Fiat Lux

Cheney said terrorists are as determined to destroy America as the “Axis powers” of Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II. Borrowing a quote from the 9-11 Commission’s report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 2001, the vice president said the terrorists are “sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal.”

“This enemy is perfectly prepared to slaughter anyone man, woman and child to achieve its ends,” Cheney said. “This is not an enemy we can reason with. This is an enemy we must vanquish.”

Although it may be true that al-Qaeda is as determined to destroy the US as the Axis Powers were in World War II, this observation is a Himalayan exaggeration if it is meant to suggest a parallel. Al-Qaeda is a few thousand fanatics mainly distributed in a handful of countries. If Zacharias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are any indication, a lot of them are one step away from from collecting old soda cans on the street in their grocery carts while mumbling about the radios the government implanted in their asses.

So while their determination may be impressive (or just creepy), they are not comparable to the might of three industrialized dictatorships with populations in the tens of millions. Some 13 million men served in the German army (Heer) alone between 1935 and 1945. (And WW II killed 55 million persons, not 3 thousand).

Juan Cole has a lot to say about Dick Cheney and this administration’s approach to fighting terrorism. He is not a supporter of Israel, and I am, but other than that he has some very good points.

I know it’s not exactly a suspensful event, watching the roll call vote at the convention, but still, I really got a kick out of watching each state delegation cast their votes for the Kerry ticket tonight (excpt for the 40-some odd Kuchinich delegates who refused to switch to Kerry). It really makes you feel that there are people across the country who care about this election as much as you yourself do.

To be honest I felt better about it than I did about Edward’s speech, which was pretty boring until the last third, when Edwards finally caught some fire and started getting the crowd genuinely enthused.

Sometimes I wonder whether one morning I woke up in some alternate universe, because reading this sort of thing, I wonder whether the world has gone nuts, or just me to think this is a really BAD IDEA:

Cash has become the US military’s first line of defense in some parts of Iraq, where US soldiers are distributing money to encourage goodwill and to counter their enemies’ offers of money to unemployed Iraqis willing to attack Americans, according to officers here.

Even patrol leaders now carry envelopes of cash to spend in their areas. The money comes from brigade commanders, who get as much as $50,000 to $100,000 a month to distribute for local rehabilitation and emergency welfare projects through the Commanders Emergency Response Program.

There are few restrictions on the expenditures, and officers acknowledge they consider the money another weapon. The targets at which it is aimed are the restless legions of unemployed Iraqi men, many of them former soldiers, policemen, and low-level members of the Ba’ath Party of ousted president Saddam Hussein. They were put out of work when the US administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, ordered a de-Ba’athification of Iraq. US soldiers say those men are vulnerable to entreaties to carry out an attack on the Americans for pay.

So instead of using that money to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure or as small business startup funding, they just hand it out to people on the street? No tracking, no checking, no way to determine whether the money isn’t going to buy more guns, more explosives? Obviously they’re aware of that potential for abuse, so the article goes on to quote a couple of officers who have been giving their cash out to rebuild swimming pools and buy soccer uniforms. But still….

Even FDR didn’t hand out cash to Americans to fight the Great Depression; he created jobs programs instead. Huge public works projects. Why aren’t we doing that in Iraq? Is it because all the projects involving real jobs have been contracted to Halliburton?

This kind of thing literally makes my stomach hurt.

The DNC allowed bloggers into the convention and it made waves – some good, some bad. Much of the convention blogging hasn’t been terribly interesting so far, but Tom Tomorrow has a good account of his day’s activities, mostly trailing around with Michael Moore. Worth a read.