Busting the "Pottery Barn Rule" Applied to Iraq

You Did Not Buy It When You Broke It

I did not even realize until now how this you-break-it-you-buy-it "We have to fix Iraq, since we caused so much damage" epitomizes the America-as-world-cop concept.

Yes, we broke Iraq. We invaded a sovereign nation, toppled its government, killed and still are killing its citizens.

I believe it is moral to respond that we must undo the harm we inflicted. Do wrong, try to make it better.

But my reply to that assertion has always been that we can't, in this case. We're simply not equipped. I realized after reading this entry at Big Brass Blog that what I'm really saying is that the conclusion that we must undo the harm we've inflicted is a poisonous one, as it's rooted in the same world-cop, white-man's-burden, what have you, concept that let us think we could blithely invade another country in the first place.

So here is my conclusion: we broke Iraq. That makes us -- America -- the one people who can't fix it. Some other organization or country might be able to, I don't know. But we'll never know, especially if we don't get out.

Greedy Little Shits -- Now Showing

This really pisses me off. The WGA (Writer's Guild of America) is keeping money from members and non-members alike.

Don't call me "bitch"

It's Bitch, Esquire, now. Class of '07.

I've also accepted a fellowship at my alma mater.

Save the American White Male Oppressor Class

Bill O'Reilly Defends the American Christian Patriarchy.

In a discussion of "the immigration problem"[*] with John McCain, who never had my vote for anything and never will,

Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you've got to cap with a number.

[*] the "immigration problem" most people have is that they've been trained to think that only white people from Europe should have been allowed to come here. America! The Self-Righteous, Racist Nation!

Look at what O'Reilly is saying. First, he says "they" want to break down a white, Christian, male, system that's oppressing everyone who isn't white, Christian, and male. Well, I'm a member of that "they", and you bet your ass that's what I want. And if it makes you nervous because a brown woman from Ethiopia might be representing you in court some day, too damn bad. You can suck it up and deal.

Second, look at his next statement. O'Reilly panders to the fear of the Other, by asserting that "they" want to bring in "millions" of foreigners -- trans., non-white, non-Christian, non-male people -- to destroy the fabric of America.

This is asinine. First off, you don't have to import "millions of foreigners" to break down a social structure and destroy America, these radicals who've taken over the government have been doing it just fine, and they're all white, male, and self-identify as Christian. But that's not my real point. My real point is that O'Reilly is first accusing 'leftists' of wanting to destroy America, which is not true, and in the next breath asserts that they want to do so by sending in lots of people-who-don't-look-like-you-oh-how-scary to live here.

His thesis is that non-white, non-Christian, non-male people coming to America, and striving for the American Dream, is antithetical to the structure of this country, which was founded on that same American Dream. Hard work leading to prosperity isn't the American Dream, apparently, if it's a brown person from another country dreaming it.

These men make me sick.

Way to Go, John Edwards!

Edwards slams war on terrorism as "bumper sticker"

"The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan," Edwards said. "It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world."

"By framing this as a 'war,' we have walked straight into the trap that the terrorists have set -- that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war against Islam," said the former senator from North Carolina.

Finally, someone who gets it.

On Muslim Religous Language

Really interesting two pieces over at Small Wars Journal on Religion and Insurgency, and More on Religion and Insurgency, particularly the latter.

They're not jihadists, they're irhabis and mifsuduun. Fascinating. We need to stop shying away from the religious and linguistic cues, and begin using them.

Comey Testimony

My god, this is an astounding betrayal.

Mr. Comey's Tale: A standoff at a hospital bedside speaks volumes about Attorney General Gonzales (WaPo).

Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal, by Glenn Greenwald (Salon).

This is the testimony (summary, PDF transcript, YouTube), which A.G. Gonzales didn't want to have happen (article at Salon), since, among other things, Comey might just tell folks that the President broke the law via warrantless eavesdropping.

White House Again Creating Own Mgmt Structure

Rather than using existing tools. Idiots.

Intel Dump has some things to say about this 'war czar' business.

Stealing My Topics from Twisty Faster

Thanks, Twisty! Very intriguing comments thread over at I Blame The Patriarchy, last month:

She Said I Know What It's Like to be Dead. Read the comments. Read them with an eye to the gender of the author, if you can.

Done? Great. Here's the lowdown: Twisty proposed that non-explicitly-consensual sex be rape. Every time. (This would naturally necessitate some changes -- hopefully liberating ones -- on how women signal interest in sex. By, you know, saying so. Maybe a little green light, red light, card would do the trick.)

What's so interesting is, as I'm about halfway through the comments and expect more of the same shortly, that the men in the comments are talking about how unfair it would be to have some chica accuse them of rape, a couple years after the fact, while what the women are talking about is a fundamental change in views toward consensual sex. A conceptualization of a default 'no', rather than a default 'yes'.

And, feeling threatened by the whole idea (my diagnosis), but only able to quarrel and nitpick over the thought of what a 'no' two years after the fact might do to them, the men on the thread quarrel and nitpick this technical bit Twisty proposed that maybe isn't, IMO, such a great idea, which is an open-ended statute of limitations.

In so doing, they neatly circumvent any actual discussion -- at least on their parts -- of the fact that 'no' from a woman gets ignored all the time, and that imposing and enforcing a default 'no' is therefore a fantastic idea, if you want to actually reduce rape. We can and should move the onus off the woman, who currently gets put on trial as much or even more so than her accused rapist, and onto the actual defendant.[*]

Very interesting behavior to observe.

[*] Saying this, I am not advocating a shift of the burden of proof from the prosecution -- it's the state's job to prove the crime -- to the defendant, but I fully support the idea of an affirmative defense of "She specifically said yes," rather than the unspoken current affirmative defense of "she's a slut."

Is the Army Bleeding Out?

Brian Gellman of Intel Dump has a great post on the exodus of captains from the Army, and what it means for the ethical model captains serve as.

L.A. Times Calls for Withdrawal From Iraq

Bring Them Home

This newspaper reluctantly endorsed the U.S. troop surge as the last, best hope for stabilizing conditions so that the elected Iraqi government could assume full responsibility for its affairs. But we also warned that the troops should not be used to referee a civil war. That, regrettably, is what has happened.

I was reading some letter to the editor in the Metro (freebie paper) yesterday, asserting that we can't leave Iraq now that we've broken it. Here's the problem: we can't fix it. Yeah, we broke their country. We invaded, toppled their government, destroyed infrastructure, and we blew it from day one. We outsiders, we foreigners, cannot fix this.

So, I find the argument that we can't leave until we do fix it unpersuasive. How to fix it? Tell me, editorial-writer. How? And explain to me why we haven't been doing your 'how' by, now, because it's been *years*. Explain to me why this troop surge is supposed to make a difference, and explain to me why any Iraqi, anywhere, should ever trust an American to do anything but try and kill them.

"Brief History of Disbelief" getting buried

Are PBS Stations Burying "A Brief History of Disbelief?"

Odd, this complete lack of shock I'm feeling.

CBS shuts down online comments to Obama stories

CBS.com has to shut comments down on Obama stories.

Too many racist comments, huh? And CBS doesn't want to look as if they're effectively condoning them, by hosting them on a CBS web board. Hm. Hm, twice.

If you joke about how oppressed you feel about not being able to freely slur minorities (or women or gays) for entertainment’s sake without any impact, you can go ahead and do so to show how you’re sticking it to the PC Man. Look — Don Imus thinks that’s why he was hired — to stoke the fires of bigotry by pushing the race and misogyny envelope — otherwise he wouldn’t be suing CBS for $40 million. His attorney said that in Imus’s contract with CBS, the network specifically implored Imus to cover “extraordinary,” “irreverent” and, most important, “controversial” topics on his syndicated radio show, which was simulcast daily on MSNBC.

. . . .

If you are a New Plausible Deniability Racist and happen to foment racism, misogyny or homophobia among the sheeple in the process, that’s just a side bonus — and you can deny that you really meant what you said, or now say “that’s what I’m paid to do” as a defense.

David Niewart (Orcinus) gets it right, calling it the "new racism", involving,

staking out positions that, if not overtly racist, at least seek to resurrect some of the hoary mythology of the era of white supremacy. As with most of right-wing race rhetoric of the past twenty years, it's all done with a certain level of plausible deniability, couched in "jokes" or abstrations that let the speakers feign indignation when the racism is pointed out; the current trend is only slightly more overt in its racism, but the underlying sentiments aren't hard to read.

It's all about plausible deniability. It's all about the opposite of accountability.

People (trans. right-wing blowhards) like to bitch about "where America went wrong". I'll tell you where: the day any American isn't accountable -- isn't held accountable or doesn't hold themselves accountable -- for their words and deeds. That's where America "went wrong". But it's not past tense, friends and neighbors. Every day, every denial, is America going wrong, right now.

On the Front Lines of Climate Change

On the Front Lines of Climate Change

He doesn't know the term climate change, but he knows what he sees.

Even without television and newspapers, Shahidul can sense that something just isn't right about the weather. "It gets warmer every year, there are more storms and the monsoon doesn't come on time," he says. The water level in front of his house also rises a little every year. "When I moved here, we still had three fields in front of the house. Now there are only two," Shahidul goes on. "I'm afraid the water will take another piece away from me this year." As a precautionary measure, he had the platform for his little barn built half a meter higher. "You never know what will happen."

Kucinich Got Game

and? Supporting documents for his call for impeachment of Cheney.