Month: June 2004

Better Late Than Never

This article from the Washington Post is almost a week old but it’s well worth a read, especially if you read it alongside the excellent work Back to Iraq is doing.

The long and the short of it? It’s not just the radical anti-war Left or Iraqi extremists that think our invasion of Iraq has been a miserable failure.

The American occupation of Iraq will formally end this month having failed to fulfill many of its goals and stated promises intended to transform the country into a stable democracy, according to a detailed examination drawing upon interviews with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and internal documents of the occupation authority

There’s blame aplenty to go around. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority blames the military. The military blames the CPA. The Iraqis blame us. We blame them. And around it goes. Then, another interesting fact.

Attacks on U.S.-led forces and foreign civilians now average more than 40 a day, a threefold increase since January.

Small wonder so-called “Green Zone,” where the CPA and related US personnel live, is a fortress that few set foot beyond unless they’re surrounded by security forces. And what are we getting for that attack rate, and for the 800+ American soldiers dead?

In an interview last week, Bremer maintained that “Iraq has been fundamentally changed for the better” by the occupation. The CPA, he said, has put Iraq on a path toward a democratic government and an open economy after more than three decades of a brutal socialist dictatorship. Among his biggest accomplishments, he said, were the lowering of Iraq’s tax rate, the liberalization of foreign-investment laws and the reduction of import duties.

Emphasis added.

Let me get this right. We invaded a country 3,000 miles away from us, one that posed no clear threat to America. The country is a mess – the Post article goes into great detail on that point. Just one of many examples is that even in Baghdad itself, electrical power is available only 9 hours out of 24. It seems likely that the new Iraqi government will impose martial law after the June 30 handover. To name just one potential keg of worms, nobody seems to have any idea how the Kurds and the Shiites are going to resolve their differences. And Paul Bremer thinks it’s an accomplishment that Iraqi taxes have been lowered.

Small wonder they hate us.

Tip of the hat to Fuzzy Puppy for the Post link.

Followup on Hayden Act

After a massive public outcry, Governer Schwarzenegger quickly backtracked on his plan to overturn the revised animal welfare code (aka the Hayden Act). $14 million back in the budget, hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats saved.

I’ll give this to the Governator, unlike some other Republicans in high office, he knows when to admit he made a mistake.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I caught a midday showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 down at the Metreon today. I walked in knowing Moore’s trying to get you to walk out feeling a certain way, and in that regard, the movie was pretty much what I expected it to be.

The first section deals with 9/11 and the Bush / Saudi / Bin Laden connection. I could definitely have done without the footage of 9/11 itself. As I’ve said before 9/11 is a very painful topic for me so I prefer to not be reminded of exactly how painful that day was. I suppose Moore wanted to get some emotional punch in before drawing all the lines between the Bushes, the Bin Ladens, and the Saudis, but it felt a little too much like I was being manipulated to feel bad.

After that, Moore deals with the various responses to 9/11 -Afghanistan and the Patriot Act mostly. And here’s what I didn’t expect. I laughed. Several parts of the middle section – particularly when two Marine recruiters in full dress uniforms are walking around a parking lot in Flint, MI looking to sign up new recruits – are quite funny in a snarky sort of way.

Moore also sidetracks into one of his bete noires – how African Americans get screwed in America. It’s a valid point that most of the kids in the armed forces are from poor backgrounds, but I think he’s stretching a point by implying that they’re all black. The issue is class not skin color. Even Moore’s own footage of Iraq shows more white faces in uniform than anything else.

And speaking of the Iraq footage – I have no idea how he got the stuff but it’s very raw and powerful. In a way I felt that this section of the movie was the most original, in that it’s something that nobody is actually showing to us here right now. It’s not easy to watch soldiers crying out in pain right after being attacked, burned bodies being dragged through streets, or soldiers putting hoods on prisoners’ heads and cracking jokes about erections. These are images that show us what is really going on in our name, though, and we need to understand exactly what price we’re paying.

It’s been widely reported that the story of Lila Lipscombe and how she loses her son in Iraq is the emotional heart of the film. It is sad, but somehow it didn’t affect me as deeply. What did make me cry? A little earlier in the film, Moore overlaid the theme song from notable 80s TV flop “The Greatest American Hero” on top of footage of Bush’s trip to an aircraft carrier to declare combat operations “over”. It’s a cheesy song but for whatever reason I have always liked it. The juxtaposition of a song I like over pictures of President Bush surrounded by happy troops was a somewhat surreal combination. And then at the line in the song that goes “Should have been somebody else” I started to cry, thinking we should have had Gore as president instead of this loser.

Yes, I’m probably weird for crying at that point instead of when Lila Lipscombe’s son dies. But that’s how it happened.

I’m glad I saw the film. I don’t think it’s going to change many – if any – minds, mostly because the people who most need to see it (hello Dad, are you reading this?) won’t bother going. And honestly, I don’t see why it got the Palme d’Or at Cannes except as a way of expressing support for the political views in the film. Unlike previous winners with a war theme, like “The Pianist” or “Apocalypse Now”, I don’t see people watching Fahrenheit 9/11 10 years from now. It’s a move for 2004, not for the ages.

All that said, it says a lot about America that despite all the problems our nation has, a film like this can be made and distributed and people can go see it without fear of reprisal. And it’s a film worth seeing.

One Step Too Far

Ugh. I know the CA budget is in need of help but this is just too much for me:

Schwarzenegger Wants Stray Animals Killed In 72 Hours

Basically, he wants to revert back to an older standard where shelters would be allowed to kill dogs and cats after holding them for 72 hours, regardless of whether the shelters are open to the public during those three days. The 72-hour rule was changed to a 6-day hold in 1998 under a law called the Hayden Act.

Another thing that bothers me is that one of the changes Schwarzenegger is asking for allows shelters to not check for microchipping on a dog or cat before destroying it. Scanning for a microchip takes literally 15 seconds to do and if there’s an active chip then the animal’s owner can be immediately identified. There is no reason I can think of other than idiocy why this should not be done.

And how much is the state going to save by all this animal killing? $14 million dollars.

“Terminator” indeed.

You've Got Spam!

AOL engineer with his head up his butt sells 92 million AOL screen names to spammers. More info here.

The only good news is at least somebody got caught. Too bad for the customers, whose addresses have probably been sold and resold a whole bunch of times since then.

Chilling Speech

I have never liked Howard Stern. I thought his show was full of sexist crap and fart jokes, and so I chose not to listen to him. That doesn’t mean I think he should be legislated off the air though.

Well, shame on me for not doing anything about it, but it might actually happen with the new indecency legislation that has now passed the House and Senate. Up to $3 million in fines a day can be levied if the FCC decides something said on the air is “indecent”.

How did the Senate pass it? They attached it to a defense appropriations bill so that if you voted against it, you could be smeared as ‘not supporting the troops’. Pretty nasty. Kudos to Sen. John Breaux, D-LA for having the balls to be the one vote against it. (And once the President signs this into law, you won’t be able to say “having the balls” on the air anymore). Where was John Kerry?

Tip of the hat to Buzz Machine for the link.