces would fire on a hostage just released because “Americans do not like negotiations to free hostages” is so absurdly ignorant that words cannot describe my disbelief. If they deliberately wanted them killed why didn’t they just walk up to the vehicle and start shooting them rather than immediately taking Sgrena to medical facilities?”
—Roger Simon attempts to unravel the mystery:

Suppose it was the “insurgents” themselves, through a cut-out obviously, who alerted the Americans to Sgrena and her protectors, describing their car as something other than it was — a suicide bomber, perhaps, or some other possible terrorist-related vehicle. Of course, their motivation would have been to make the Americans look bad, no matter what resulted. Sgrena and the others would just have been collateral damage. And that, indeed, is what has happened. Of course, this is just a plot by a mystery writer. And not even a particularly good one.

—Cold Fury:”How genuine, indeed, was the “kidnapping”?…Fortunately, as I say, most of these allegations are easily checked; the only ones for which there may not be objective evidence are the imposition of some secret conditions by the terrorists for Sgrena’s release, and the degree of co-operation between the Islamist thugs and Sgrena’s handlers. That, unfortunately, is the difference between Left and Right: the Left invents unfalsifiable scenarios and ignores facts; we require, both for ourselves and others, proof of our ideas.”
—Crooks And Liars (The Video Blogger) has some more details of what she told Italian magistrates. C&L writes:”This is a terrible story. I don’t want to judge this tragedy too early..”
—Andrew Olmsted helped train troops. Read his ENTIRE POST but here is part of it:

Rest assured that no one in Italy is being quoted about how horrible the terrorists who kidnapped Ms. Sgrena are. The vitriol is all reserved for us horrible Americans. Talk about a publicity windfall…



I’ve been Iraq-bound training units on how to run traffic control points (TCPs) just like the one that fired on Ms. Sgrena’s vehicle for most of the past year. The biggest threat such units face is a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (i.e. a car bomb) detonating in their midst, so the TCPs are designed to stop vehicles well away from their center, allowing the minimum number of soldiers to risk contact with an approaching vehicle. Vehicles which approach a TCP and fail to stop are dealt with very simply: they are engaged with rifle and machine gun fire because they may be VBIEDs which could destroy the entire TCP. Because this threatens to lead to accidental killings like that involving Ms. Sgrena, we warn units to place signs well forward of the TCP telling drivers they are approaching a TCP and need to slow down and stop or they will be fired upon. The TCP is a delicate balance between protection of the soldiers manning the TCP and protecting the innocent people who come through the TCP…

Which sounds more likely? A U.S. death squad is able to ambush precisely the right car, but fails to finish off its target? Or a tragic misunderstanding possibly predicated by the driver of the Italian vehicle forgetting that the American soldiers at the TCP weren’t privy to the same knowledge he was about the threat presented by the car?

The following editorial was written by Darleen Click and first appeared here. It is reprinted with permission of the author.

For good reason the blogsphere is rightfully alarmed by the threats coming from the FEC in regards to free speech on the Internet. Transcripts of the interview with FEC commissionar Bradley Smith can be found at Redstate.org.

She [Judge Koller-Cotella] orders us to regulate the Internet, again what I point out is — it is in no way limited to paid advertising. In fact, it would be contrary to the tone of the opinions limited only to paid advertising. In another part of the opinion, she struck down one of our regulations where we exempted unpaid advertising. So, I, you know, this was, it’s – it’s in no ways limited to unpaid advertising …

I note that we didn’t have enough votes to muster up an appeal of the judge’s decision, uh, on this particular issue, so obviously, uh, half of my colleagues [the 3 Democrats] at least feel that we should be doing more regulation of the Internet.

The McCain-Feingold Campaign “reform” bill was conceived and passed before I became a blogger. At that time, I posted on message boards, some on Yahoo!, where I argued vehemently against the bill as a direct assault on free speech. The idea that somehow if some speech could be defined as having “monetary value” then it could be regulated as “in-kind” contributions struck me, not as a noble exercise to keep so-called corruption out of elections, but as a fortification of the incumbents’ ramparts against the challenging rabble. Indeed, the restrictions on all ads within the immediate time-period before an election is particularly egregious. Of course, one didn’t see any particularly hard-hitting newspaper editorials opposing McCain-Feingold because such free-speech regulation reinforces the newspapers’ traditional King-making power. Newspapers can still run their own editorial endorsements and, as we clearly saw in the last election, can slant their “news” coverage of the candidates in support of their editorial position.

The McCain-Feingold Incumbents Protection Act got its impetus during the 2000 campaign as John McCain railed, shrieked and gnashed his teeth over “dirty Texas money” financed independent ads sullying his sainted and clearly not-to-be-questioned record in Arizona. McCain was so incensed over individuals exercising their First Amendment rights on their own dime he figured it had to be a conspiracy that must be stopped. The MSM embraced the “maverick” McCain who’s ostensible mantel of Republicanism allowed them to use his intemperate remarks and attacks on fellow Republicans as a figleaf for their own anti-Republican bent. They rarely questioned his red-faced podium pounding about “reforming” campaign “finances” and certainly didn’t ask the tough questions on squaring the outright bans on “advocacy” with the First Amendment.

And now, in the wake of the 2004 elections and the success of the blogsphere, the sights of those who can’t stand independent speech has been set upon the Internet and bloggers. The language of the McCain-Feingold used to piddle all over the Constitution in regards to “in-kind contributions” is being geared up as a firehose aimed at people who are using the Internet as a virtual townhall. It’s not only Free Speech but Free Association that has arroused the continued ire of Capt. John McQueeg (as evidenced by his disingenuous attacks on the Swiftboat Vets who spoke out against John Kerry). For McQueeg and his fellow travelers in the FEC, people are allowed only to associate, trade information, debate the merits and demerits of issues and candidates when such activities ineffectual. There is little difference in kind between my advocacy speech in puting up a “Bush-Cheney 04” sign in my front yard and having the same graphic on my weblog. But McQueeg wants my weblog defined as a “monetary contribution.” If I host a cocktail party for 25 neighbors to share campaign literature I received from a presidential candidate or I send an email to 25 people in my address book with the same information, McQueeg wants the FEC to “regulate” the latter.

As long as us little-people know our place on the good ship [Mc]Caine, Cap’n John won’t punish us.

I call bovine excrement. This is a direct assault on the Constitution. And I don’t want to hear about “end runs” around the regulations that call for bloggers to have to do something to “qualify” as the press so they can get an exemption. I have the right under the First Amendment to Free Speech and Free Association. No one, no McQueeg, no Judge Koller-Cotella, no FEC Democrat can take that away. My blog is my own piece of virtual real estate and if I can have a sign on my lawn or a cocktail party in my house than I can damned well do the same thing here.

I will not be shutup or shutdown. The last thing all the McQueeg’s want to fool with is a pre-menopausal woman. I just am in no mood to suffer such mendacity.

Others discussing the issue:

Jeff Harrell rightfully points out that the Federalist Papers (a series of public relation advocacy releases written under a :::gasp::: pen name) would have been banned under McCain-Feingold.

Capt. Ed writes an open letter here

LaShawn Barber notes that this issue unites bloggers across the political spectrum here.

Powerline has been running with this across several posts, the latest on how McQueeg’s mouthpiece is trying to deceptively quiet the great unwashed bloggers.

Michelle Malkin posts a nice roundup of related links.

You know, hyperlinks which the FEC thinks represents in-kind “contributions”. Gosh, ya’think if I put a bunch of charity hyperlinks on my blog the IRS will let me deduct them as “in-kind” monetary contributions??

Of course, the irrepressible CITIZEN JOURNALIST weighs with a mini-manifesto and an update.

UPDATE Capt. Salty, while disclaiming any endorsement of McCain-Feingold, skates around the semantics of “advocacy” and “activism” while asking why shouldn’t “activist” Screw-‘em-Markos be regulated by campaign “finance” laws. Let me be perfectly clear and this is where my libertarian side (do notice the small “L”) comes to the fore. As long as all financial arrangements are disclosed and transparent, IMHO any further “regulation” of campaign “finances” are an assault on the First Amendment. Limiting MY ability to use MY money, whether it’s for a backyard BBQ for Bush or a weblog for the Governator, is a direct contradiction of everything the Founding Fathers were thinking when they drew up the Constitution.

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Darleen maintains a weblog about “parenting, politics and other prattlings” here.