tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51470004151274545602024-02-18T20:59:43.657-08:00AOL Journals 1st Old Hickory's WeblogBruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.comBlogger3265125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-89932471779152793592007-06-26T14:50:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:07.530-08:00Old Hickory's Weblog has moved to Blogger/Blogspot!!!<DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJvWquNPKRfZcJkC4c1pyZATlxd_C3SDl77F_3ZBE2AHo83e-lMDWZx7ai42WfC0rCCT9HLP1JYWz0IuK80i5Hz32RkR9jIvQ8R9AIRTose-wU0f1ivA8qG_kP4c5vTwTQX1-nybjIQw/s1600-h/train_wreck.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079850950333631250 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height=202 alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJvWquNPKRfZcJkC4c1pyZATlxd_C3SDl77F_3ZBE2AHo83e-lMDWZx7ai42WfC0rCCT9HLP1JYWz0IuK80i5Hz32RkR9jIvQ8R9AIRTose-wU0f1ivA8qG_kP4c5vTwTQX1-nybjIQw/s320/train_wreck.jpg" width=183 border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>I've switched Old Hickory's Weblog's location from AOL Journals to Blogger (Blogspot). <BR/><BR/>Please come over to the new spot and check out the new version, still called </FONT><A href="http://oldhickorysweblog.blogspot.com/"><FONT size=2>Old Hickory's Weblog</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. <BR/><BR/>I'm still working on the template, like adding a mail-notification feature. So the template will be changing its appearance some over the next few weeks. <BR/><BR/>I feel a tad nostalgic about the AOL location since I've been posting here for almost four years now. <BR/><BR/>AOL has improved their features a lot. But after two years posting at the group blog The Blue Voice, I find that Blogspot is more user-friendly overall. In particular, it's easier to leave comments without having to go get an AIM ID through AOL. <BR/><BR/>I'm not taking down the AOL version. I'll leave it hear as long as AOL allows. I am putting copies of the old posts at the Blogspot location - being able to designate the date of the post is another advantage at Blogspot - but it will be a while before I get the full archive copied there. But all the AOL posts from 2007 are already there. <BR/><BR/>I thought it would be nice to let </FONT><A href="http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2007/06/24/zorro-capitulos-88-92-june-18-22-amazons-and-witches-and-poisons-oh-my/4797"><FONT size=2>my last post</FONT></A><FONT size=2> in this location (except for this one) be a fun one, on the <EM>Zorro</EM> telenovela in this case. <BR/><BR/>For my goobye-to-AOL-Journals link, check out this YouTube video of </FONT><A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CROgpqIPvUk"><FONT size=2>Bring'em Home</FONT></A><FONT size=2> Bruce Springsteen & the Seeger Sessions Band.</FONT> </DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-57624980491674727452007-06-24T20:59:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:09.695-08:00Zorro: Capítulos 88-92 (June 18-22): Amazons and witches and poisons, oh my!<DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKg0-gnks0zGHYXRQwq4O-shuUQJJiOi85AXKYtW8Yrj2cjmhgH_9z6P0_VgO-FavKYsgBePv_mu_pCCjmu-QRhx0hb47sqvs4S3r90DgL27A4BrzITYhH_MLTKu6o8yO_XMXvk4aT2QU/s1600-h/amazons+1.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079144767515855506 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKg0-gnks0zGHYXRQwq4O-shuUQJJiOi85AXKYtW8Yrj2cjmhgH_9z6P0_VgO-FavKYsgBePv_mu_pCCjmu-QRhx0hb47sqvs4S3r90DgL27A4BrzITYhH_MLTKu6o8yO_XMXvk4aT2QU/s320/amazons+1.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/></FONT><FONT size=2><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>"Machala, Esmeralda": Vanya and Asalaya, Los Angeles <S>hippies</S> Amazons, circa 1810</STRONG> <BR/></FONT><BR/><I>Zorro</I> moved along briskly during this week's segments. By the end of the week, Esmeralda had gone from months confined in a basement to almost being murdered to being sold to slave traders to being in a ship that sinks to discovering buried treasure in what looks like a tropical jungle at a spot a few feet away from what looks like a swamp to joining up with a ferocious tribe of Amazon warriors in the jungle. All of it taking place with in a few miles of Los Angeles. <BR/><BR/>You didn't realize there were swampy jungles near Los Angeles? That's why you need to be watching <I>Zorro</I>. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDQCa38DNQpmzP9P8ACrGqhvl7-MwmxyOKRMvMKnQILGzmBiQKQ82jfvCxbSD6rAfZ-nx9I6DDbyfCtbhb9XMcr3A1Ra_BiH4I73riblOY2CWZybxOOe_ZDf_bMAAMvmv6GVHkukei6E/s1600-h/esmeralda+y+amazons.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079145016623958690 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDQCa38DNQpmzP9P8ACrGqhvl7-MwmxyOKRMvMKnQILGzmBiQKQ82jfvCxbSD6rAfZ-nx9I6DDbyfCtbhb9XMcr3A1Ra_BiH4I73riblOY2CWZybxOOe_ZDf_bMAAMvmv6GVHkukei6E/s320/esmeralda+y+amazons.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Esmeralda Sanchez de Xena has apparently become queen of the Amazons and is intent on revenge against everybody who's hurt her</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Altogether, it was an exceptionally exciting week for Esmeralda. At orders from el Comandante Montero, Capitán Pizarro took her out into the woods to kill her, but Sargento García saved her, as I related in </FONT><A href="http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2007/06/19/zorro-update-selenia-comes-through/4787"><FONT size=2>my last Zorro post</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. Olmos then showed up with two pistols and persuaded Pizarro to leave Esmeralda and García with him. He promptly sold them to slave-traders, while Kamba back at the gitano camp got captured by his former fight promoters and sold to the slave-traders, too. <BR/><BR/>They were all put on a boat, where the crew leered menacingly at Esmeralda. The boat capital was name Gluck,played by Falvio Peniche, the brother of Arturo Peniche, the actor who plays el Governador Fernando. Esmeralda's amulet that her mother Sara Kalí had given her got a lot of attention this week, too. El Comandante ripped it off her neck just before he sent her out into the woods to be murdered. But Pizarro, who has faint remnants of a heart, gave it to her to comfort her in the minutes before he was going to shoot her. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh57VKFpEh_yhKWHz8lZfCVTbfRsvSH9hoKAc40_5MrCeuuVk4PhR0LDDXtEsvahy42xkZ6LD5CP_vI4UZ0CdxdW_IYBc-LcG0Lrl1IT9A7t374BMc4W9269PklfjgU_whNz-_38q9E1dc/s1600-h/esmeraldas+burned+hand.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079842729766226674 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh57VKFpEh_yhKWHz8lZfCVTbfRsvSH9hoKAc40_5MrCeuuVk4PhR0LDDXtEsvahy42xkZ6LD5CP_vI4UZ0CdxdW_IYBc-LcG0Lrl1IT9A7t374BMc4W9269PklfjgU_whNz-_38q9E1dc/s200/esmeraldas+burned+hand.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Ouch, that's gotta hurt! Esmeralda's hand is branded with the map to her grandmother's royal treasure</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>On the boat, one of the crew ripped it off her neck, too, which kick-started Kamba's demon and so Kamba ripped off his steel manacles and starting strangling the crewman with the amulet. While doing this, he started a fire - to complicate matters on what's still a dark and stormy night - and the ship sank. But before they swam for their lives, Esmeralda grabbed the amulet, which had been heated by the fire and it branded its image into her palm but the burn caused her to drop it. When the ship sank, one of the crew saw it clinging to a piece of driftwood as he was swimming for his life in the stormy waters at night, and grabbed it. When he staggered into town, Diego was there and recognized the amulet. Diego took the amulet. <BR/><BR/>Back on shore that same morning, Esmeralda wakes up amidst the driftwood and finds García and Kamba still alive, as well. Thus they set off for a jungle adventure that is part Nancy Drew, part <EM>Blue Lagoon</EM>, part <EM>Treasure Island</EM> and part <EM>Xena the Warrior Princess</EM>. They plan to go find the gitanos but Esmeralda discovers Capitán Gluck, also still alive but immobile because of a broken leg and assorted other injuries. He was apparently washed or blown way out into the jungle. <BR/><BR/>Esmeralda nurses him a bit and he tells her a sob story about how he's not really a slave trader, he just needed a job and that's the only ship where he could get hired. He sees the brand in her palm and recognizes it as a star map. He offers to lead our jungle heroes to the spot. So Kamba and García carry him through the jungle, where he leads them to the indicated spot and they dig up a chest full of treasure. It's not pirates' treasure, it's Sara Kalí's mother's treasure, but it's buried treasure all the same. Esmeralda vows she's going to use it to avenge herself on everyone who's hurt her: el Comandante, Pizarro, el Gobernador her beloved stepfather, and, of course, Mariángel (Mangle). <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmjaoc89-1FxZ0NK5pQHCUJZ18-F7SjfnRRhYclGchJCqBorXcXWi0aI-bClhq_CPndrN-oloulngdwz9gCiTs0ktx5sUtlvz7QGS1vm_UGqlyAUwwCmTWJfVbQeYXhawWi38r4tzXVI/s1600-h/esmeralda+in+jungle.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079842124175837922 style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmjaoc89-1FxZ0NK5pQHCUJZ18-F7SjfnRRhYclGchJCqBorXcXWi0aI-bClhq_CPndrN-oloulngdwz9gCiTs0ktx5sUtlvz7QGS1vm_UGqlyAUwwCmTWJfVbQeYXhawWi38r4tzXVI/s320/esmeralda+in+jungle.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>In the jungle, no one can see you when your top falls down. At least that's what Esmeralda must have hoped when one of his biggest struggles in the jungle was to remain fully clothed</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>The captain gasps out his last breath to Esmeralda, who's staying with him while Kamba and García go to stash the treasure and get a cart to bring back the unfortunate captain, who warns Esmeralda that this part of the forest is muy peligroso beause Amazons live there. I thought when I heard this, it was too good to be true. <BR/><BR/>But, sure enough, Esmeralda soon spies a loin-cloth-clad woman being assaulted by a couple of Spanish low-lifes. Determined not to take any crap from anyone any more, she grabs a log and clobbers one guy in the head. The Amazon then escaptes the other guy, who then wrestles Esmeralda to the ground and tries to rape her. But the one Amazon has quickly been joined by several of her tribal sisters who promptly kill the assailant with several well-deserved arrows in the back. <BR/><BR/>I'm not sure if the Amazons are supposed to be Indians, or whether they are directly descended from Greek Amazons. Or maybe they are descended from refugees fleeing Carthage after Rome destroyed it, or possibly one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In any case, they all have the remarkably healthy bodies one might expect from the air in pre-industrial Los Angeles and the presumed abundance of food and other good things in the tropical jungle that apparently was there around 1810. Or so it looks on the show, anyway. <BR/><BR/>One of the Amazons introduces herself as Asalaya. She summons another one, Vanya, to the front and puts her arm around her and says, "Machala". Then Vanya says to our heroine, "Machala, Esmeralda". I'm guessing this means "sister" in ancient Carthaginian. Then the Amazons bow deeply to her, and Esmeralda does the same in return. Apparently this cleavage-exposing gesture is a polite greeting ritual among the Los Angeles Amazons. At the end of Friday's episode, Esmeralda seems to have become their queen, or something, because she seems to be leading a hunting party that comes upon Kamba and García. Esmeralda looks at them with an enigmatic smile, perhaps hinting that the two of them are destined to become breeding stock for her newfound friends. <BR/><BR/>I have to say, this whole jungle adventure culminating with Esmeralda hooking up with the jungle Amazon tribe has been the coolest thing they've done in the whole telenovela so far. (That is, aside from introducing Valentina Acosta's the One the Only the Great Selenia, who as far as I'm concerned instantly became one of the top TV witches of all time.) With the Amazons on board, I'm thinking <EM>Zorro</EM> is going to be high on my list of Quality TV standards, along with such classics as </FONT><A href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240278/fullcredits#cast"><EM><FONT size=2>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World</FONT></EM></A><FONT size=2> and <EM>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</EM>. The way this is going, we could wind up with a final showdown, with General Alejandro's army facing off against Montero and Pizarro and they regular and hired-thug forces, with Zorro fighting on Alejandro's side at the head of an army of peasants, Indians, gitanos, the secret brotherhood of cowled democratic revolutionaries, and Amazons. Heck, Zorro might even persude those cannibals who almost made a human sacrifice out of Esmeralda in an early episode to join in! <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZMmpdMi89fXFefaTwelx4esvimrXZbMEV4jwYzav5Ozw-V-CFpv345oZvaF5qlxPJi8O-Ve1rsVximv-E4AuylXrOxKj4y9u5ARc6phxR-e2dq2V22t0EcbxEeTLfxymKGoN4rCu7zZ4/s1600-h/mangle+y+olmos.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079844215824911106 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZMmpdMi89fXFefaTwelx4esvimrXZbMEV4jwYzav5Ozw-V-CFpv345oZvaF5qlxPJi8O-Ve1rsVximv-E4AuylXrOxKj4y9u5ARc6phxR-e2dq2V22t0EcbxEeTLfxymKGoN4rCu7zZ4/s320/mangle+y+olmos.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>"Loco por Olmos": Mangle only has eyes for him (until they do the Wild Thang, that is)</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>First, though, General Alejandro will have to smooth things out on the home front, where his Big Love arrangement has hit a snag. Almudena was down with the bigamy arrangement, even grooming Yumalai/Guadalupe to move into the wife #1 role after Almudena dies. But she had to process it in Spanish-lady style as Alejandro having an affair, which means he was supposed to be discreet about it. But Alejandro forgot that in telenovelas there's always someone hiding around the corner to evesdrop, and he talked to Yumalai about their little trist on his and Almudena's wedding night, and Almudena heard. <BR/><BR/>Now she has to be an outraged wife for a while. And she demands that Alejandro kick Yumalai off the hacienda. To complicate matters, Mangle has been putting small amounts of arsenic into the medicine Yumalai has been giving Almudena, and now Agapito the doctor/dentist/undertaker has found that out and told Almudena. Almudena thinks it's Yumalai and/or Alejandro that is poisoning her. Quite a sticky situation for all involved. <BR/><BR/>Even more exciting than Esmerada's adventures was the fact that Mangle now has the hots for Olmos thanks to Selenia's love potion and/or her hypnosis. Mangle is obsessed with with the little guy now. What Olmos doesn't know is that the spell is temporary. After Mangle makes love to him the first time, the hypnosis will wear off immediately. <BR/><BR/>Selenia is planning to leave town because after Olmos threatened to kill her. Olmos blames her for cursing him in his mother's womb and making him a hunchback. We learn from a conversation Selenia has with her magic dwarf Tasisio that it was Selenia's <EM>mother</EM> that cursed Olmos. Aha! Selenia's not on the Elixir of Eternal Youth. And to carry on the family tradition, she needs to have a baby. And Aaron the Exorcist may just be ready for a new gig ... <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgwS2sXSdpQpnWrJucudvwM5M-fVkhcqeKmi0nunjivkZSq-GApGxX6GwSjMNzipWg7BG2W8WoC6Rl_kbywWtQ-6AI-NZ69UEU1se02Y9_x53ZxdBjFKY7Gsgzw0L_fJBFDg8GYYEY4JY/s1600-h/selenia+mirror+5.png"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079146073185913538 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgwS2sXSdpQpnWrJucudvwM5M-fVkhcqeKmi0nunjivkZSq-GApGxX6GwSjMNzipWg7BG2W8WoC6Rl_kbywWtQ-6AI-NZ69UEU1se02Y9_x53ZxdBjFKY7Gsgzw0L_fJBFDg8GYYEY4JY/s400/selenia+mirror+5.png" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who the coolest witch of all? Selenia visits Mangle's mirror (that's Mangle's red hair on the left)</STRONG> <BR/></FONT><BR/>On Friday, Selenia showed up in Mangle's mirror, telling Mangle how Olmos is just the right guy for her and looking pretty spooky, but also giving Valentina Acosta the chance to show off her talent for facial expression. Seriously, some actors just have a special ability to convey a lot with facial expression and motions alone. Clint Eastwood is one. Lena Olin on <EM>Alias</EM> is another. From what I've seen so far, Valentina Acosta also has a special gift for that. <BR/><BR/>Speaking of my man Aaron, he showed up just in the nick of time to save el Governador Fernando after Fernando hung himself. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyeURRWV4zIeP9wSBPrCp6z44zdznYzO0T5zU6-c_kAlD_j7Gq0RRYUXnPpcz5_D_-y9IeYUnCTSaAExpSAIz8STfItDsGh9XQMsJrfghNfIzglPh_E2aSL_JI5qf9YZVzKpmUU1ENVpE/s1600-h/aaron+pleading.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079842115585903314 style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyeURRWV4zIeP9wSBPrCp6z44zdznYzO0T5zU6-c_kAlD_j7Gq0RRYUXnPpcz5_D_-y9IeYUnCTSaAExpSAIz8STfItDsGh9XQMsJrfghNfIzglPh_E2aSL_JI5qf9YZVzKpmUU1ENVpE/s320/aaron+pleading.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Aaron the Exorcist earnestly strives to save Fernando's life and his soul</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Sometimes having an exorcist stalking you comes in handy. Fernando was depressed because Don Alfonso proposed to María Pía and she accepted. This was after Fernando beat Alfonso to within an inch of his life. Even with the remarkable recuperative powers of everyone in this show - except poor Miguel the gitano after Pizarro beheaded him - Alfonso still had a bruise and a scratch on his face for two days or so, though it seemed to be completely healed by Friday. The fight scene where Fernando won but María Pía was even more committed to Alfonso afterward reminded me of a song from the Eagles' one album that rose about the level of catchy pop, <EM>Desperado</EM>. In the song, "Saturday Night", the lyrics say: <BR/><BR/></FONT><FONT size=2><EM>Whatever happened to Saturday night? <BR/>Finding a sweetheart and losing a fight <BR/>She'd say, "Tell me, oh tell me, are you all right? <BR/>Whatever happened to Saturday night?</EM> <BR/><BR/>After rescusing Fernando, Aaron the Exorcist persuaded Fernando to put on a white robe and let Aaron baptize him in a pond. When they came out of the water, Aaron put a brown robe and cowl onto Fernando, and we don't see Fernando's face. This could be the makeover Fernando mentioned once before. Probably he figures María Pía would really go for him in a monk's robe. <BR/><BR/>There was plenty of action on the political front this week, too. Zorro returned to the Queen's bedchamber to visit with her. El Duque Jacobo was there and el Comandante Montero charged in with his sword and a bunchofsoldiers. Zorro knocked a dozen or so soldiers unconscious and escaped, with a little help from Padre Tomás. Tomás set a wagon full of straw on fire and then hid behind a building and laughed in delight. He really enjoyed getting in on the Zorro action. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5S4nLTCkxVO7lO4zHXU9A3LdTa1eYJszusWYk_p9p5xURkWFCS3ZszIUyy4yn4NRRFLfP1AWQa_pNEs8pZUPdQIJ-8T1rIlQNU7ir4FgYGB38kRTcVoCoel98mUwddg5FLiosBn1-39Q/s1600-h/padre+tomas+y+la+reina.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079145222782388914 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5S4nLTCkxVO7lO4zHXU9A3LdTa1eYJszusWYk_p9p5xURkWFCS3ZszIUyy4yn4NRRFLfP1AWQa_pNEs8pZUPdQIJ-8T1rIlQNU7ir4FgYGB38kRTcVoCoel98mUwddg5FLiosBn1-39Q/s320/padre+tomas+y+la+reina.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Padre Tomás conspires with the Queen under cover of the confessional</STRONG> </FONT><BR/><BR/>It turns out that the Queen already suspected that some funny business was going on, which is why she wanted to come to Los Angeles. Thanks to intercepting a confidential letter of the Queen's, el Duque knows that she's close to discovering his plot, which includes having murdered her husband the king. On Friday, the Queen goes to confession with Padre Tomás, who then lets her in on what he knows about the conspiracy and promises to help her. He also lets her know that he's in league with Zorro. <BR/><BR/>On the gitano front, Sara Kalí is unable to reconstruct the amulet map from memory. So they plan to attend a citywide masquerade ball that the Queen is putting on in order to talk to the Queen. Zorro is also planning to attend for the same purpose. Plus, Diego and Bernardo have also deciphered the map. Will Esmeralda's Amazon sisters be as impressed with him as she is? Inquiring minds want to know. <BR/><BR/>Also, on the gitano front, Ana Camila/Sor Suplicios and cute-but-useless Renzo become officially engaged. This makes everyone happy but eternally-brooding Laisha, who's always had a thing for Renzo. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/valentina+acosta" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>valentina acosta</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro+telenovela" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro telenovela</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-45523301988726015812007-06-24T13:08:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.530-07:00Robert Fisk on the idea of Tony Blair as special envoy for the Middle East<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags">
<DIV><FONT size=2>British journalist Robert Fisk gives his caustic view of President Bush's suggestion that outgoing British premier Tony Blair be appointed the Quartet envoy to work on an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement: </FONT><A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2697832.ece"><FONT size=2>How can Blair possibly be given this job?</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Independent</EM> 06/23/07. Fisk consistently refers to Blair sarcastically as "Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara", referring to a city in eastern Iraq where British forces were defeated and 10,000 British soldiers compelled to surrender to the Ottoman army during the First World War. Blair hasn't actually been knighted yet, though it's customary for former prime ministers to receive knighthood soon after they leave office, so he probably will be knighted in the near future.<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was going to create "Palestine". I checked the date - no, it was not 1 April - but I remain overwhelmed that this vain, deceitful man, this proven liar, a trumped-up lawyer who has the blood of thousands of Arab men, women and children on his hands is really contemplating being "our" Middle East envoy. <BR/><BR/>Can this really be true? I had always assumed that Balfour, Sykes and Picot were the epitome of Middle Eastern hubris. But Blair? That this ex-prime minister, this man who took his country into the sands of Iraq, should actually believe that he has a role in the region - he whose own preposterous envoy, Lord Levy, made so many secret trips there to absolutely no avail - is now going to sully his hands (and, I fear, our lives) in the world's last colonial war is simply overwhelming.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>By "the world's last colonial war", Fisk means the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the conflict over them now entering its fifth decade. <BR/><BR/>The <EM>Independent</EM> also has an article on three Catholics on Blair's Downing Street staff who left their posts because of their religious objections to the Iraq War: </FONT><A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2697838.ece"><FONT size=2>PM's Iraq war 'helped drive Catholics out of Downing Street'</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Andrew Grice and Andy McSmith 06/23/07. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/robert+fisk" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>robert fisk</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/tony+blair" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>tony blair</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-42437103556836971452007-06-23T17:23:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.531-07:00Soldiers and strategy<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags">
<DIV><FONT size=2>One thing that the Congress needs to avoid is to simply add more troops based simply on the reality that troop shortages quickly developed in the Iraq War. The armed forces should be "right-sized" (to use a corporate clichee of a few years back) based on a long-term strategy of what kind of conflicts are expected. We already see how both parties can agree on "more" without any decision - or even discussion - on the longer-term assumptions. <BR/><BR/>Andrew Bacevich recently addressed this issue in </FONT><A href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bacevich18jun18,0,930478.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions"><FONT size=2>More troops, more troubles</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Los Angeles Times</EM> 06/18/07. Citing the broad bipartisan support for increasing the number of active-duty Army and Marine soldiers, he writes:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>In fact, this enthusiasm for putting more Americans in uniform (and for increasing overall military spending) reflects the persistence of a second consensus to which leading Democrats and Republicans alike stubbornly subscribe. <BR/><BR/>This second consensus consists of two elements. According to the first element, the only way to win the so-called global war on terrorism, thereby precluding another 9/11, is to "fix" whatever ails the Islamic world. According to the second element, the United States possesses the wherewithal to effect just such a transformation. In essence, by employing American power, beginning with military power, to ameliorate the ills afflicting Islam, we will ensure our own safety.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Increasing the number of troops is not right or wrong in itself. But it should be based on clear strategic decisions about the role the United States intends to play in the world. And continuing to pursue the neocon-inspired Bush Doctrine is not an acceptable option. Certainly Bacevich does not think it is:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The underlying problem is that the basic orientation of U.S. policy since 9/11 has been flat wrong. Bush's conception of waging an open-ended global "war" to eliminate terrorism has failed, disastrously and irredeemably. Simply trying harder — no matter how many more soldiers we recruit and no matter how many more Muslim countries we invade and "liberate" — will not reverse that failure.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Robert Dreyfuss recently wrote (</FONT><A href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174793/robert_dreyfuss_the_pentagon_s_blank_check"><FONT size=2>Financing the Imperial Armed Forces</FONT></A><FONT size=2> TomDispatch.com 06/05/07):<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>[P]residential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are, at present, competing with each other in their calls for the expansion of the Armed Forces. Both are supporting manpower increases in the range of 80,000 to 100,000 troops, mostly for the Army and the Marines. (The current, Bush-backed authorization for fiscal year 2008 calls for the addition of 65,000 more Army recruits and 27,000 Marines by 2012.)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The armed forces in 2001 were optimized for conventional warfare with heavy reliance on high-tech airpower. Rumsfeld's goal for military "transformation" was to continue and increase such reliance, further minimizing the number of troops required for wars. <BR/><BR/>If that's the direction the Congress and the country want to continue, it may not make much sense to be expanding the size of the Army and Marines. But if the direction needs to change to optimize the services for expected counterinsurgency operations, then the need for the current level of investment in aircraft and missiles is too high. (The Star Wars "missile defense" program is a question of a different order; only if the goal is to optimize the military for boondoggle projects does that system make sense.) <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/andrew+bacevich" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>andrew bacevich</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/military+budget" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>military budget</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/robert+dreyfuss" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>robert dreyfuss</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-14170610566376015712007-06-22T15:49:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:09.953-08:00When hippies trash the military<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><FONT size=2>Here's another dang dirty hippie attacking the Defense Department (DOD), accusing it failure in The Surge, saying that the Iraqi don't have any security or sound infrastructure, that they could be there fighting 10 years or more at the current rate and of lacking integrity in their reporting! He even says we likely to lose in Iraq and that our worst enemy in the war has been ourselves. <BR/><BR/>This particular dirty hippie would be Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of the countries most respected independent military analysts who specializes in Middle Eastern issues. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1iFPMiXSL5ZZwhR2e1QR7Q-FvEvRY96iSHWbsHvECSecxcbl-5d4oRP0k6bpaGUSkbDWu00N8Y5IA6uJbUKOeQSH8hz8eHZ7RtTvaMLOxrx80JFZiLYV4LWOSx_OnJ4mAzwe3WhPxRNY/s1600-h/tony+cordesman.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5079001727925029506 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1iFPMiXSL5ZZwhR2e1QR7Q-FvEvRY96iSHWbsHvECSecxcbl-5d4oRP0k6bpaGUSkbDWu00N8Y5IA6uJbUKOeQSH8hz8eHZ7RtTvaMLOxrx80JFZiLYV4LWOSx_OnJ4mAzwe3WhPxRNY/s200/tony+cordesman.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>He's evaluating the Pentagon's official </FONT><A href="http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/9010-Final-20070608.pdf"><FONT size=2>June report</FONT></A><FONT size=2> on conditions in Iraq in his paper, </FONT><A href="http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/070620_iraq_stability.pdf"><FONT size=2>Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of "Measuring Stability in Iraq"</FONT></A><FONT size=2> 06/20/07. Check it out. Cordesman's analysis is 12 pages of mostly grim accounts of how bad the current military, political and economic situation in Iraq is. <BR/><BR/>I don't want to give a wrong impression of Cordesman's argument in the paper. Cordesman supports the war but, unlike so many frivolous war boosters, he has consistently tried to be realistic about the challenges - and even then he may be over-optimistic. He even echoes Republican rhetoric in the following passage when he suggests that Congress could accelerate defeat by forcing a withdrawal. Yet he also says what Republicans consider heresy, that we are losing in Iraq - although it could be debated whether the transitive form "are losing" or the present perfect form "have lost" or the simple past tense "lost" is more accurate. Cordesman writes: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Finally, the June 2007 report may not openly say so, or try to deny the fact, but <STRONG>the US is now losing in Iraq.</STRONG> The pace of this defeat can easily be accelerated over the next six months by continued Iraqi failures at conciliation and growing unwillingness to sustain the war by the US Congress and American people. <STRONG>The facts on the ground can change to the point where the US may be forced into a rushed withdrawal</STRONG>, have to try to ameliorate displacement and separation and/or sectarian and ethnic cleansing, or deal with a level of humanitarian disaster it can now say it will ignore but not be able to ignore if it actually occurs. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>But there seems to be little hope that the Cheney-Bush administration is going to take seriously Cordesman's optimistic-but-hard-headed-realist approach seriously. Cordesman says of the DOD report: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The latest Department of Defense report on "Measuring Stability in Iraq" <STRONG>attempts to put a bad situation in a favorable light</STRONG>. It does not disguise many of the problems involved, but it does attempt to defend the strategy presented by President Bush in January 2007 in ways that sometimes present serious problems. More broadly, it reveals that <STRONG>the President’s strategy is not working in any critical dimension</STRONG>. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>He calls attention to an increasingly troubled area, one which is likely to become much more so as this year goes on, the city of Kirkuk: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>A Kurdish struggle for autonomy and control of the north, displacing Iraqi Arabs, Turcomans, and other minorities, and seeking control of Kirkuk, Iraq’s northern oil resources, and the territory along the ethnic fault line in the north extending westward towards Mosul. Increased violence by displaced Sunni insurgents – including Al Qaeda - against Iraqi Kurdish civilians and politicians, concentrated in Mosul.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>He doesn't expand on it here. But in this paper, he argues that "counterinsurgency" is the wrong approach, and that what is needed instead is "armed nation-building": <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Victory [sic] in Iraq requires success in <STRONG>armed nation-building</STRONG> – <STRONG>a process that can extend over a decade or more</STRONG> – not simply the defeat of the most violent elements in an insurgency. In fact, efforts to bring local security in a narrow area like Baghdad <STRONG>have almost certainly done more harm than good</STRONG>. They have focused toomany resources on one limited task and created a "center of gravity" that cannot have major importance without a far more effective national government and progress towards national conciliation. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>He harshes on the administration for bad reporting. In the world of Serious Military Analysis, this is really a strong criticism: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The US is often the first to call for transparency and integrity in the reporting of other governments. <STRONG>It has never provided transparency or integrity in its reporting on the war in Iraq.</STRONG> It has <STRONG>downplayed the growth of the insurgency</STRONG> and other civil conflicts. It exaggerated progress in the development of Iraqi forces, and has reported meaningless macroecomic figures claiming "progress" in the face of steadily deteriorating economic conditions for most Iraqis outside the Kurdish security zone, and does so in the face of <STRONG>almost incredible incompetence by USAID and the Corps of Engineers</STRONG>. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps most significantly, <STRONG>the US government has never openly discussed or analyzed its failures in not planning for stability operations or conflict termination</STRONG>, in creating an electoral process <STRONG>that polarized Iraqi politics</STRONG> around inexperienced sectarian and ethnic leaders and parties, and in creating <STRONG>a constitution that helped divide the nation without resolving any of the key issues</STRONG> it attempted to address. The same is true of US actions that blocked local and regional elections, allowed de-Ba’athification to remove many of the nation’s most competent secular and nationalist leaders and professionals from power, and failed to act on plans to disband the militias before transferring power from the CPA. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Cordesman argues that this dishonest reporting in effect eleveated short-term public-relations/propaganda considerations above long- and medium-term effectiveness: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>It seems likely that, in retrospect, <STRONG>this lack of transparency and integrity will come back to haunt the US</STRONG>. More honesty, objective self-criticism, serious effort to develop credible strategies and operational plans might well have prevented all of Iraq’s current civil conflicts and problems from reaching anything like their current scale. In fact, <STRONG>if the US loses in Iraq – as seems all too possible – its primary enemy will not have been Al Qa’ida, but the US government</STRONG>. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The fact that some of the most serious criticism of the Cheney-Bush administration's Iraq War policies, and some of the strongest, is appearing in military journals and Web sites and is coming from military-oriented consulting groups like CSIS shouldn't be surprising. Debate over results and a self-critical attitude are necessary elements of getting things right. And its a good thing we're seeing such work from sources like this. <BR/><BR/>But not so much of this information seeps through to our mainstream press. They're too busy pursuing John Edwards' haircuts. Cordesman does get quoted a fair amount in the press. But CSIS is providing a large volume of material like this, easily accessible on their Web site and each normally containing far more meaningful information than ever emerages from one of Tony Snow's White House press gaggles. (I realize that's setting the bar very low.) These are good resources. If bloggers can find them, so can regular reporters. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/anthony+cordesman" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>anthony cordesman</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iraq+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iraq war</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-87886493901115099272007-06-21T16:12:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.531-07:00The analogy that never dies<DIV><FONT size=2>A conference has been going on this week in Virginia Beach called, </FONT><A href="http://www.usni.org/conferences/details.asp?id=4"><FONT size=2>Transformation WARFARE 07</FONT></A><FONT size=2> whose theme is "Reconstituting and Reinventing the Force". <BR/><BR/>Toni Guagenti summarized the speech by former US Iraq commander Gen. John Abizaid, now retired, in </FONT><A href="http://www.usni.org/conferences/onscenereport.asp?id=4#Report2"><FONT size=2>General Abizaid Outlines Iraq War Strategy Focused on Unified Network</FONT></A><FONT size=2> at the Naval Institute Web page 06/20/07. Among other things, Abizaid used guess-which-analogy:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>He emphasized the need to defeat the enemy before the extremist views are thrust upon the majority Middle Easterners, and the world is thrust into another world war. He compared it to Hitler taking over Germany before World War II, even though the majority of Germans didn't support Hitler's politics or his fascist ideologies.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Apparently, in the Long War we're always going to be fighting Hitler and it will always be 1938 and the West - or at least the United States - will always be on the verge of capitulating at the Munich Conference, unless our far-sighted Churchills can keep us alert to the danger. <BR/><BR/>This is what's known as "threat inflation". The companies there looking to promote their products, i.e., high-tech weapons of various sorts, presumably don't feel an incentive to contest such threat inflation.</FONT></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-21853098163350542732007-06-20T14:11:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.531-07:00Pravda and Izvestia, aka, the *Washington Post* and the *New York Times*<DIV class=tags id=tagsLocation>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Up until 10 years ago or so, maybe even later, a title like that would almost certainly be announcing some rightwing rant about the Jew Commie Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press! <BR/><BR/>No more. After Whitewater, the Iraq War, </FONT><A href="http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2005/10/14/the-story-of-general-judy/3415"><FONT size=2>Judith Miller</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, the Scooter Libby case and various and sundry other illustrations of the dysfunction of our "press corps", that's no longer true. Both the <EM>New York Times</EM> and the <EM>Washington Post</EM> still do have responsibile reporters, of course. Even some of their columnists are worth reading most of the time. David Broder the Dean Of All The Pundits from the <EM>Post</EM> is not one of them. <BR/><BR/>But it really has reached the point where the news consumer needs to pay close attention to which reporter's byline is on the article to tell whether you're more likely to be looking at real reporting or simple dictation. Sometimes that gets tricky. At the Post, for instance, you have to remember that it's Dana <EM>Priest</EM> who does solid reporting on foreign affairs but Dana <EM>Milbank</EM> who vigorously pimps lazy press corps scripts about politicians. <BR/><BR/>Gene Lyons, who was one of the first to perceive how badly the mainstream print press was going off the tracks over the Whitewater pseudo-scandal, who compares the <EM>Times</EM> and the <EM>Post</EM> to the old Soviet-era paper Pravda (News) and Izvestian (Truth): </FONT><A href="http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/193516/print/"><FONT size=2>'Act of madness' gains allies in complacent media</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Arkansas Democrat-Gazette</EM> 06/20/07. He quotes the cynical old Soviet joke, "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and no Izvestia in Pravda". <BR/><BR/>The "act of madness" to which he refers is a military attack on Iran. He focuses in particular on a <EM>Washington Post</EM> story, </FONT><A href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061502333.html"><FONT size=2>Iran Curtails Freedom In Throwback to 1979</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Robin Wright 06/16/07, that passes on Chenyist/neocon propaganda about Iran as though it were something other than war propaganda. Pointing out something in the story that doesn't make sense in context, he observes, "Editors are least apt to notice contradictionslike that when they’re taking dictation." <BR/><BR/>Today's <EM>New York Times</EM> offers another example, this one related to our ever-expanding victory in Iraq, </FONT><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20military.html?ex=1339992000&en=4ba20eb2ad26e4cd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss"><FONT size=2>U.S. Seeks to Block Exits for Iraq Insurgents</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Michael Gordon 06/20/07. <BR/><BR/>Now, pretty much all you need to know about Michael Gordon is that he shared Judith Miller's byline on some of her phony stories about the non-existent Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction", phony articles which played an important role in starting the Cheney-Bush administration's unnecessary invasion of Iraq. So you can pretty much count on his articles being straight dictation from some official or other. Which can be interesting to see what the administration prefers to have us think is the true story. <BR/><BR/>This piece reads pretty much like a Pentagon press release. For example:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>In the first hours of the American military assault, after midnight early Monday, helicopters flew two teams of American troops and a platoon of Iraqi scouts so they could block the southern escape routes from the city. Stryker armored vehicles moved along the western outskirts of Baquba and then down a main north-south route that cuts through the center of the city. <BR/><BR/>By the time dawn broke on Tuesday, the insurgent sanctuary in western Baquba had been cordoned off. Then, the American forces established footholds on the periphery of the section and slowly pressed in. "Rather than let the problem export to some other place and then have to fight them again, my goal is to isolate this thing and cordon it off," said Col. Steve Townsend, the commander of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>That last paragraph is the article's first reference to a source. But not only those two paragraphs but the whole article read like something straight from a military PR page. <BR/><BR/>Gordon's dictation tells us that the foe is "Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia". Of course. All the Terrorists in Iraq seem to be "Al Qaida" these days. <BR/><BR/>Another piece of evidence that Gordon took dictation straight from some Pentagon PR hack:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Officers are hoping that local residents and even former insurgents who have splitwith <STRONG>Al Qaeda</STRONG> may quietly help the American troops pick out insurgents. American troops have already begun to work with more than 100 Iraqis on the eastern side of the city — a group American soldiers have nicknamed the <STRONG>"Kit Carson scouts."</STRONG> (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>Kit Carson scouts</EM>? What can you say about that? The PR guy thinks they're huntin' Injuns out there? Good grief! <BR/><BR/>Far down near the end of the article, there is a noteworthy fact, if you happen to get that far and are still paying attention, about how Gen. Petraus' forces is fighting an urban counterinsurgency war in the city of Baquba:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>This American counterinsurgency operation has some of the firepower associated with conventional war. American forces have already fired <STRONG>more than 20 satellite-guided rockets</STRONG> into western Baquba. Apache helicopters have attacked enemy fighters. <BR/><BR/><STRONG>Warplanes</STRONG> have also dropped satellite-guided bombs on suspected roadside bombs and a weapons cache, which produced spectacular secondary explosions after it was struck. M1 tanks have maneuvered through the narrow city lanes. The Americans have responded to insurgent attacks with mortar fire. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>But if there happen to be any civilians killed - you think that will happen with firing rockets and dropping bombs into a populated urban area? - it's their own fault:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>American helicopters dropped leaflets last night urging the residents to stay in their homes. The hope was to keep civilians off the streets while American forces began to close in on the insurgents. The appeal appeared to have little effect, though, as large groups of civilians mingled on the streets Tuesday and some students even sought to go to the local university. <BR/><BR/>The presence of so many civilians on an urban battlefield affords the operatives from <STRONG>Al Qaeda</STRONG> another possible means to elude their American pursuers. If the insurgents do not manage to sneak out, some may hide their weapons and try to blend with the city’s residents. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Hopefully the leaflets were in Arabic, at least. But they got fair warning. And if some of them get killed, it's their own dang fault. Because whatever bomb or rocket kills them was precision-aimed at "Al Qaida". You know, "Al Qaida" withoutweapons. Blending in to look just like regular noncombatants. But our bombs and rockets can tell the difference. <BR/><BR/>But there is a mushroom cloud involved. These two paragraphs end Gordon's transcription:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>On Tuesday afternoon, a Stryker company tried to blaze a path through the road believed to be full of buried bombs by firing a line-charge, a cable festooned with explosions. The hope was that the explosion would cut the wires that the Qaeda fighters use to set off the blasts. <BR/><BR/>After a delay in getting the line-charge to detonate, the weapon went off. There was a resounding thud and the skies over Baquba were smeared by a spiraling mushroom cloud.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Now let me understand this. This means laying a string of explosive along an urban street for, what, a block? five blocks? ten blocks? And then you set off the explosives all along the street. <BR/><BR/>Well, I guess since it's only "Al Qaida" we're fighting, we don't have to worry about any of that "hearts and minds" nonsense, do we? <BR/><BR/>But I wonder if the people who live along the street will flock to the Americans and the Iraqi government forces to inform on "Al Qaida" afterwards. <BR/><BR/>Gordon's dictation transcript doesn't both to mention that Baquba is mostly a Sunni city and that the Iraqi government forces with the Americans are probably all or mostly Shi'a. I guess taking all that dictation from the Pentagon PR guy and typing it up - or did he just have to cut-and-paste from an e-mail - poor Michael Gordon was too tired out to call, say, Juan Cole, who might have told him something like this (</FONT><A href="http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/everyday-apocolypse-in-iraq-war-of.html"><FONT size=2>Everyday Apocolypse in Iraq</FONT></A><FONT size=2> Informed Comment blog post 06/20/07):<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The US offensive in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, is <STRONG>intended to root out Salafi Jihadi forces among the Sunnis</STRONG> that have come to dominate entire neighborhoods and entire towns in the province, which lies between Baghdad and Iran. <STRONG>But most of the forces involved seem to be American and Shiite (the 2,000 'paramilitary police' mentioned are surely from the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council [SIIC], the leading Shiite party with links to Iran</STRONG>). Diyala has a Sunni majority, and a lot of the problems in thatprovince began politically in the first place because SIIC has dominated it politically. In the short term, this operation may 'pacify' Baquba. <STRONG>But likely it will inflict tremendous damage on the city, will cause a lot of the 300,000 or so inhabitants to flee and become refugees, and will likely not change the political situation, which is Shiite dominance of Sunnis along with some Kurdish separatist plans for parts of the province.</STRONG> Falluja had 2/3s of its buildings destroyed and tens of thousands of its former inhabitants are living in tent cities in the desert with bad water, and Falluja is still not secure--kidnappings, shootings, mortar attacks, even car bombings are all still taking place there and in its environs. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>That's our "press corps", well into the fifth year of this war. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/establishment+press" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>establishment press</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iraq+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iraq war</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/mainstream+media" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>mainstream media</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/mainstream+press" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>mainstream press</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-68614915543832854632007-06-19T16:02:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.531-07:00Changing perspectives<DIV><FONT size=2>Sometimes when I look back at something written or said prior to the Cheney-Bush administration, I'm surprised at how much my own way of looking at things has changed. But it's not 9/11 that "changed everything" for me. For that matter, I don't think I've had any drastic turns or breaks in my way of looking at things. But the Iraq War and the administration's torture policy have made me look at some things, particularly in relation to foreign policy, in a different way than I did before. <BR/><BR/>I was reminded of that coming across these three articles: <BR/><BR/>Andrew Bacevich, </FONT><A href="http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3172"><FONT size=2>The World According to Clinton</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>First Things</EM> June/July 1999 <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/bookclub/2007/jun/19/the_idea_that_is_america"><FONT size=2>The Idea that Is America</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Anne-Marie Slaughter TPMCafe 06/19/07 <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/bookclub/2007/jun/19/american_exceptionalism_by_any_other_name"><FONT size=2>American Exceptionalism by any other name...</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by David Rieff TPMCafe 06/19/07 <BR/><BR/>Prior to 2002 or so, Bacevich seems to have published his articles on military and foreign policy issues mainly in conservative journals, of which <EM>First Things</EM> is one. In the 1999 linked above, he is making a thoughtful if somewhat caustic criticism of the Clinton's administration's use of history in terms that apply even more strongly to the neoconservative ideologues who defined not only the surface ideology but also the policies of the Cheney-Bush administration. <BR/><BR/>David Rieff is replying to the Anne-Marie Slaughter post that elaborates a 2007 version of the kind of Clintonian historical moralism that Bacevich discusses. Slaughter's piece is pretty general. But here is how Slaughter describes her Wilsonian framework for US foreign policy:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>We need not only to embrace a vigorous national debate on what we stand for, but also to launch a global debate about the meanings and trade-offs of universal values. Liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility, and faith bind Americans together, but these values do not stop at the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific, or the banks of the Rio Grande and Saint Lawrence. <STRONG>We have always insisted that our values are universal values. Indeed, part of what we think makes us distinctively American is that we hold to a set of values that apply around the world.</STRONG> (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>I'm always dubious when people start talking about "launching a debate". That's one of those things where I want to say, okay, if you think we need to launch a debate, then launch it, don't talk about the need to launch it. <BR/><BR/>Her article's main point is pretty tame. She's saying that Americans need to learn a lot more about how other democracies in the world work. I'm down with that. <BR/><BR/>Where Rieff challenges her is on her moralistic vision of American history as the story of the progress of democracy, which he calls "Whig" history:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>But leave what we have wrought in Latin America from James Monroe through Woodrow Wilson (self-determination, indeed!) to Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan to one side. There is, more generally, something strangely over-intellectualized as well as over-sentimentalized about Anne-Marie’s account of our own history. Take, for example, her argument that our <STRONG>debates</STRONG> about what our values mean constitute what she calls “the essence of our politics, the secret of our success, and the source of our strength as a vibrant, open society.” Frankly, while I might wish this were so, I don’t think there is really much historical basis for the claim.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Rieff takes a shot at the assumption that democracy produces capitalism and vice versa:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Would an economic historian agree that political and moral debate was the secret of our economic success? Perhaps one who subscribes to the neo-liberal and neo-conservative view that democracy engenders successful, liberal capitalist societies would do so? But that, frankly, is utopianism disguised as economics and is, in any case, foundering as China and Russia demonstrate the economic viability of capitalism in an authoritarian political context. </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>I would add that Wilhelminian Germany and France under Napolean III also provide examples of thriving capitalism under an authoritarian-type government.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><BR/>Rieff also calls attention to the fact that much of the world is unlikely to share a Wilsonian vision of American moral virtue:</DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I try to imagine a historically-minded Latin American reading Anne-Marie Slaughter’s claim that the essence of American patriotism is its commitment to “liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility, and faith,” without exploding in bitter laughter and I find that I cannot. ... <BR/><BR/>But is history really a progress, as Anne-Marie claims? Perhaps we are not going ‘forward’ at all, but backwards, or sideways. Frankly that seems far more likely to me and I can’t help wondering, were Anne-Marie herself not trying to ‘rehumanize and revitalize’ what I believe she would think of as the American project, whether she would really disagree? Again, when Anne-Marie speaks of the need to “get our foreign policy back on track,” or, in her justifiable consternation over the Bush administration’s suicidal foreign policy, refers to nations friendly to the United States that think that we Americans “<STRONG>no longer</STRONG> (italics mine [Rieff's]) listen and learn,” I come back to my fantasy of a Latin American reading these words, and I invite Anne-Marie’s readers to ask themselves what any non-American would make of such a claim? <EM>I also cannot help wondering if the nations and peoples who did once believe this were any other than the Europeans grateful at America’s role in their liberation from the Nazis.</EM> But Europe is not the world, and I do not believe that Latin Americans or East Asians ever believed anything of the sort. (my emphasis in italics)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Rieff writes about the notion of American exceptionalism which he finds in Slaughter's work, "What a florid romance Americans make of America!" <BR/><BR/>Bacevich in 1999 was also arguing for a more restrained, more realistic, less messianic vision of America's role in the world. But it was the Clinton administration, then dealing with the Kosovo crisis, to which his main criticism was directed:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The view of history espoused by President Clinton - and the vast aspirations that he and his lieutenants have concocted - appear by comparison naive and pretentious. For this Administration, the true object of the exercise [of promoting its particular interpretation of history] is not understanding or wisdom. Rather, it is to package the past into nice inoffensive bundles, neatly lined up on the near side of the President’s bridge to the new millennium. As we step off into the twenty-first century, Mr. Clinton would have us leave that history behind. But we had best step lively. For the contents of those bundles remain toxic and Mr. Clinton’s packaging is imperfect. Indeed, the bundle marked Kosovo just sprang a leak.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Bacevich in that article discusses at some length the ways in which the Clinton administration tried to promote an interpretation of American history that was optimistic and humane, but also directed toward justifying it's own policy orientation. He argues that the reason such an undertaking was such a priority for Clinton had to do with "the 1960s". Bacevich's description of what that means reflects his own background adhering to more the conservative side of what we now commonly call the "culture war" (although as late as 1992, it sounded shocking and extreme to hear Pat Buchanan talking that way at the Republican National Convention.) <BR/><BR/>Bacevich describes the relevant elements of the "1960s" view he saw as follows:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Foremost among those myths was the assertion that in the twentieth century survival itself had become problematic. ... <BR/><BR/>A second and related element of this mythology was a deep-seated skepticism about the nation’s founding ideals. ... <BR/><BR/>The third element was a corresponding skepticism about America’s role in world affairs.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>But, Bacevich says, the Clintonians discovered that "as a blueprint for governance, the mythology of the 1960s is next to useless." He then cites several examples of Clinton administration rhetoric that I find far more problematic today after seeing Bush, Cheney, Rummy and the neocons bring democracy and liberty to Iraq through bombs, bullets and torture. He writes:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>In the new age of globalization that beckons, according to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a speech at Tennessee State University, the United States provides the "organizing principal" [sic]. America’s place is at "the center of this emerging international system." Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has gone a step further, declaring that <STRONG>the United States is "hegemon and proud of it."</STRONG> ... <BR/><BR/>The American claim to being the "organizing principal" of the new age rests on the certainty that the United States embodies that right side, and that Americans, especially senior government officials, are uniquely equipped to discern the direction of world affairs. After all, as Secretary Albright has explained, <STRONG>"We stand tall, and therefore we can see further into the future."</STRONG> The mission of the United States on the eve of the new millennium is to coax others into acknowledging the direction in which historical forces tend, to commend those nations that are moving in concert with history, and to chide the reluctant to get with the program. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>And this one particularly caught my eye after seeing Bush and Cheney's faith-based foreign policy in action:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Thus, during President Jiang Zemin’s 1997 visit to the United States, Mr. Clinton publicly rebuked the Chinese government for being on "the wrong side of history." A year later, explaining the rationale for his own trip to China, the President told reporters that "one of the things I have to do is ... <STRONG>to create for them a new and different historical reality</STRONG>." (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Now, the Clinton administration never had the absurd level of hubris Cheney and Rummy and the neocons have displayed in recent years. In general, the tried to keep themselves "reality-based". <BR/><BR/>But still, I think we have to be careful about letting our leaders, Republican or Democratic, hide behind pretty abstract ideals. We have to look at the realities their actions are producing. And when it comes to wars, we should (1) avoid them whenever reasonably possible and (2) insist that policy-makers take full account of the specific realities of that country instead of invading the country that <I>imagine</I> is there instead of the country that we're actually invading. <BR/><BR/>Today, the following comment of Bacevich's resonates with me much more strongly than it would have in 1999:<BR/></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>There are those, on both the left and the right, who will find much to applaud in the prospect of the United States exerting itself to "shape history." There are others, again across the political spectrum, who will judge such an endeavor to be suffused with arrogance and doomed to fail.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/andrew+bacevich" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>andrew bacevich</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/anne-marie+slaughter" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>anne-marie slaughter</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/david+rieff" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>david rieff</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-4463341203468536152007-06-18T23:23:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:10.612-08:00Zorro update: Selenia comes through!<FONT size=2>In the June 18 episode, #88 by my count, Selenia finally put the hoodoo on Mariángel (Mangle) to make her madly in love - and wildly in lust - for Olmos the evil hunchback. Mangle and Olmos deserve each other. And this is going to fun to see! <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9X1B7HgvMH_V0kUDq28V0QUkXO6ptBA5vFVrNRqo8UtduZtIN0a6puFxLTDwKcqR6vlA8I5XzlDPtZSJOwtejdO80E7lwa1vEO-6lJHjCTB_3z1lonyoXBPcm81qF5AKYJgXfNMrk2V4/s1600-h/selenia+y+mangle.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077650565573446194 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9X1B7HgvMH_V0kUDq28V0QUkXO6ptBA5vFVrNRqo8UtduZtIN0a6puFxLTDwKcqR6vlA8I5XzlDPtZSJOwtejdO80E7lwa1vEO-6lJHjCTB_3z1lonyoXBPcm81qF5AKYJgXfNMrk2V4/s320/selenia+y+mangle.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000> The One the Only the Great Selenia visits Mangle's sickbed (with the local doctor/dentist/undertaker Agapito in the background)</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Selenia arrives at Mangle sick-bed and insists she needs to talk to her alone. It's still a dark and stormy night and lightening flashes and thunder crashes as Selenia walks in. Sure, it's melodramatic and corny. But in the telenovela genre, it works just fine. <BR/><BR/>Selenia hypnotizes Mangle with her red ring. We don't get to hear what all Selenia tells her. But Mangle wakes up hot for Olmos. As she tells her dear daddy el Gobernador Fernando when he comes to visit later, to his considerable surprise. It's not entirely clear whether it was the love potion, the hypnosis or the combination of the two that got Mangle going. I'm guessing both, but who cares? She's going to be lusting after evil little Olmos now, who displayed his character in this episode by selling García and Esmeralda to slave traders - at a cut rate, even. <BR/><BR/>But García did save Esmeralda from being executed by Capitán Pizarro. Esmeralda was pretty much completely out of it, but she had a lucid moment or two, during one of which she told Pizarro that as long as she was alive, she would seek revenge for the death of her baby. Who we know isn't really dead and is safe with Diego at the hacienda. But she doesn't know that. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZkUOUBrF60wg0gBsVd3JVfQ6TMwTsBgRC3UdAC7kxcZaJ3YTpj1XkMFbSK5zI_MpaZx63jeOf8ouxL-ODvJ9tAGqtLGDVX5jRxAUU0gNF8RFTLe_Rj_CI4rWJ10ciW4yN-VPL_RvMME/s1600-h/queen+and+zorro+2.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077652975050099266 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZkUOUBrF60wg0gBsVd3JVfQ6TMwTsBgRC3UdAC7kxcZaJ3YTpj1XkMFbSK5zI_MpaZx63jeOf8ouxL-ODvJ9tAGqtLGDVX5jRxAUU0gNF8RFTLe_Rj_CI4rWJ10ciW4yN-VPL_RvMME/s320/queen+and+zorro+2.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>Zorro had a nice chat with Queen Ana Louisa in her bedchamber. He came off aggressive at first, accusing her of being behind the murders of Sara Kalí and Esmeralda. (Neither of whom are dead but Zorro doesn't know that.) But the Queen was surprised and promised to follow up on it. Other than sneaking into her bedroom armed in the middle of the night, he was the perfect gentleman. Except he refused to take off his mask despite repeated royal demands to do so. <BR/><BR/>Zorro promised to return the following night to talk to her and el Duque Jacobo, who was not thrilled to hear about this. But they have a date. <BR/><BR/>We didn't see Yumalai/Guadalupe in this episode. But I mentioned in a earlier post that she's into the Guadalupe Spanish mode at the moment. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGdh1zh2T84MLip2iI1u_77fveOFQ_IIcoPZePo2XITgNz4LtBOucCevzi4VyUPZNnu2s0Fmu7Wdche-M7I9Ytgz2eQHDdPnYGV23vca1nulwJeeLPltmHQU7wY0uZlgDojSUCwN_EoA/s1600-h/yumalai+3.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077655899922827890 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGdh1zh2T84MLip2iI1u_77fveOFQ_IIcoPZePo2XITgNz4LtBOucCevzi4VyUPZNnu2s0Fmu7Wdche-M7I9Ytgz2eQHDdPnYGV23vca1nulwJeeLPltmHQU7wY0uZlgDojSUCwN_EoA/s200/yumalai+3.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Yumalai in Guadalupe mode</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro+telenovela" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro telenovela</FONT></A>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-73602020376863197602007-06-18T20:56:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:12.179-08:00Zorro: Capítulos 83-87 (June 11-15)<DIV class=tags id=tagsLocation><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLtTdFg2NZL3_eYFoEf9HOk0QXLofr2DUDt-aJ_8TC9iUBPhb_7EUJQqqleQFMFfAFeY-npAbyATjKQmFKjXrej7K0T_9gZwVXLn7JcQHbXow3vEw_NBO3Ac8kQMLg8b_FG220HM5Cus/s1600-h/queen+and+zorro.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077607298072906210 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLtTdFg2NZL3_eYFoEf9HOk0QXLofr2DUDt-aJ_8TC9iUBPhb_7EUJQqqleQFMFfAFeY-npAbyATjKQmFKjXrej7K0T_9gZwVXLn7JcQHbXow3vEw_NBO3Ac8kQMLg8b_FG220HM5Cus/s320/queen+and+zorro.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Only the Shadow knows...Zorro visits the Queen in her bedroom</STRONG></FONT> <BR/><BR/>The action on Zorro moved ahead rapidly during the week of June 15 because they skipped six months into the future. Also, five out of five episodes included the One the Only the Great Selenia, a trend which I hope will continue. By the end of the week, Zorro was in the bedroom of Queen Ana Louisa, la Reina de España. La Reina has arrived in Los Ángeles and insisted on meeting first with the De la Vegas, who she considers allies. <BR/><BR/>El Duque Jacobo was obviously not thrilled with this. Diego communicates some of his suspicions of el Duque to Alejandro and María Pía. El Duque wastes no time plunging into new intrigues. He tells one of his co-conspirators that he will make sure the heads of el Comandante Montero and el Gobernador Fernando roll, literally, if Sara Kalí turns up alive. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiaZHOfphAGoxEpPjgwAfYIFSgMXuGG-S7iCzSX7zgIyBPkDTP9qfcZ1xRpQLA-qgRvSdev6ADHUUhjI15blubWE4LUAhH4PPPRcPPIVinFPoPyFjr411upGcwbHuyLuNsIvT8aPRTr7E/s1600-h/sara+kali+mercedes+moyorga+3.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077610218650667538 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiaZHOfphAGoxEpPjgwAfYIFSgMXuGG-S7iCzSX7zgIyBPkDTP9qfcZ1xRpQLA-qgRvSdev6ADHUUhjI15blubWE4LUAhH4PPPRcPPIVinFPoPyFjr411upGcwbHuyLuNsIvT8aPRTr7E/s320/sara+kali+mercedes+moyorga+3.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Sara Kalí rallies the gitanos to confront the Queen of Spain</STRONG></FONT> <BR/><BR/>Speaking of Sara Kalí, she has revealed herself to the gitano tribe and she's ready to go to Los Ángeles to contact the Queen, who is her cousin Ana Louisa. Sara Kalí says the Queen was not part of the plot to kill off her family and she thinks that the Queen will do the right thing if they can just get to her and convince her that she's really Mercedes Mayorga de Aragón. <BR/><BR/>After the time-jump, both Mari<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">á</SPAN>ngel (fondly known as Mangle to many <EM>Zorro</EM> fans) and Esmeralda have their babies on the same dark and stormy night that the Queen arrives in town. There are some nice plot parallels involved. Bothare assisted in the birth only by a short guy, Esmeralda by García and Mangle by Olmos. Esmeralda has the better deal. <BR/><BR/>I should mention here that, to my surprise, el Comandante before the time-jump managed to get Esmeralda back into her basement cell, where she languished for the next six months. After she gives birth to a health Diego, Jr., with García's help, el Comandante takes the baby away and gives it to el Capitán Pizarro to kill. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6z7ExNFYR9jslnnozrceHk-7CsJH2ZUbI5IUxTXW533EQdChQ3tuuVlW4h7H7JSiNq0kRUUVyEMWHFfTtuf18AdzEawCCzc_avjh0QfEM-EY_XxIfpBPaqEWjebOBzTGumVHFvvH4XWg/s1600-h/selenia+and+olmos+gun.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077609144908843522 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6z7ExNFYR9jslnnozrceHk-7CsJH2ZUbI5IUxTXW533EQdChQ3tuuVlW4h7H7JSiNq0kRUUVyEMWHFfTtuf18AdzEawCCzc_avjh0QfEM-EY_XxIfpBPaqEWjebOBzTGumVHFvvH4XWg/s320/selenia+and+olmos+gun.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Ooohhhh... Olmos! Do you think the One the Only the Great Selenia is impressed with your little gun? Selenia and her magic dwarf Tarsisio face down a distraught Olmos</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>The births also highlight the characters of the short guys. García is bumbling, feckless, a bit cowardly, and not terribly bright but basically good at heart. Back at Mangle's bedside, the scheming Olmos also shows his character. Mangle's baby is born dead, because Olmos couldn't wait to give us Selenia's love potion. It killed the baby and Mangle still doesn't love him yet. She's also dying it seems, though Selenia says she can save her. Olmos is panicked and can only think of going to kill Selenia. Which he can't pull off, of course. <BR/><BR/>But it winds up that Pizarro leaves Esmeralda's baby (Diego's real child) in the cemetery and Olmos picks him up and substitutes him for Mangle's still-born child. So baby Diego winds up at the De la Vega hacienda. <BR/><BR/>There a poison plot parallel, too. Mangle winds up poisoned because love-crazed and sex-starved Olmos gave her the love potion while she was still pregnant. Meanwhile, Mangle has been poisoning Almudena back at the hacienda for six months. <BR/><BR/>Almudena is still hanging in there, but just barely. Yumalai has apparently learned a lot of Spanish ways in the missing six months, because after the time-jump we've so far onlyseen her in her Spanish/Guadalupe mode. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU1RLO5w7S1T32zBlX5_eNtujkVtdSH5DjVR7RYmJbtlvI7e2xcEx3eeUjp5mutvJ11ddI0a1wdsR1CP6upcH3uMvTeb7yYWn9QzI8YAzcCE5slQ2izK6wGgSuF4MBaiKzczet-WBvPW4/s1600-h/aaron+y+senorita.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077607667440093682 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU1RLO5w7S1T32zBlX5_eNtujkVtdSH5DjVR7RYmJbtlvI7e2xcEx3eeUjp5mutvJ11ddI0a1wdsR1CP6upcH3uMvTeb7yYWn9QzI8YAzcCE5slQ2izK6wGgSuF4MBaiKzczet-WBvPW4/s320/aaron+y+senorita.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Does Aaron the Exorcist have a girlfriend? (she can't measure up to the One the Only the Great Selenia, I'm sure!) - Aaron flirts with a señorita while he stalks el Gobernador Fernando</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Before the time-jump, we see Aaron the Exorcist in the background discretely paying close attention to el Gobernador Fernando. Fernando tells his guard not to bother him, that he's a strange saint, or something to that effect.Aaron the Exorcist, Selenia and Yumalai/Guadalupe are my favorite characters in this telenovela. <BR/><BR/>And it would be a shame to conclude with one more Selenia note. Here she's watching the Queen arrive but chatting with Tarsisio the magic dwarf about Olmos and Mangle: <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7R6_8q2HkslAQgd_Wg67hcrH_C6yttQOdfYiilA_3R0Etipw1LquM1YGlQI8eY-tgpxuqNckr6TJG5c7u2Znufs0J-dqKZgtB8G5BudMmeHc_i40j8Ih8JMKW2jeVHZoZ8AsIkjupY4/s1600-h/selenia+37.JPG"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077611429831445026 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7R6_8q2HkslAQgd_Wg67hcrH_C6yttQOdfYiilA_3R0Etipw1LquM1YGlQI8eY-tgpxuqNckr6TJG5c7u2Znufs0J-dqKZgtB8G5BudMmeHc_i40j8Ih8JMKW2jeVHZoZ8AsIkjupY4/s320/selenia+37.JPG" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Gratuitous Selenia picture</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro+telenovela" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro telenovela</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-84796622589145129472007-06-18T20:01:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:12.356-08:00Christian cultism?<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3lspBleg1nfhtbLk9IpZrEAdQJeKAijKFxPFOSi7m3liCwrmGh5MYyfXNRZa9ca-tFDTPtx78YgxXSpcTmr9MitkL_Bag_rk6RSLisgwlos6UlMI0fidPZfIs1pBRMp7G2zXay6JrhA/s1600-h/aaron+cult+2.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5077602917206264274 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3lspBleg1nfhtbLk9IpZrEAdQJeKAijKFxPFOSi7m3liCwrmGh5MYyfXNRZa9ca-tFDTPtx78YgxXSpcTmr9MitkL_Bag_rk6RSLisgwlos6UlMI0fidPZfIs1pBRMp7G2zXay6JrhA/s320/aaron+cult+2.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Cults don't always look like this (actually, this is Aaron the Exorcist from the <EM>Zorro: la espada y la rosa</EM> telenovela, one of my favorite characters)</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>The 04/19/07 issue of <EM>Rolling Stone</EM> carried an article by Jeff Sharlet about Ron Luce's fundamentalist Christian group </FONT><A href="http://www.battlecry.com/"><FONT size=2>BattleCry</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, "Teenage Holy War". <EM>Rolling Stone</EM> placed </FONT><A href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14021621/teenage_holy_war/print"><FONT size=2>an excerpt</FONT></A><FONT size=2> from the first part of the article online. <BR/><BR/>Sharlet's article is disturbing enough. But I was struck by one passage in the print version that shows that the group has some definite cult-like tendencies. But Sharlet didn't flag them that way. I can only guess what decisions he or his editors may have made. But it's also possible that Sharlet, like most journalists, wouldn't recognize these as warnings of cult tendencies. <BR/><BR/>He reports on the Honor Academy, which is prominently featured on </FONT><A href="http://www.honoracademy.com/"><FONT size=2>the group's Web site</FONT></A><FONT size=2> at the present writing. The Academy is said to be a one-year experience for teenagers. Sharlet reports, "Students, called interns, come for a year or more between high school and college." <BR/><BR/>And he describes one of the striking features of the Honor Academy "campus":<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>There's also what they call the "Back 40," several hundred acres on which stand more primitive structures, retreats for toughening up the kids, and a Quonset-hut officer's club for <STRONG>those who stay to become employees or permanent volunteers, forgoing college or earning mail-order degrees from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University</STRONG>.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>That mention of some of the kids deciding to stay living in apparently Spartan conditions permanently really caught my eye. Especially giving the socially restrictive conditions Sharlet describes. Here's his portrait of a typical day there:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Intern days begin as early as 4:45 A.M. •with an hour of group exercise on the court near the Academy's swimming pool. Mornings are for classes: There's "Character Development," which focuses on "obedi-ence" and "purity," and the "World View Mocule," in which one learns to see current events around the world through the lens of obedience and purity.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>"Purity" for BattleCry means, especially, no sex. And presumably no lustful thoughts, either. <BR/><BR/>Then there's this:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Further reinforcement comes from the Academy's required "Life Transforming Events," the most grueling of which is ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of a Lifetime). <STRONG>Luce was reluctant to share details about the "Opportunity," a fifty-to-ninety-hour sleep-deprived endurance test</STRONG>, but a short video of the 2005 ESOAL provides revealing glimpses: students weeping and dragging giant wooden crosses on their shoulders; <STRONG>a boy rolling and puking across a field while a senior intern "sergeant" in camouflage and a helmet urges him on</STRONG>; a platoon of weeping girls; a shell-shocked boy mumbling into the camera, <STRONG>"Don't know what time it is.... Don't know what matters. ... Don't even necessarily know who I can trust."</STRONG> (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The Web site presents a </FONT><A href="http://www.honoracademy.com/esoal.php"><FONT size=2>2006 ESOAL video</FONT></A><FONT size=2> as of this writing. <BR/><BR/>As hair-raising as that sounds, Sharlet's article doesn't provide enough information about the right factors, such as what kind of personal authority Luce and his senior assistants exercise over their most devoted members, to say definitively that he's describing a cult. <BR/><BR/>But there are some screaming warning signs there that this group could be a cult, or a group evolving into a cult. <BR/><BR/>In any case, it's hard to imagine a camp like that is really constructive or healthy for 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/battlecry" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>battlecry</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/cults" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>cults</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/ron+luce" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>ron luce</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-27069022780075760412007-06-18T16:38:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.532-07:00Iran War propaganda<DIV><FONT size=2>Gareth Porter writes on </FONT><A href="http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38121"><FONT size=2>Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed</FONT></A><FONT size=2> Inter Press Service 06/11/07. He writes that the drug trade certainly accounts for some trafficing of arms along the Iran-Afghanistan border:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates and [NATO Afghanistan commander Gen. Dan] McNeill are obviously aware of the link between arms entering Afghanistan from Iran and the flow of heroin from Afghanistan into Iran. It is well known that Afghan drug lords who command huge amounts of money have been able to penetrate the long and porous border with ease. They have undoubtedly been involved in buying arms in Iran with their drug proceeds for both themselves and the Taliban, which protects their drug routes. Smuggling is relatively easy because of the money available for bribery of border guards. <BR/><BR/>Another factor helping to explain the influx of arms from Iran, as noted by former Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Momand in an interview on Pakistan's GEO television Apr. 19, is that the Taliban now controls areas on the Iranian border for the first time. Momand said the Taliban, which is awash in money from the heroin exports to Iran, buys small quantities of weapons in Iran and smuggles them back into Afghanistan. <BR/><BR/>But the Iranian government itself is not involved in the trade in arms, Momand insisted.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>He also reminds us that the bulk of outside arms supplied to the Taliban is coming from Pakistan, an ally in Bush's Global War on Terrorism:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Afghanistan specialist Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation, who visited Afghanistan most recently in early 2007, says some elements of the Iranian government may be involved in arms trafficking but that it is "very small-scale support" and that Iran does not want to strengthen the Taliban. <BR/><BR/>NATO commanders in Pakistan have long been aware that the Taliban has been dependent on Pakistan for its arms and ammunition. The Telegraph reported Sunday that a NATO report on a recent battle shows the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells and had stocked over one million rounds of ammunition, all of which came from Quetta, Pakistan during the spring months.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/afghanistan+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>afghanistan war</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iran+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iran war</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-72471155519645621452007-06-17T12:29:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:12.533-08:00Kurt Waldheim, the "all-powerful lobby" and contemporary anti-Semitism<DIV class=tags id=tagsLocation><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTcWiPV8gmAYhbiEF3b4p4qbcBPWGpRy27YfM2jPHFjxqlUXof85tmrYcyHFXomA8ZJYs2dI_blELokbxt5B9se5WM_gI9TO5BjT3H7JN3cQhn34kfm6_hi-lFHlb6Q5EkuKCMbrpZ9E/s1600-h/kozara+refugees.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076747424145410466 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTcWiPV8gmAYhbiEF3b4p4qbcBPWGpRy27YfM2jPHFjxqlUXof85tmrYcyHFXomA8ZJYs2dI_blELokbxt5B9se5WM_gI9TO5BjT3H7JN3cQhn34kfm6_hi-lFHlb6Q5EkuKCMbrpZ9E/s320/kozara+refugees.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Refugees from the Kozara massacre, perpetrated in 1942; Waldheim was in Bosnia as an intelligence officer on the staff of the West Bosnia Combat Group of Army Group 12 (later Heeresgruppe E) while Group 12 was helping Croatian fascists carry out the massacre and subsequent deportations of survivors to Croatian camps</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>In the tenth anniversary year of his 1986 Presidential campaign, Kurt Waldheim sat for an interview with G. Hoffmann-Osterhof of <EM>Profil</EM> magazine, which appeared in the 17.06.1996 number of <EM>Profil</EM> under the title "Everyone is Afraid". Here I'm going to give long excerpts from my translation of that interview with some comments of my own. <EM>Profil</EM>'s questions are in italics. The bolding for emphasis is mine. <BR/><BR/>Keep in mind while reading these excerpts that Waldheim in his posthumous "reconciliation" plea complained mightily that he would like to have take a clear historical stand on the crimes of the Third Reich, even though he still denied having done anything wrong in his Wehrmacht service in the bloody partisan warfare and deportations of Jews, Bosnians and Macedonians in the Balkans. In this 1996 interview, he presumably had the opportunity to express his honest view of such matter. <BR/><BR/>He even says in his first response below that he believed enough time had passed to deal with these things dispassionately". So presumably, the 1996 interview reflected his dispassionate intellectual understanding of the issues he addresses.<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM><U>Profil</U>: Herr Doctor Waldheim, the title of your book that has just been published is "Die Antwort" (The Answer). But it contain little beyond that which you have already said in the course of recent years. Why did you really write this book?</EM> <BR/><BR/><U>Waldheim</U>: I wanted to make a summary presentation of my case. On July 8, it will be exactly 10 years ago that I assumed the office of Federal President. Therefore I thought that enough time had passed <STRONG>to deal withthese things dispassionately</STRONG>. But when you say there is nothing new in it, then I don't share that view. For example, I describe what happened when the President of the World Jewish Congress [WJC], Edgar Bronfman, brought pressure to bear on the American Secretary of State, George Schultz, and the US Attorney General, Edwin Meese, to place me on the watch list. It weighed heavily on the two government officials that the Jewish organizations of the USA gave little recognition to the Republican Administration's services on Jewish concerns. Bronfman merely replied, "Our behavior in the Presidential election of 1988 depends on your behavior." When Meese asked, "And what should we do?", Bronfman declared that it would be a useful signal to place Waldheim on the watch list. That is a kind of pressure that is unusual in international life - especially when it concerns two states that have traditionally had friendly relations.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>It's true that the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations pressed publicly and privately for Waldheim to be placed on the US watch list, which effectively prevented him from travelling to the US. Waldheim does not mention that Greek organizations in the US were doing the same. He does not site his source for this alleged conversation of Edgar Bronfman with Meese and Schultz. <BR/><BR/>Hoffmann-Osterhof followed up with a sensible question:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>But is it not normal in America that lobbies - Jewish and Arab lobbies, gun lobbies and environmental lobbies and many others - raise their concerns to the government? American politics these days is often described that way. What was so special about that?</EM> <BR/><BR/>The brutal form. I have established serious grounds for that of which I have just spoken.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Waldheim's "dispassionate" response was to duck the question and whine.<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>In your book, you write about the not merely "powerful" but rather "all-powerful" Israeli lobby, which exerts pressure on politics in America and other states. Perhaps the Israeli lobby has influence, but just how is it "all-powerful"?</EM> <BR/><BR/>We are not experts, but we have at least an insight, because we were compelled to occupy ourselves with it. You need only to read the book by Herr Rosenbaum, the current head of the [US Justice Department's] Office of Special Investigation. Everything is there. Howthe World Jewish Congress was glad that Meese declared himself ready to turn the Waldheim case over to the OSI, while they were thereby spared a lot of work - and above all money - if the investigation was carried out by the Justice Department. That is also something that doesn't come out here in this form - this cooperation. First Herr Rosenbaum was at the Jewish Congress, then he became chief of the OSI - the gentlemen exchange the positions over and over - Neil Sher, Rosenbaum, Sternberg and others.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The book to which Waldheim refers there is Eli MRosenbaum with William Hoffer, <EM>Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up</EM> (1993). <BR/><BR/>Waldheim's repeated references to Rosenbaum's book <EM>Betrayal</EM> are striking. He later says, "I can only recommend that you read the Rosenbaum book closely." Waldheim gives the impression that the book supports his argument of an "all-powerful" Jewish conspiracy against him. <BR/><BR/>In fact, Waldheim's comments were more of a "preemptive strike" against the book, which had not been published in a German-language edition at that time (and as far as I can tell from an Internet search, has never been published in German). As an experienced prosecutor and war crimes investigator, Rosenbaum makes a persuasive case that, during Waldheim's wartime service in the Balkans, he was directly implicated in criminal actions including: reprisal killings of civilians, among them the notorious the Kozara massacre in western Bosnia led by the fascist Croatian Ustashi forces; the murder of British prisoners-of-war; deportation of Jews to death camps; transport of Italian prisoners to slave-labor camps after Italy's surrender; and, the authorization of anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets. (One of the leaflets apparently authorized by Waldheim exhorted Soviet soldiers, "Enough of the Jewish war. Come over. Kill the Jews." See p. 338 of the book.) Rosenbaum also paints a highly unflattering picture of Waldheim during and after the 1986 election campaign.<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>But at that time there were also internal Austrian political aspects.</EM> <BR/><BR/>Yes, of course, the whole thing was first of all an internal political campaign. My political opponents in Austria at that time attempted to destroy my chances of becoming Federal President - and they did very well at it back then. The accusations and suspicions were then passed on to the USA. As a result - this is also in the book by Rosenbaum - they sent a Jewish emissary to Vienna, who met with an Austrian in the Stadtpark (city park). <BR/><BR/><EM>Evidently with Hans Pusch, the head of the Cabinet of then-Federal Chancellor FredSinowatz...</EM> <BR/><BR/>The emissary is said to have met with him, among others. Therefore the Jewish Congress - as one can read in Rosenbaum - sent someone to Vienna at the wishes of the Lobby here in order to get incriminating information.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>What Waldheim says here is consistent with Rosenbaum's account. In his book, Rosenbaum describes how he himself went to Vienna and met with a representative from the Socialist Party (since renamed the Social Democratic Party) who he identifies only with the pseudonym "Karl Schuller." In the following, Waldheim refers to Rosenbaum melodramatically as "the emissary." <BR/><BR/>As I said in an earlier post, I've never understood why the Socialists felt like that had to do such a cloak-and-dagger routine instead of surfacing the information themselves. For one thing, it did make it easier for Waldheim and his supporters to make the whole thing sound like a sleazy smear campaign. <BR/><BR/>According to Rosenbaum's account, it was Leon Zelman, director of the Jewish Welcome Service of Vienna and survivor of the Mauthausen and Auschwitz camps, who made the first contact with the World Jewish Congress about investigating Waldheim's wartime past. Rosenbaum describes Zelman as having "played a leading role in achieving a rapprochement of sorts between the Jewish world and the people of Austria." (p. 3)<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>What is so reprehensible about that?</EM> <BR/><BR/>What concern did Herr Rosenbaum and the Lobby over there have with the Austrian election campaign? The Presidency was an internal political concern of Austria... <BR/><BR/><EM>With a candidate who was UN Secretary General for 10 years.</EM> <BR/><BR/>It is a generally recognized international principle that one does not interfere in the "domestic affairs" - as it is so beautifully called - in the internal political matters of another country. <BR/><BR/><EM>Do you now mean the interference of the World Jewish Congress?</EM> <BR/><BR/>In the specific case, I mean the World Jewish Congress. But also seen generally. <BR/><BR/><EM>But do many organization not interfere in the internal matter so states, for example, Amnesty International and Greenpeace?</EM> <BR/><BR/>I just think that it should have been a normal election campaign. I was most deeply convinced that I had not committed any crimes and that the accusations against me were unjustified. Three international commissions and institutions examined the charges against me and came to the conclusion that the accusations against Dr. Waldheim were unjustified.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The interviewer keeps challenging Waldheim with what should be obvious, that the things that the WJC did which Waldheim tries to make sound sinister and unusual were actually things that lobbies and various NGOs (non-governmental organizations) do all the time. Waldheim was also one of the most prominent people in the world at that time, having served two terms as Secretary-General of the UN. <BR/><BR/>Waldheim here applies a typical tactic of anti-Semites and other conspiracy-mongers. He omits the fact that there were many groups and individuals, both inside Austria and out, who were at a minimum concerned about the revelations. <BR/><BR/>Another aspect of the case that I haven't yet seen mentioned in the obituary summaries involves the fact that some of the material that implicated Waldheim in war crimes were held by the Communist Tito government of Yugoslavia. One questioned raised by the revelations in 1986 was whether Yugoslavia could have been using those materials in some way to blackmail Waldheim when he was Secretary-General of the UN. But, so far as I'm aware, there was never even circumstantial proof that such blackmail occurred. It was only a theoretical possibility. And that element was also not at all central to the controversy. <BR/><BR/>Waldheim didn't say which "three international commissions and institutions" it was to which he was referring. <EM>But the Report of the International Commission of Historians Designated to Establish the Military Service of Lt. Kurt Waldheim</EM>, a Commission assembledby Austrian officials with Waldheim's approval, concluded in its report issued February 8, 1988:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The resulting picture is one of varying proximity to criminal measures and orders under the rules of war. ... In general, some guilt must arise simply from knowledge of violation of human rights, when the person concerned - through lack of personal strength or courage - neglects his duty as a human being in intervening against injustices. ... <BR/><BR/>The Commission has received no indication of any case in which Waldheim raised objection to, protested at, or took steps against an order for an injustice of which he was certainly aware, in order to prevent or at least hinder the realization of the injustice. <STRONG>On the contrary, he repeatedly assisted in connection with illegal actions and thereby facilitated their perpetration.</STRONG> (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The Austrian Press Service responded to the Commission's report with a bold "preemptive strike" on behalf of their President. The day before the report was released, the Service released a statement stating simply that the Commission "found no evidence" of Waldheim's complicity in war crimes. President Waldheim himself said that his role in the war "was the normal fare of a young Austrian." Presumably, this sharply critical report is one of those to which Waldheim refers in this interview as having come "to the conclusion that accusations against Dr. Waldheim were unjustified." <BR/><BR/>In the following, the <EM>Profil</EM> interviewer continues to press him on his conspiracy theory about the vaguely-defined Jewish lobby that Waldheim described in his book as "all-powerful":<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>Nevertheless, you were isolated. How do you explain that such respectable independent newspapers as the "Neue Zurcher Zeitung" [Zurich] and "Le Monde " [Paris] reported on you negatively? Did they also come under the pressure of the Lobby?</EM> <BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, I cannot completely exclude it. Some are coming under this pressure - even until today! <BR/><BR/><EM>What constitutes the power of this Lobby?</EM> <BR/><BR/><STRONG>Look who rules in America. Then you will see it.</STRONG> <BR/><BR/><EM>How is this pressure exercised concretely -for instance, on newspaper editors? Are they appealed to?</EM> <BR/><BR/><STRONG>It is a worldwide network that is in operation here. It has great power. I can only recommend that you read the Rosenbaum book closely. There are revelations in it.</STRONG> It is emphatically confirmed that <STRONG>this worldwide network is enormously effective</STRONG>. There is also pressure against journalists. Some, that I still know of from my time in New York, have told me that they lost their jobs because they supported me and tried to counter the smears (Verleumdungen).</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>This is typical anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory talk. Waldheim again ducked the reality-based questions that the interviewer had posed. He didn't name any of the journalists who had allegedly lost their jobs because of supporting him. <BR/><BR/>In the following passage, the discussion refers to the major exhibition "War of Extermination: Crimes of the Wehrmacht, 1941-1944," which appeared in Hamburg in 1995 and Vienna in 1995-96. The exhibition challenged the tendency to minimize the role of the Wehrmacht, the regular armed forces in World War II, in war crimes and especially in the Holocaust. <BR/><BR/>The exhibit was very controversial because the popular image of the Wehrmacht in both Germany and Austria was that the Wehrmacht had largely performed as a professional military and had no distinct responsibility for the Holocaust, in particular. Since so many millions of German men had been required to served in the Wehrmacht - including men like Waldheim from the Ostmark (annexed Austria) - there was a particular sensitivity about any implication that simply serving in the Wehrmacht directly implicated a person in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Waldheim made full use of this general sentiment about the Wehrmacht to pose as an ordinary German soldiers who did his duty without committing war crimes. <BR/><BR/>Although it's not relevant to anything Waldheim says in the interview, the Wehrmacht exhibition received close scrutiny, and was eventually withdrawn from public viewing in order to make a number of corrections in response to some legitimate criticisms from historians, including some photos that were incorrectly identified in the exhibit. <BR/><BR/>A German speech by Hans-Ulrich Wehler, on of Germany's leading historians, is available online at </FONT><A href="http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/Universitaet/Einrichtungen/Pressestelle/dokumente/Reden/Rede_Wehler_Er%F6ffnungWA.html"><FONT size=2>Wehrmacht und Nationalsozialismus</FONT></A><FONT size=2> 27.01.2002, given on the occasion of the reopening of the corrected exhibit. The Hamburg Institut f<A name=OLE_LINK2></A><A name=OLE_LINK1><SPAN lang=DE style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: DE; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><SPAN style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2">ü</SPAN></SPAN></A>r Sozialforschung has a Web page on the exhibit, </FONT><A href="http://www.verbrechen-der-wehrmacht.de/docs/home.htm"><FONT size=2>Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941-1944</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. An </FONT><A href="http://www.verbrechen-der-wehrmacht.de/docs/home_e.htm"><FONT size=2>English version</FONT></A><FONT size=2> is also available.<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>In your book, you also write in detail about your time in the German Wehrmacht. Recently in Vienna, a much-noticed Wehrmacht exhibition was shown. Did you visitit?</EM> <BR/><BR/>No. <BR/><BR/><EM>Why not? Didn't it interest you?</EM> <BR/><BR/>I had so many other things to do, and I knew the Wehrmacht. <BR/><BR/><EM>For those born later, the exhibition was shocking because it shows how the Wehrmacht directly and in the very forefront of its operations in the East and in the Balkans was taking part in the destruction of the Jews. <STRONG>You, by contrast, portray the Wehrmacht very generously as an organization with many anti-Nazis, almost as a gathering point for oppositionists.</STRONG> Isn't there a contradiction?</EM> <BR/><BR/>The deportation of the Jews and their persecution is one of the greatest tragedies of world history. I am the first to regret this, shocked and in the deepest way Yet we didn't know about that. <STRONG>I did not know about the extent of this Jewish persecution - especially during the time of my military service.</STRONG> I first found out about the whole extent of the Holocaust after the war. <BR/><BR/><EM>But the Wehrmacht provided the logistics for the deportations, and there was from the highest Wehrmacht leadership in Russia the so-called Commissar-Order, in the Balkans "atonement orders, " which directly referred to the destruction of the Jews. You were an information officer...</EM> <BR/><BR/>I never saw such orders. <BR/><BR/><EM>They didn 't come across your desk?</EM> <BR/><BR/>No. <STRONG>If there were such orders in Russia or elsewhere, then I am shocked and regret it most deeply</STRONG>, because I find nothing more terrible than the persecution of people. <STRONG>If there were such orders</STRONG>, then they were criminal.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>In his posthumous "reconciliation" plea, Waldheim wrote:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I regret most seriously that I - under the pressure of monstrous accusations that had nothing to do with my life and my thinking - waited much too long to take a clear and unmistakable position on the Nazi crimes. The reason for that was neither doubtful basic convictions nor any kind of political calculation, but rather the consternation, the offense, even the horror over the content and volume of these accusations.(my translation)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>We see in the 1996 <EM>Profil</EM> interview what his "clear and unmistakable position" on the crimes of the Wehrmacht in service to the Hitler regime were. With reference to the old TV series <EM>Hogan's Heroes</EM>, We might call it the Sargeant Schultz defense: "I know <EM>noth</EM>-ink! I see <EM>noth</EM>-ink!" <BR/><BR/>In the last part of the published interview, Hoffmann-Osterhof pressed Waldheim for his clear and unmistakable position on the Wehrmacht's criminal actions:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><EM>Then the Wehrmacht actually waged a criminal war.</EM> <BR/><BR/>No war is anything good. In our time, we can do only one thing: to help see that such a war is not repeated, that there is no war at all. <BR/><BR/><EM>Was there a difference between Hitler's war and other wars?</EM> <BR/><BR/>I would say, any war is a terrible experience.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>That was Kurt Waldheim. Even in 1996, he was interested only in pandering to the far right. Waldheim's anti-Semitism and his unwillingness to distinguish Germany's war of aggression from any other war will be immediately obvious to most readers. He was probably skirting the borders of Austria's laws against anti-Semitic propaganda in this interview with his nonsense about the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/kurt+waldheim" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>kurt waldheim</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/second+world+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>second world war</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-70568355536363390662007-06-16T22:11:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:12.753-08:00Let's have more like this<DIV><FONT size=2>A fundraising letter from Al Gore on behalf of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee came Saturday. This was on the front of the envelope: <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0LUmDod8n8APnK0tdW-Na7lny1mdCmr2z4oovVs0MhcVsXZj-353M49Uomy0Cl0umPsPPXm6gutJO-64Dx00qRt7v4TCPB2Slu2BRs3YmdXfKrfkRm2zVtBHqOffsA2xNM2SHOYuOgwg/s1600-h/george+and+dick.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076877226647030194 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0LUmDod8n8APnK0tdW-Na7lny1mdCmr2z4oovVs0MhcVsXZj-353M49Uomy0Cl0umPsPPXm6gutJO-64Dx00qRt7v4TCPB2Slu2BRs3YmdXfKrfkRm2zVtBHqOffsA2xNM2SHOYuOgwg/s320/george+and+dick.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/democratic+party" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>democratic party</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-60202976396206324482007-06-16T21:56:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.533-07:00Iran, Afghanistan and rumors of warmongers<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags">
<DIV><FONT size=2>Lionel Beehner of the Council on Foreign Relations looks at the question, </FONT><A href="http://www.cfr.org/publication/13578/"><FONT size=2>Is Iran Abetting the Taliban?</FONT></A><FONT size=2> 06/15/07. He begins by reporting:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>U.S. officials say they have found evidence that Iran has supplied weapons to Taliban rebels operating along the Afghan-Pakistani border. This has prompted questions about why majority Shiite Iran would support a Sunni-led force it has opposed for more than a decade.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>A very good question. International politics is oftena cynical business so it's not completely unthinkable. But it seems highly unlikely, given Iran's previously hostility to the Taliban regime that was unseated in 2001, Iran's encouragement to the US-backed Karzai government after he became president, and the fact that the Taliban previously hosted Al Qaida, who are Sunni Salafist violent extremists. <BR/><BR/>Glenn Greenwald recently reminded us that the push for war against Iran is not over, by any means, in </FONT><A href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/15/iran/print.html"><FONT size=2>More warnings about a U.S.-Iran war</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Salon</EM> 06/15/07 and </FONT><A href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/16/iran/print.html"><FONT size=2>The NYT on the administration's "debate" over whether to attack Iran</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Salon</EM> 06/15/07). So those of us who would prefer not to have the disaster known as the Iraq War to be extended into Iran and become a far bigger disaster need to pay attention to accusations like this. Remember back in 2002 Saddam Hussein's mountain of chemical and biological weapons, the emminent threat of a mushroom cloud from his booming nuclear weapons program, his hydrogen trailers of death, his plywood drones of destruction, and so on? <BR/><BR/>Beehner writes:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>But experts disagree whether the Iranian government is directly involved. Some refute Gates' remarks and say <STRONG>the weapons could have been smuggled into Afghanistan via various third-party channels</STRONG>. Others suggest they are being supplied by hard-line components within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which has a separate agenda from the Iranian foreign ministry, which in turn has a separate agenda from Iran’s business community. "We’re talking about <STRONG>rogue elements</STRONG>," says Col. Christopher Langton, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, "maybe even cross-border organizational criminal groupings." He adds that <STRONG>arms factories in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province make copies of those weapons made in Iran</STRONG>. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>And he describes Iran's support of the current Afghan government this way: <BR/><BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>U.S., NATO, and UN officials have all noted Tehran’s support of the current government in Kabul.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Let's stop there for a second. In the recent articles and news reports on the accusation that Iran is supplying weapons to Taliban rebels, do you recall hearing that officials from the United Nations, NATO and the United States say that Iran <EM>supports the Karzai government in Afghanistan</EM>? That would be the government that the United States actively helped install. The government that NATO is currently supporting with a high-risk military intervention, including 20,000 American soldiers on the last count I heard. <BR/><BR/>Beehner continues directly:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>A number of experts stress that Iran wants stability and prosperity on its eastern doorstep for commercial and trade reasons. That explains why <STRONG>Iran has been such a large donor — giving about $600 million since 2001, according to its foreign ministry — for various reconstruction projects.</STRONG> Iran also wants its population of about 900,000 Afghan refugees, who have aggravated tensions among Iranians by competing for scarce jobs, to one day return to their homeland. Over 850,000 have been repatriated since 2002 but the pace of return has slowed in recent years. Finally, Tehran has sought to curb the flow of opium across the Afghan border, which has generated a drug abuse crisis in Iran; an estimated two million Iranians are drug addicts. <STRONG>“It’s a sensible decision on the part of Tehran if Afghanistan is rebuilt and becomes a normal autonomous state so that all the refugees can go home and the flow of narcotics ends,”</STRONG> says [W. Abbas] Samii [of the Center for Naval Analyses]. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Iran has had particularly strong ties to Shi'a groups in Herat province. Beehner writes, "Iran has close linguistic and cultural ties to Afghanistan, particularly with Dari-speaking Shiite groups in Herat province and central Afghanistan." <BR/><BR/>The idea of "rogue elements" in Iran supporting the Taliban that a couple of the experts quoted in the article mention is theoretically possible. But if it's "rogue elements" who are assisting the Taliban - if they actually are doing so - would be a more of a reason <EM>not</EM> to attack Iran. <BR/><BR/>Greenwald in his 06/15/07 post is discussing this column by Anatole Kaletsky in the Rupert-Murdoch-owned <EM>London Times</EM> 06/15/07, </FONT><A href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article1934770.ece"><FONT size=2>Why we must break with the American crazies</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. Kaletsky reports:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>While Mr Brown and the British media are still fretting about who said what to whom about WMD intelligence, the talk in American policy circles is about an article, <EM>The Case for Bombing Iran</EM>, published two weeks ago in <EM>Commentary</EM> and <EM>The Wall Street Journal</EM> and <STRONG>cited approvingly to anyone who cares to listen by officials close to Dick Cheney</STRONG>. Its author, Norman Podhoretz, is an intellectual mentor to the people who took America into Iraq. His self-explanatory message is that Iran today is more dangerous than Hitler’s Germany, since it could soon have nuclear weapons – and that Israel’s very existence is menaced now as never before. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I linked to </FONT><A href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.html?id=10882"><FONT size=2>The Case for Bombing Iran</FONT></A><FONT size=2> in a previous post. Podhoretz' view of the world is preculiar:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in <STRONG>the early stages of a protracted global struggle</STRONG>. The same thing is true of <STRONG>Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department’s latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice</STRONG>, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Under the umbrella of the vapid construction "Islamofascism", Podhoretz wants us to believe that Iran, a Shi'a theocracy, is the "main center" of the ideology of Al Qaida, the radical Salafist Sunni group. <BR/><BR/>With a civil war going on between Sunnis and Shi'a in Iraq, with American soldiers caught in the midst of it, you would think that a literate and sane person would be embarassed to write such things. But apparently, you would be wrong. <BR/><BR/>This is a very similar pitch to the one that led up to the Iraq War: alarmist fluttering about Iran's connection to terrorism, exaggerated presentations of Iran's potential nuclear capabilities, a blurring of critical distinctions behind the vague notion of Terrorism - which isn't an ideology, it's a technique that's used in war as well as in individual attacks that are not part of a war. <BR/><BR/>The last time we invaded a country (Iraq) on the confident advice of people like Dick Cheney and Norman Podhoretz, it quickly turned into a fiasco. An experience worth remembering when we see and hear scare talk about Iran. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/afghanistan+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>afghanistan war</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iran+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iran war</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-3204030406263604522007-06-15T23:06:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:13.128-08:00Waldheim's posthumous plea for "Versöhnung" (reconciliation)<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMO8F1b_HfbNyOlQKa1tc3JTz36ZL5KuoMV7GvDcHapPkEmsixK-lVedkUhstAZlhV0Uo9jQ0j7ayLTa0HrtF34xYrPIiA6fBZThTYAKtP-T0E-YBmRav8z0WUo4oMc-GHvpnJiMrn01M/s1600-h/waldheim+balkans.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076537846921234818 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMO8F1b_HfbNyOlQKa1tc3JTz36ZL5KuoMV7GvDcHapPkEmsixK-lVedkUhstAZlhV0Uo9jQ0j7ayLTa0HrtF34xYrPIiA6fBZThTYAKtP-T0E-YBmRav8z0WUo4oMc-GHvpnJiMrn01M/s320/waldheim+balkans.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Kurt Waldheim (2nd from left), tireless doer of good deeds, in the Balkans on 05/22/1943 with (from left) Gen. Escola Roncaglia (Italian), Col. Herbert Macholz (Wehrmacht/German) and Artur Phleps (Waffen-SS/German), commander of the "Prince Eugen" Division</FONT> </STRONG><BR/><BR/>Kurt Waldheim left us a statement that was released after his death, to remind us what a rightwing sleaze-bag he was: </FONT><A href="http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2920374"><FONT size=2>Waldheim bittet posthum um Versöhnung</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Der Standard</EM> 15.06.07 (Waldheim pleads posthumously for reconciliation). <BR/><BR/>The full German text is here: </FONT><A href="http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2920415"><FONT size=2>Im Wortlaut: Das Waldheim-Vermächtnis</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Der Standard</EM> 15.06.07. <BR/><BR/>What better way to remember the old war criminal than by looking at his self-representation? <BR/><BR/>The first few paragraphs of his little testament to the world is blah, blah, I'm a great guy, I cared about the poor people of the world, yadda, yadda. <BR/><BR/>Then he proceeds to explain that he did nothing at all wrong during the war and that he hopes all them there Jews and socialists will realize how wrong they were to criticize an upright Austrian patriot like him. And how he would have spoken out more strongly about the crimes of the Nazi regime - which he had nothing whatsoever to do with, remember - but he couldn't because all those Jews were criticizing him so much. <BR/><BR/>Am I being unfair? <BR/><BR/>Here's the fifth paragraph in German:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2><STRONG>Aber auch all jenen, die mir kritisch gegenübergestanden sind, gilt mein Gruß und meine Bitte, ihre Motive noch einmal zu überdenken und mir - wenn möglich - eine späte Versöhnung zu schenken.</STRONG> Vielleicht ist auch dies durch meinen Weggang von dieser Erde leichter geworden. Ja, <STRONG>ich habe auch Fehler gemacht </STRONG>- und glücklicherweise viel Zeit gehabt, um sie immer wieder zu überdenken. <STRONG>Es waren aber sicher nicht jene der Mitläufer- oder gar Mittäterschaft mit einem verbrecherischen Regime.</STRONG> Zu prägend waren für mich die Haltung und das Schicksal meiner Familie. Im Rückblick sehe ich die Ursachen für die zu späte Aufarbeitung des Geschehens vor allem in der Hektik meines übervollen internationalen Lebens und - über Jahre und Jahrzehnte hinweg - auch in meiner Abwesenheit von Österreich und Europa. Als Generalsekretär der Vereinten Nationen war ich nahezu täglich mit Kriegen, Gewalt und politischer Willkür, mit Millionen in Not und Verzweiflung lebender, mit verfolgten, gedemütigten und um ihre um Rettung - unsere Erfolge und unser Scheitern - verstellte, überwucherte zu lange die Erinnerung an die Verbrechen der Vergangenheit. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>This is the classic politicians aggressive non-apology apology - "I apologize if you feel bad because you're such a total jerk" - taken to an absurd extreme. In the first part I've bolded in that paragraph, he says, "But also all those who were critical of me, I give you my salutations and my plea to think over your motive again and - if possible - come to a late reconciliation with me." <BR/><BR/>This is something like an inveterate segregationist and total racist making a "reconciliation" plea by saying, "I hope all those blacks and Latinos who criticized me unfairly for the most despicable of motives will realize what filthy trash they are and have always been." It's not any plea for reconciliation; it's just more of the sleaze-slinging progoganda he cranked out for the last two decades of his life. <BR/><BR/>He admits "I've also made mistakes". Kind of like the torturers at Abu Ghuraib would confess that they made a mistake by not keeping the whole thing secret. <BR/><BR/>As he proceeds to say, "But they certainly weren't the mistakes of a fellow traveler - much less mistakes of someone involved with a criminal regime," i.e., the Third Reich. He says, darn, he would have liked to have said more about the awful things that happened under that regime - which he had nothing whatsoever to do with, nothing at all! - but he couldn't because his whole life he was so busy doing good deeds. <BR/><BR/>I already want to throw up. And there's still two paragraphs to go.<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Es war aber wohl auch jene Staatsraison, die wir junge Nachkriegs-Diplomaten zu vertreten hatten und die uns Österreicher als "Hitlers erstes Opfer" den Weg zu Freiheitund Staatsvertrag geöffnet hatte. <STRONG>Zutiefst bedauere ich, dass ich - unter dem äußeren Druck monströser Beschuldigungen, die mit meinem Leben und meinem Denken nichts zu tun hatten - viel zu spät zu den NS-Verbrechen umfassend und unmissverständlich Stellung genommen habe. Ursache dafür war weder eine zweifelhafte Grundhaltung noch irgend ein politisches Kalkül, sondern die Betroffenheit, Kränkung, ja das Entsetzen über Inhalt und Ausmaß dieser Vorwürfe.</STRONG> "Übernehmen wir die Verantwortung für unsere Fehler in einer Form, die dazu angetan ist, künftige Fehler zu vermeiden", habe ich am 10. März 1988 - 50 Jahre nach dem "Anschluss" an Hitler-Deutschland - in einer Fernsehansprache gesagt. Mehr denn je bin ich heute der Überzeugung, dass alles, was wir Österreicher geschaffen haben, um es an kommende Generationen weiterzugeben, nur dann eine Chance auf Dauerhaftigkeit hat, wenn wir uns auch zu einem gemeinsamen Geschichtsverständnis bekennen. Wo immer ich konnte, wollte ich Menschen versöhnen und verbinden; wollte in Konflikten Brücken bauen und Gemeinsamkeiten stärken. Kaum eine andere Funktion war in diesem Sinn erfahrungsreicher als die des UNO-Generalsekretärs. Umso bitterer war meine Enttäuschung, dass ich diese globale Erfahrung für uns alle im Amt des Bundespräsidenten meiner geliebten Republik Österreich nicht so einsetzen und meine vielen Vorhaben nicht so umsetzen konnte, wie ich das erhofft hatte. (my emphasis)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Here, he whines so hard he rivals the whining of a old-time Mississippi segregationist complaining how badly us white folks are picked on by all those, you know, minorities. Here he explains why, in addition to all those good deeds he was constantly doing, he couldn't address the legacy of the Third Reich like he really wanted to:<BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I regret most seriously that I - under the pressure of monstrous accusations that had nothing to do with my life and my thinking - waited much too long to take a clear and unmistakable position on the Nazi crimes. The reason for that was neither doubtful basic convictions nor any kind of political calculation, but rather the consternation, the offense, even the horror over the content and volume of these accusations.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>A shorter version would be, The Jews are to blame for everything! Yep, that's Kurt Waldheim. Speaking from the grave in the same voice in which he spoke in life. <BR/><BR/>Then he rattles on some more about how well he served his country and all his good deeds and good intentions and so on for the rest of the document. <BR/><BR/>I had to chuckle at the note <EM>Der Standard</EM> left at the end of the text. They said they had shut down the online comments on the article because of "der vielen pietätlosen Kommentare" (the many disrespectful comments) that were posted there. <BR/><BR/>Doggone, I so wanted to post my respectful comments from this post there. I guess my blog post will have to do. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/austria" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>austria</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/kurt+waldheim" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>kurt waldheim</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-57338129894916532392007-06-15T21:27:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:14.000-08:00Kurt Waldheim<DIV class=tags id=tagsLocation><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZAJIaKCZRDnnfmcQ3QuVHLfEUspS8j6o1NtDcFNAiK1z9RhkJFSEl-SYoi8VutOPt9hslrtiNw-k5X5NKxQAX4O9s7RTMkpL26gF5eDQminp8sOaHIaVHIW4mrgJkaSU_ElKfJk7-c4/s1600-h/kurt+und+jorgl.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076449396364740930 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZAJIaKCZRDnnfmcQ3QuVHLfEUspS8j6o1NtDcFNAiK1z9RhkJFSEl-SYoi8VutOPt9hslrtiNw-k5X5NKxQAX4O9s7RTMkpL26gF5eDQminp8sOaHIaVHIW4mrgJkaSU_ElKfJk7-c4/s320/kurt+und+jorgl.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Kurt and Jörg'l: Austrian rightwing "populist" Jörg Haider visiting with then-Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, 1991.</FONT></STRONG> <EM>Haider caused quite a stir in Austria and beyond in the 1990s with his friendly references to the Third Reich and the SS, but in the end he turned out to be mainly an egotistical clown who likes seeing himself of television. Waldheim was actually around during the Third Reich and was happy to give Haider's "brown" clowning a boost at the time.</EM> <BR/><BR/>Kurt Waldheim, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations (1972-1981) and President of Austria from 1986-1992, died this week. The obituary articles about him inevitably rehash the controversy over Waldheim's involvement in war crimes during his days in the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. As Austria's current Social Democratic Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer put it this week, Waldheim's campaign for Austrian President "led to many discusstions, above all in connection with the confrontation with Austrian history and the past of our country." ("zu vielen Diskussionen" geführt" habe, "vor allem im Zusammenhang mit der Aufarbeitung der österreichischen Geschichte und der Vergangenheit unseres Landes". - apa/red, no direct link available) <BR/><BR/>I could write a lot about the whole notion of "Aufarbeitung", which is really means in this context the processing of history in terms of understanding it and confronting unpleasant aspects of it. The "unpleasant aspects" in the case of Austria often having to do with the Third Reich. Austria was annexed by Hitler Germany in 1938 by force, although the Austrian army was ordered by its own dictator not to fight. The late Simon Wiesenthal said in an interview with <EM>Der Spiegel</EM> 04.12.1995, "The marching Germans on their way to Vienna were hindered only by women with flowers in their arms."(my translation). <BR/><BR/>But Austria was officially an "occupied country" in the view of the Allies, and so it was regarded differently than Germany during the postwar occupation. Partly but not solely as a consequence of that, Austrian views of the war in histories and the popular tended to portray Austria as more of a victim of Germany and gave little emphasis to the active and often willing collaboration of Austrians during the war. Waldheim's 1986 election campaign, which I'll describe more below, was a catalyst for a more public re-examination of those issues. <BR/><BR/>First, the history. Without delving too deeply into the sources here, the following is my understanding of Waldheim's issues from his wartime days. This should be an inspiration to me to get my papers better organized. Somewhere around here are a bunch of notes I took about the old boy around 10 years ago, but I can't put my hands on them right away. <BR/><BR/>So far as anyone was ever able to determine, Waldheim was never a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party), although his wife was. Waldheim was in a riding club prior to the Second World War that was affiliated with the Party, prompting the quip, "Oh, Waldheim wasn't a Nazi, only his horse was." <BR/><BR/>But Waldheim was in the German Army, the Wehrmacht. During the war, basically every able-bodied man was drafted, with some exceptions for those who were considered to be working in other vital positions. The Wehrmacht was dissolved after the war; today's German Army is called the Bundeswehr, Austria's the Bundesheer. The Wehrmacht was not considered a "criminal organization" in the Nuremberg Trial sense. But it was guilty of some systematic war crimes, particularly on the easter front, not least of them delivering Jews under their control to Eisatzgruppen and Order Police that the Wehrmacht officers knew would murder them. They also resorted to gruesome tortures, hostage-taking and executions in the partisan war in eastern Europe, a gruesome tendency with which Americans have unfortunately had recent reason to again familiarize ourselves. <BR/><BR/>Waldheim served for a while on the eastern front, and there was some question as to whether he had served in units that committed criminal actions there, but that was never established. However, several events in his military career which could have involved him in war crimes were established considerably more clearly. <BR/><BR/>Waldheim did serve as an intelligence officer during the Wehrmacht's partisan war in the Balkans, which was gruesome. He was implicated in rounding up Jews in Salonika, Greece, for deportation. His unit was involved in a notorious massacre at KozaraHe apparently helped round up civilians in Montenegro in areas sympathetic to the partisans to be sent to camps. And he is very likely to have participated in interrogations of captured British paratroopers who were executed after the interrogations. And, as the Italian front collapsed before the Allies, Waldheim played a key role in sending members of the demobilized Italian 11th Army to slave labor camps. <BR/><BR/>From what I know of it, this last incident is the most solidly documented and that was a criminal action. But any of them could have involved Waldheim in war crimes. <BR/><BR/>There's a question here of degrees of certainty. (I served on a jury this past week so weighing of evidence is particularly on my mind!) It was never clear to me that any of these incidents were so thoroughly documented - with the likely exception of the Italian soldiers' deportation - that a prosecutor could have shown that Waldheim was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of war crimes. Having said that, though, another apa/red story that also has no direct Web link quotes Neal Sher from the Justice Department's Special Investigation Division this week saying that there would have been sufficient evidence for a war crimes prosecution against him. <BR/><BR/>But historical standards are different. And from what I know, I believe that he was actually a guilty participant in those incidents that I've mentioned. <BR/><BR/>I was about to add that I wouldn't want to have a President that had been involved in such crimes. But that would just sound bizarre coming from an American in 2007. After all, today Austria has Heinz Fischer as President and Alfred Gusenbauer as Chancellor. We have George Bush and Dick Cheney. Let's put it this way. It's perfectly legitimate for me to criticize Kurt Waldheim's action of 60+ years ago. And it's fine by me if Austrians (or pretty much anyone else for that matter) want to criticize crimes committed by our current American leaders. Because they are serious. I try to make a regular practice of criticizing them, myself. <BR/><BR/>When Waldheim ran for Austrian President in 1986 with the support of his party, the ÖVP (the People's Party, conservative Christian Democrats), the SPÖ (Social Democrats, then called the Socialist Party) supported Kurt Steyrer against him. Waldheim had a good shot at winning according to the polls, although he had also run with the ÖVP's backing in 1991 and lost. He was known as a distinguished diplomat and projected animage that Austrian at that time understandably liked the world to see. He looked like a Statesman with a capital "S", in other words. (Well, all vowels in German or capitalized, but I'm using an English saying.) <BR/><BR/>But instead of slinging their own dirt, the SPÖ alerted the World Jewish Congress (WJC) to Waldheim's questionable Army record; Elim Rosenbaum, who worked on the case for the WJC, describes this in <EM>Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up</EM> (1993). This has always puzzled me. I've never understood why the SPÖ couldn't have surfaced these issues more directly. Getting the WJC, based in New York, to take the lead publicly wasn't necessarily the optimal approach. But it's what happened. <BR/><BR/>Once the WJC started surfacing issues, one thing led to another. Journalists, especially those at <EM>Profil</EM>, began actively investigating and more and more of the story came out. Waldheim denied the charges and campaigned from a posture of being the victim of slander from foreigners, Jewish foreigners at that. It's worth noting, though, that the WJC did pursue the story even though of the incidents I listed above as being likely true, only the Salonika one involved Jews. <BR/><BR/>The most famous slogan from the campaign was "Jetzt Erst Recht", which is usually translated "Now More Than Ever". In this campaign poster, it's accompanied by the slogan, "We Austrians vote for who <EM>we</EM> want." <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGWQvga-Fyhr3ni2XiqHe84zqVGS3vc4OLzFSxl4C8AMH26TxUFromTWg4BBc6o5DUXmUOh99niKaxR6wlA1MEaLy3pRir4CTSv4TPhRxEaOJCBWdUY_NlGa_BG9FewsZ2ASsUJEhTGg/s1600-h/jetzt+erst+recht.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076520778721200466 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGWQvga-Fyhr3ni2XiqHe84zqVGS3vc4OLzFSxl4C8AMH26TxUFromTWg4BBc6o5DUXmUOh99niKaxR6wlA1MEaLy3pRir4CTSv4TPhRxEaOJCBWdUY_NlGa_BG9FewsZ2ASsUJEhTGg/s320/jetzt+erst+recht.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/>Critics pointed out that "Jetzt Erst Recht" had been a slogan the Nazis had used in the 1930s in one of their Austrian propaganda campaigns after the country was occupied by Germany. American political junkies may recognize "Now More Than Ever" as a slogan also used by the Nixon-Agnew re-election campaign in 1972. <BR/><BR/>I'm sure that's just a coincidence. <BR/><BR/>One of the odd aspects of this campaign was that Simon Wiesenthal, the famous "Nazi-hunter" and ÖVP supporter backed Waldheim against the WJC's attacks. He eventually criticized Waldheim for not being more honest about what his actual wartime service had been. <BR/><BR/>After Waldheim was elected, the Reagan administration, which can scarcely be suspected of being part of any "Jewish conspiracy", put Waldheim on the "watch list", which effectively meant he was not allowed to travel to the US. Many other countries followed suit. Since Waldheim's big appeal was his previous stature as a distinguished diplomat, the fact that we was scarcely able to travel to other countries in his role as Austrian President was embarrassing. <BR/><BR/>Waldheim's successor, Thomas Klestil, caused a bit of a ruckus by leaving his wife while he was in office in order to divorce and marry his girlfriend. This inspired a joke: "What's the difference between Kurt Waldheim and Thomas Klestil? Waldheim isn't allowed to travel abroad, and Klestil isn't allowed to go home." <BR/><BR/>Incidentally, Klestil little family disruption was going on in the 1990s, at the same time that across the Atlantic, the American press was collapsing toward it present-day broken condition by pimping endless sex stories about Bill Clinton. Just as the brouhaha didn't much damage Clinton's popularity as President, Klestil was re-elected after his split with his wife by a large majority. <BR/><BR/>Although Klestil's background was with the ÖVP, he was so widely respected after his first term that the SPÖ didn't bother to put up a candidate against him. And Klestil distinguished himself as President, largely wiping out whatever embarassing traces Waldheim may have left on the office. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/austria" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>austria</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/austrian+politics" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>austrian politics</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/kurt+waldheim" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>kurt waldheim</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/thomas+klestil" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>thomas klestil</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-4978738998518899012007-06-14T23:21:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.534-07:00Treat yourself<DIV><FONT size=2>
<DIV>To some of my favorite regular columnists, none of whom is likely to go gaga over Ron Paul. Columnists like these remind us of what American journalism could be. But definitely isn't today. Aside from the Cheney-Bush administration's torture policy, I'm increasingly coming to believe that the biggest danger for American democracy today is the pitiful state of the national press, especially TV. <BR/><BR/>Gene Lyons explains how <A href="http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/192900/print/">Republicans have locked up the pundit vote</A> <EM>Arkansas Democrat-Gazette</EM> 06/13/07:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Nobody knows who next year’s presidential candidates will be. <BR/><BR/>This column has no particular favorite and will make no predictions. Even so, it’s not necessary to be a prophet to know how Beltway pundits will handle the so-called character issue. The Republican nominee will be a virile, decisive straight-shooter who’s 100 percent "authentic" and "comfortable in his own skin." The Democrat will be an indecisive phony, uncertain of his/her identity, but willing to strike any pose or pander to any constituency in a self-serving bid for power. That was the basic script for the media’s astonishing "War on Gore" in 2000, the campaign of falsehood and vilification that helped elevate George W. Bush, an ex-preppie cheerleader and bicycling enthusiast dressed up in rugged "Texas Rancher" costumes, to the presidency over then-Vice President Al Gore. <BR/><BR/>... Mention a prominent Republican and the courtier-pundits swoon like 12-year-old girls at a boy band show.</BLOCKQUOTE><FONT class=" fullpost ">This is also quite a quotable passage from Lyons:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>By now only cultists impervious to facts expect anything but clueless, arrogant bluster from this president. <BR/><BR/>In short, there’s no evidence that the "Sabbath Gasbags," [i.e., Sunday morning talking heads] in Calvin Trillin's immortal phrase, have any more insight into the candidates' character than a trailerpark palm reader and somewhat less than my basset hound Fred, who could at least sniff their hands and figure out whose ears they’d been scratching.</BLOCKQUOTE>Robert Scheer eons ago was editor of <EM>Ramparts</EM>, a leftie magazine (if I'm remembering right, it started as a Catholic leftie magazine) that was part of the 1960s alternative press, that time's rought equivalent of the left blogosphere. So he's wary of being too cozy with the Democrats, being conscious of their ability to get things really wrong at time. I found his gushing over Chuck Haegel, a hardline conservative who occasionally says something mildly critical about the Iraq War, just inexplicable. But his column on Joe Lieberman is more on the mark: <A href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070612_president_lieberman_a_cautionary_tale/">‘President’ Lieberman: A Cautionary Tale</A> Truthdig.com 06/12/07. He writes:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Although now an independent, Lieberman provides a cautionary tale for folks who talk of backing “any Democrat” who can win. ... <BR/><BR/>Even as late as June 2004, when [the Iraqi National Congress leader and general scamster Ahmad] Chalabi was exposed by the United States as a spy for Iran, Lieberman continued to profess admiration for the architect of a policy that replaced the secular despot of Iraq with Shiite fundamentalists trained in Iran. “I met Dr. Chalabi and others of the Iraqi National Congress,” he said in a speech defending Chalabi after U.S. intelligence uncovered his contacts with Iranian spies. “It’s fair to say I found them to be patriotic Iraqis. Their counsel to us was important.” <BR/><BR/>In fact, Chalabi’s “counsel” concerning Iraq’s WMD program and ties to al-Qaida turned out to be totally fraudulent and as embarrassing to the United States as it was convenient to Iran’s plans to overthrow Hussein. Lieberman’s statement in support of Chalabi came two months after the National Security Agency reported that Chalabi informed Iranian agents that the United States had broken Tehran’s encryption code. At the time of the revelation, Chalabi traveled freely within Iran, where he maintained a residence. </BLOCKQUOTE>Then there's Sidney Blumenthal, this week writing about <A href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/06/14/bush_foreign_policy/index.html">Bush's European disaster</A> <EM>Salon</EM> 06/14/07. (Isn't it redundant to write "Bush" and "disaster" together?) He writes:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Bush's procession through Europe was a pageant of contempt, disdain, delusion, provocation and vanity masquerading as a welcome respite from his troubles at home. In Albania he landed at last in a place where he was hailed as a conquering hero. His demolition derby of U.S. influence was presented as a series of bold moves, but it confirmed the fears of the other world leaders at the G8 summit (and elsewhere) that the rest of Bush's presidency will be an erratic series of crashes. His performance ranged from King Nod, issuing proclamations oblivious to and even proud of their negative effect, to King Zog (the last king of Albania). No president has had a more disastrous European trip since President Reagan placed a wreath on the graves of SS soldiers in the Bitburg cemetery. Yet Reagan's mistake was unintentional and symbolic, a temporary and superficial setback, doing no real damage to U.S. foreign relations, while Bush's blunders not only reinforced counterproductive policies but also created a new one with Russia that has the potential of profoundly undermining U.S. national security interests for years to come.</BLOCKQUOTE>I would quibble with Blumenthal's characterization of Reagan's Bitburg blunder. It was a "symbolic" issue, that true. But it also produced the biggest problem in US-German relations (West German, then) between the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 and the Cheney-Bush administration's 2002 push for war in Iraq. I posted about the Bitburg incident in <A href="http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2004/05/29/d-day-1985/1318">D-Day, 1985</A> 05/29/04. But Blumenthal's basic point is correct. <BR/><BR/>Also, it always puzzled me that Bush's crew seemed to think that the German Christian Democrats would be a lot more compatable in foreign policy than the red-green coalition there before. But even though the CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel has been trying to pursue an America-friendly policy, she got the same thing that pretty much everyone else gets who tries to cooperate with this administration: a thumb in the eye:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Bush quite deliberately upset German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposal for climate change at the G8. She put before the summit a program for carbon limits and an emissions trading system supported by, among others, Tony Blair, as his final gesture to burnish his reputation before he leaves office on June 27. Bush countered with a proposal for voluntary limits that would have to be approved by China, India and other major industrial countries that would not agree. In short, Bush's program was no program at all, except as a gambit to push aside Merkel's. With that, Bush demolished the possibility of any positive plan emerging from the summit. He also deprived Blair of a last achievement. Were it not for his relationship with Bush and support for his Iraq policy, Blair would not be leaving Downing Street. He has sacrificed his career to Bush's fiasco. His advice on the reconstruction of Iraq ignored, his advocacy grew more passionate. From whom much has been asked, nothing has been given.</BLOCKQUOTE>And that's how Bush treats his <EM>friends</EM>! <BR/><BR/>Worst. President. Ever. <BR/><BR/>Bob Dreyfuss isn't a regular weekly columnist. But he's still one of the best. This week he's writing about <A href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/15/war_budget/">Bush's blank check</A> <EM>Salon</EM> 06/15/07. Dreyfuss' column addresses a vital point, the need to "right-size" the American military - and at a significantly lower cost. He writes:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Nothing underlines the tacit alliance between so-called foreign policy realists and hard-line exponents of neoconservative-style empire building more than the Washington consensus that the United States needs to expand the budget of the Defense Department without end, while increasing the size of the U.S. armed forces. In addition, spending on the 16 agencies and other organizations that make up the official U.S. "intelligence community" -- including the CIA -- and on homeland security is going through the roof. ... <BR/><BR/>Neocons, war profiteers and hardliners of all stripes still argue that the "enemy" we face is a nonexistent bugaboo called "Islamofascism." It's easy to imagine them laughing into their sleeves while they continue to claim that the way to battle low-tech, ragtag bands of leftover al-Qaida crazies is by spending billions of dollars on massively expensive, massively powerful, futuristic weapons systems.</BLOCKQUOTE>Finally, Jules Witcover, one of the best political columnists around who, unlike the Dean Of All The Pundits David Broder and his pals, is not only reality-based but also had the good sense to be critical about the Iraq War from the start, with <A href="http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20070615ctnyq-a.txt&catid=1428&code=ctnyq">Tooling Up the Obama Machine</A> Tribune Media Services 6/15/07:<BR/>
<BLOCKQUOTE>This time around, a consensus has formed among the Democratic presidential hopefuls that the war must be brought to an end, with the internal debate on how and how soon this goal can be achieved. Obama, who was only running for the Senate at the time that first critical 2002 vote was taken, nevertheless was on public record against the invasion, warning of the disastrous outcome it could yield. <BR/><BR/>The Obama phenomenon has obviously been motivated by wide public opposition to the war, Axelrod says. "But there's also a general sense that our politics have failed us, that Washington is in disarray at a time we have huge problems that have to be dealt with, and that the hyper-partisanship, the hyper-ideology, the hegemony of special interests, has made it impossible get anything done. The people are hungry for someone who can cobble the American community back together, and focus the country on the national interest."</BLOCKQUOTE>Yes, we could have a press corps worthy of the name. And good enough to support a healthy democracy. Maybe someday we actually will.</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-68722911390394351452007-06-14T22:12:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.534-07:00Ron Paul is a hardline rightwinger<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags">
<DIV><FONT size=2>Liberal columnist Saun Gonsalves is raving about the virtues of far-right Congressman Ron Paul in </FONT><A href="http://www.alternet.org/story/53804/"><FONT size=2>Ron Paul for President?</FONT></A><FONT size=2> AlterNet 06/11/07 because of his expressed opposition to the Iraq War:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>I feel such gratitude toward the Distinguished Gentleman from Texas [Paul] for his words alone that I just might vote for guy - as a write-in, of course. You sure as hell don't hear Democrats talking like that, other than Dennis Kucinich whose been given the short - guy - with - big - ears treatment by the "liberal" media and therefore doesn't have a snowball's chance, unless ... <BR/><BR/>... the real conservatives stand up. And then maybe, just maybe, "progressives" and "conservatives" could get together to effect "regime change" in Washington. OK, now I'm getting carried away. Anyways, thanks Ron.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>At The American Prospect's Web site, Zack Pelta-Heller, a graduate student at the New School, praises The GOP's Lonely Anti-War Candidate 06/11/07 also. She manages to mention - just barely - that Paul is anti-choice on abortion (she calls his position "pro-life") and that he's "adamantly opposed to amnesty for undocumented immigrants and birthright citizenship for their children." <BR/><BR/>People: Ron-Paul-is-a-rightwinger!!! Now, if he wants to vote against the Iraq War in the House, great. We'll take all the votes we can get. <BR/><BR/>But pragmatism is one thing. Liberals lionizing him as a some principled light in the Republican darkness is just goofy. Because in the dark corner of our political landscape where people take his ideas seriously on the gold standard, on how the current American dollar is worthless, on "states rights" and more more - the ones among <EM>those</EM> people who are against the war oppose it because they think it's all a giant Jewish plot. And not because they follow Likud Party politics in Israel, but because <EM>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion</EM> is one of their very favorite books. <BR/><BR/>David Neiwert provides a tour of Ron Paul's political neighborhood in </FONT><A href="http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/06/ron-paul-vs-new-world-order.html"><FONT size=2>Ron Paul vs. the New World Order</FONT></A><FONT size=2> Orcinus blog 06/08/07. Commenting on his late popularity among liberals who really should know better, Neiwert writes:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>... Ron Paul has made a career out of transmitting extremist beliefs, particularly far-right conspiracy theories about a looming "New World Order," into the mainstream of public discourse by reframing and repackaging them for wider consumption, mostly by studiously avoiding the more noxious and often racist elements of those beliefs. Along the way, he has built a long record of appearing before and lending the credibility of his office to a whole array of truly noxious organizations, and has a loyal following built in no small part on members of those groups. ... <BR/><BR/>While I think the evidence that Paul is incredibly insensitive on racial issues -- ranging from a racially incendiary newsletter to his willingness to appear before neo-Confederate and white-supremacist groups -- is simply overwhelming, it isn't as simple to make the case that he is an outright racist, since he does not often indulge in hateful rhetoric -- and when he has, he tries to ameliorate it by placing it in the context of what he thinks are legitimate policy issues.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Go check out Neiwert's post for much more detail. <BR/><BR/>Seeing that silly Sean Gonsalves column reminded me of that saying, credited to Robert Frost (maybe apocraphally), that liberals are people who are so open-minded they won't even take their own side in a debate. <BR/><BR/>In this case, it appears that some liberals don't even <EM>know</EM> what their own side <EM>is</EM>. <BR/><BR/>Any kind of liberalism (American-style, not European-style, which is something different) worth the name is not the same side as people who support racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-labor policies and positions in the name of unrestricted freedom for big capital to do whatever its owners feel like doing. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/ron+paul" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>ron paul</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-56931549677745987742007-06-14T20:19:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.534-07:00More Iran warmongering?<DIV><FONT size=2>From </FONT><A href="http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/06/14/gates_links_iran_to_taliban_weapons/"><FONT size=2>Gates links Iran to Taliban weapons</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Boston Globe</EM>/AP 06/14/07:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Defense Secretary Robert Gates tied Iran's government to large shipments of weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan and said yesterday such quantities were unlikely without Tehran's knowledge. Gates's comments, following accusations by a State Department official, were the strongest yet by a Cabinet secretary about Iran's support of the militant group in Afghanistan.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Whether or not the Sunni extremist "Taliban" is getting weapons from Shi'a Iran is certainly an interesting question. <BR/><BR/>But let's go on the record early on this one. If Mr. Gates and his Republican friends attack Iran and it goes badly - as it surely will - they will squeal that the problems are all due to the dirty hippie Defeatocrats. No, Mr. Gates, if that happens, it will be another great achievement of the Cheney-Bush administration. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iran+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iran war</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-58477926181592229382007-06-13T20:50:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:16.004-08:00Zorro miscellaneous<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><FONT size=2>I unintentionally posted this Tuesday evening in unfinished form. In case you were wondering why it seemed so cryptic if you saw that version. <BR/><BR/>My favorite new character on the <EM>Zorro</EM> telenovela is the One the Only the Great Selenia, a witch who arrived in the New World from Spain. She's rumored to be 150 years old or so. But she has the secret of eternal youth. <BR/><BR/>Selenia is played by Valentina Acosta, who seems to be particularly good at conveying thoughts, moods and attitudes with her facial expressions. For instance: <BR/><BR/><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Here's the One the Only the Great Selenia on a good day</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqQRiBGCH-6BEJg28QqGxriob0CmZlr25f-FTrqOmXBuvuTUtW3MVCXR-noTwV0lUhVk-1TEomR0UV5NqKKYer84D5mkXsZnIjkuqFzCKsk0TKaxqIR9aKE6-TX8av0458C1brgRYLIDU/s1600-h/selenia+good+day.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075745769052506370 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqQRiBGCH-6BEJg28QqGxriob0CmZlr25f-FTrqOmXBuvuTUtW3MVCXR-noTwV0lUhVk-1TEomR0UV5NqKKYer84D5mkXsZnIjkuqFzCKsk0TKaxqIR9aKE6-TX8av0458C1brgRYLIDU/s320/selenia+good+day.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/><BR/><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Here's Selenia on a bad-hair day</STRONG></FONT> <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5_OEbQujbgvZVqi_Jvxsaiifjai7kjtzE7otBBWVDOg4TOYmu13c-6RzuycrntMXNNGPhRRrysfLg1yKAS6qjwJIlY9Vcw2luc70J2kR6xr7tqdQDjaDCDoFmnvzp2nwnrTWdPghMIQ/s1600-h/selenia+bad+hair.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075746142714661138 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5_OEbQujbgvZVqi_Jvxsaiifjai7kjtzE7otBBWVDOg4TOYmu13c-6RzuycrntMXNNGPhRRrysfLg1yKAS6qjwJIlY9Vcw2luc70J2kR6xr7tqdQDjaDCDoFmnvzp2nwnrTWdPghMIQ/s320/selenia+bad+hair.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/>Doesn't that expression just say "I'm about to turn you into a toadstool?" <BR/><BR/>Here's Valentina Acosta displaying a variety of coquettish expressions on the 2006 Colombian telenovela </FONT><A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3D70I1DPE"><EM><FONT size=2>Merlina, Mujer Divina</FONT></EM></A><FONT size=2> (link to YouTube clip; she appears around 2:38 min. in it). <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhELbNjE-AH2DGwr0zBkYiP9NgYfDykC8nOaLu52Mq6mlruT-GqJHRpzAUlLlZr0n5FbZY6bhulQmhuheBUV9dsISQxBTWIQdFwkE55Auy652Nvl4Ku9R2wkZP6jE61JXE-LaNNG8igECY/s1600-h/v+acosta+project+3.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075066885046864034 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhELbNjE-AH2DGwr0zBkYiP9NgYfDykC8nOaLu52Mq6mlruT-GqJHRpzAUlLlZr0n5FbZY6bhulQmhuheBUV9dsISQxBTWIQdFwkE55Auy652Nvl4Ku9R2wkZP6jE61JXE-LaNNG8igECY/s400/v+acosta+project+3.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><EM>Merlina, Mujer Divina</EM> is currently showing on Telefutura in its 5PM slot, although it's apparently in the final part of its run. <BR/><BR/>Valentina also appears in a short-film clearly made a few years ago called <STRONG>3 AM</STRONG>. She plays a woman around 20 or so who the two guys of about that age who star in the film with her might call a "ball-buster". Their characters would, anyway. But her expressions were impressive even then. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKuxsR7oLTOvNjWZcBoder2Kxs7qY9Xiu57axkOiatqsQgYI8qYhkhXV5hLAi9nJ62JA1qAGQnxRqGPsFPGBEmFUSBe6CVGsmx7KxI4ay7s_LDPv8A3FRb80GMFkGFKlB41gsc_M9ys-o/s1600-h/v+acosta+project+2.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075064664548771986 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKuxsR7oLTOvNjWZcBoder2Kxs7qY9Xiu57axkOiatqsQgYI8qYhkhXV5hLAi9nJ62JA1qAGQnxRqGPsFPGBEmFUSBe6CVGsmx7KxI4ay7s_LDPv8A3FRb80GMFkGFKlB41gsc_M9ys-o/s400/v+acosta+project+2.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>There's also a </FONT><A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvaVyOtr-M4"><FONT size=2>YouTube link</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. Warning for Baptists! There a brief topless scene at 4:48. <BR/><BR/>In the story, Valentina's character is riding around in the car during the wee hours with her boyfriend and his buddy. She kisses her boyfriend goodbye when they drop him off. And he goes inside as he lets his friend drive her home. Big mistake! You can guess what happens next. <BR/><BR/>It just goes to show you, women can certainly mess up perfectly good guy friendships. I mean when I was 20, would I have let a woman like that mess up one of my guy friendships? Um, uh, mmmm, of course not!! <BR/><BR/>This is supposed to be Zorro miscellany, not just Valentina Acosta miscellany. So here's an image that takes off on Zorro's Robin Hood aspect: <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZu_9EoowQEhZjZKeY5-mtzw6vFve3R-_X1PF01bcKsUU5drlUyaNCMKQzQRD098DMbOvBSxmFoZM-ePLoJnVtJ1t8EowAwTDscvPu05rm0OeB_LvVj-XJZwS2Ds4AndgzJSUR3NZk56s/s1600-h/CheZorro.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075759916674779426 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZu_9EoowQEhZjZKeY5-mtzw6vFve3R-_X1PF01bcKsUU5drlUyaNCMKQzQRD098DMbOvBSxmFoZM-ePLoJnVtJ1t8EowAwTDscvPu05rm0OeB_LvVj-XJZwS2Ds4AndgzJSUR3NZk56s/s320/CheZorro.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/>This Che Zorro poster went with a play that was put on last year in (of course!) Berkeley: </FONT><A href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/24/DDGORHSNH01.DTL&type=performance"><FONT size=2>Culture Clash's funny 'Zorro' slashes to the heart of the matter</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Robert Hurwitt <EM>San Francisco Chronicle</EM> 03/24/06. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/velentina+acosta" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>velentina acosta</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-57446917239057770622007-06-13T19:35:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:16.260-08:00Factional fighting in Gaza and the road to Middle East peace<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAKhaW6oRWxBbF66Npi2mKRPjOWwTn2wQ5iYAMHxp7o0Bx3w4jEhhzKtbIGKIr0IsEVRKfB2tNcIAJAC6N6XYT2zgVybHFDT-9LPlblZd-4OFjvZuWdoJSgkdpenTfI1n3-KQ2r88iCs/s1600-h/War+1799.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075742900014352626 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAKhaW6oRWxBbF66Npi2mKRPjOWwTn2wQ5iYAMHxp7o0Bx3w4jEhhzKtbIGKIr0IsEVRKfB2tNcIAJAC6N6XYT2zgVybHFDT-9LPlblZd-4OFjvZuWdoJSgkdpenTfI1n3-KQ2r88iCs/s320/War+1799.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>The title of this <EM>El País</EM> editorial, </FONT><A href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Gaza/fuera/control/elpepuopi/20070613elpepiopi_1/Tes"><FONT size=2>Gaza, fuera de control</FONT></A><FONT size=2> (Gaza out of control) 13.06.07. The <EM>Los Angeles Times</EM> reports on the latest fighting there: </FONT><A href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gaza13jun13,1,6146903.story?coll=la-headlines-world"><FONT size=2>Palestinian infighting worsens in Gaza</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Rushdi abu Alouf and Richard Boudreaux 06/12/07. Donald Macintyre reports for <EM>The Independent</EM>, </FONT><A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2651057.ece"><FONT size=2>Hamas seizes Fatah base as bloody battles push Gaza towards civil war</FONT></A><FONT size=2> 06/13/07. <BR/><BR/>This is where things stand, 40 years after the Six Day War that left Israel in "control" of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. If we measure the results of that war by the long-term outcome, how much did Israel actually win? <BR/><BR/>Robert Fisk, also writing for <EM>The Independent</EM>, recalls in </FONT><A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2636206.ece"><FONT size=2>Lies and outrages... would you believe it?</FONT></A><FONT size=2> 06/09/07 that the French press and public opinion in 1967 were strongly sympathetic to Israel around the Six Day War. So much so that Charles De Gaulle was unusual in a perceptive observation he made, possibly reflecting his own experiences with Algeria: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Only the president of France, General de Gaulle, moved into political isolation by telling a press conference several months later that Israel "is organising, on the territories which it has taken, an occupation which cannot work without oppression, repression and expulsions - and if there appears resistance to this, it will in turn be called 'terrorism'". This accurate prophecy earned reproof from the Nouvel Observateur - to the effect that "Gaullist France has no friends; it has only interests". And Believe It or Not, with the exception of one small Christian paper, there was in the entire French press one missing word: Palestinians.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><EM><FONT size=2>The American Prospect's </FONT></EM><A href="http://www.prospect.org/galleries/current_issues/June2007.pdf"><FONT size=2>June 2007 issue</FONT></A><FONT size=2> is a special issue on the Middle East. It includes several articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict and possibilities for a real peace agreement, including (articles in the current issue may be behind subscription but soon become generally available): <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=and_the_land_was_troubled_for_40_years"><FONT size=2>And the Land Was Troubled for 40 Years</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Gershom Gorenberg 05/29/07 (available generally): <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Politics was transformed. In 1967, "The agenda changed from building a nation to maintaining an empire," says Shlomo Swirski, academic director of the Adva Center, a Tel Aviv social-policy institute. Before the war, Swirski says, government goals included providing jobs and housing for the Jewish refugees who had flooded Israel in its early years. Those projects had not been completed, but they were pushed aside. "Right" and "left" had previously referred to positions on economics; now they stood for views on settlement, Palestinians, and whether to keep all of the land or give up some for peace. <BR/><BR/>To this day, every other issue has been postponed -- indefinitely, eternally. Schools deteriorate; national health care covers steadily less; tax cuts for the wealthy barely merit debate. In its first years, Israel was a social democracy; now it is ruled by Friedmanism. Yet a party that campaigns on economics declares itself marginal. What matters is territory and security. In the meantime, social gangrene sets in. <BR/><BR/>Before 1967, nation building also meant turning a movement into a state, establishing the rule of law and civil liberties. The occupation reversed that process. From the start of the settlement effort, the cause has trumped the law. In the summer of 1967, Allon funneled government funds for the unemployed to the first settlers in the Golan Heights. Aid from officials to lawbreakers has continued ever since.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=american_jews_and_the_mideast"><FONT size=2>American Jews and the Mideast</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Jo-Ann Mort 05/20/07 (currently behind subscription): <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The fact is that 40 years after the 1967 War, which did threaten Israel's survival, Israel's survival is threatened once again. The current threat doesn't come from Hamas terrorism or even Iran; it comes from Israel's failure to extricate itself from the occupied territories in a manner that will ensure its security and future as a Jewish and democratic state - a threat that surely harms U.S. interests in the region as well.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=past_failures_future_possibilities"><FONT size=2>Past Failures, Future Possibilities</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Shlomo Ben-Ami 05/20/07 (currently behind subscription): <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in an outline that is embodied in the main peace plans on the table: the Clinton peace parameters and the all-Arab peace initiative of 2002, recently reconfirmed by the Arab League in its Riyadh summit March 28–29. The inadequacy of a strictly bilateral approach was well understood by the initiators of the all-Arab peace initiative. That initiative is, most importantly, a call to regionalize the solution to the conflict after the bilateral approach ended in failure. The loss of mutual trust between the parties and their total incapacity to take even the smallest step toward each other, let alone to observe their commitments without being nursed by third parties, make the creation of an international framework for peace the last and only way out of this dangerous impasse.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=europe_and_the_middle_east"><FONT size=2>Ten Commandments for Mideast Peace</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Daniel Levy, Ghaith al-Omari and Robert Malley 05/20/07 (currently behind subscription): <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>It is in the nature of Israel's democracy to be vibrant, unpredictable, and utterly unmanageable. That is sometimes good (as when an independent commission holds the government accountable for its mismanagement of the Lebanon war), and sometimes less so (as when all government action is seemingly halted as an entire nation awaits the cabinet's fate). The United States cannot afford to shape its actions on the basis of the latest poll or coalition maneuver. Instead, and without being oblivious to political realities, Washington should remind itself that a credible peace plan enjoying strong American backing can count on majority Israeli public support. This, rather than the latest round of cabinet musical chairs, is what should guide U.S. policy-makers. ... <BR/><BR/>There often will be temptation to play Palestinian politics, especially when parts of the leadership appear nonresponsive to U.S. pressures or, worse, hostile to U.S. interests. And there rarely will be a shortage of Palestinian leaders offering themselves up as potential allies in the hope that ties to the United States will strengthen their hand in the domestic competition. <STRONG>Yet every time the United States has sought to meddle, the meddling has backfired, with results ranging from the ineffective to the outright counterproductive.</STRONG> Lack of understanding is part of the reason, but part only. Added to that is the reality that America's embrace can do more harm than good to those it seeks to benefit. Attempts to isolate and bypass Arafat, to mention but one glaring example, not only failed to reduce his standing; they also contributed to Fatah's fragmentation and to the loss of U.S. credibility and leverage. (my emphasis) </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=europe_and_the_middle_east"><FONT size=2>Europe and the Middle East</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Chris Patten 05/20/07 (currently behind subscription): <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Present policies lead nowhere except to more deaths and to the destruction of more hope. Should Europe continue to think its role is to whistle past the graveyard, hoping for better news while secretly fearing the worst? It may not be popular to say it, but while the road to a peace in Jerusalem did not lead through Baghdad, the road to a more peaceful Middle East certainly demands -- early in the journey, at least -- a peaceful settlement between Palestine and Israel. <BR/><BR/>I want to see a prosperous and democratic Israel, reflecting values that most of us share on either side of the Atlantic, living at peace with its neighbors -- the sort of peace that the Geneva Initiative would have brought. That is not an anti-Israeli statement, or a pro-Arab one. It is a pro-peace argument, with an outcome that the United States and Europe should recognize is hugely in their own interest. <BR/><BR/>What, after all, is the alternative?</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Also, there is this recent Web-only piece on the subject: <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_year_that_never_ended"><FONT size=2>The Year that Never Ended</FONT></A><FONT size=2> by Jo-Ann Mort 06/13/07, a review of Tom Segev's <EM>1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East</EM>, just published in English: <BR/><BR/></FONT><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Historians disagree about the final moments leading up to the war -- could the superpowers have halted it? Was Egypt really going to strike? Did its closure of the Straits of Tiran foretell more to come? And what about Syria and Jordan? Segev's point -- a critical one, I think -- is that no matter what the situation actually was inside Egypt, Israelis <EM>felt</EM> certain that they were on the brink of extinction. "War with Egypt was inevitable," he claims. "There is no doubt that the Israelis expected a second Holocaust. I collected 500 letters, mothers to daughters and more, [saying as much.] Rabbis in Tel Aviv were sanctifying football fields because they thought they might have to bury hundreds of bodies. Egyptians don't have a national archives, so we don't know what they really wanted." There are the memoirs written by Egyptian generals, Segev notes, but then adds, "I don't trust Israeli generals, so why should I trust Egyptian generals?". At any rate, what Egyptions really intended is "not the point. It's what Israel thought."</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/israel" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>israel</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/palestinians" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>palestinians</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/robert+fisk" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>robert fisk</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-26350901707632964102007-06-12T20:36:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:16.403-08:00The General's petition against Iran War<DIV id=tagsLocation class="tags"><br /><DIV><A href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r7sURkxKVvE/Rm9hiG6RCLI/AAAAAAAAArk/5YzZv7u21Yc/s1600-h/stopiranwar.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075382543668283570 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r7sURkxKVvE/Rm9hiG6RCLI/AAAAAAAAArk/5YzZv7u21Yc/s200/stopiranwar.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>No, not </FONT><A href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/"><FONT size=2>Jesus' General</FONT></A><FONT size=2>. Wesley Clark. <BR/><BR/>Clark is promoting </FONT><A href="http://ga4.org/campaign/stopiranwar"><FONT size=2>an online petition</FONT></A><FONT size=2> at his home site </FONT><A href="http://securingamerica.com/"><FONT size=2>SecuringAmerica.com</FONT></A><FONT size=2> and also at the separate </FONT><A href="http://www.stopiranwar.com/"><FONT size=2>stopIranWar.com</FONT></A><FONT size=2> site he maintains opposing any rush to war with Iran. <BR/><BR/>The immediate impetus was Joe Lieberman's latest round of warmongering, which Glenn Greenwald deconstructs at some length in </FONT><A href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/10/lieberman/index.html"><FONT size=2>Joe Lieberman, warmongering centrist</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <EM>Salon</EM> 06/10/07. <BR/><BR/>Norman Podharetz, one of the intellectual godfathers of the neoconservatives, pleads </FONT><A href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.html?id=10882"><FONT size=2>The Case for Bombing Iran</FONT></A><FONT size=2> in the lead article of the June 2007 <EM>Commentary</EM>. It includes a neocon flashback on the glory days when (in their mythology) Ronald Reagan's bold visionary foreign policy defeated the godless Soviets. But in the neocon worldview, that just freed us up to face another world of endless threats and perpetual war for perpetual peace, this time in the guise of Islamofascistodefeatocratomism. <BR/><BR/>Yes, going to war with Iran would be crazy as all hell. But remember who The Decider is: Dick Cheney, with his assistant George W. Bush. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iran+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iran war</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-10625720444980792382007-06-11T11:33:00.000-07:002008-10-11T08:59:55.535-07:00The US future in Iraq<DIV class=tags id=tagsLocation>
<DIV><A href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014560.php"><FONT size=2>Steve Benen</FONT></A><FONT size=2> at the Talking Points Memo cites a Tom Ricks report on the Pentagon plans for a long-term presence in Iraq. One problem with many of these reports and discussions is that they often assume that the choice of how long to stay is exclusively that of the US. It's not, and US troops will eventually have to leave. <BR/><BR/>But leaving that aside for now, Benen reminds up that all this talk about reducing the number of troops in 2008 and adopting the "Baker-Hamilton" approach and so on has been going on since 2003, with only slight variations in the formula:<BR/></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>This comes on the heels of a report two weeks ago that the White House is "developing what are described as concepts for reducing American combat forces in Iraq by as much as half next year." It'd be more encouraging if we haven't been hearing similar rhetoric for years. <BR/><BR/>Indeed, the same problem exists here. As publius noted today, we've seen reports just like Ricks' for a long while, and none came to fruition.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=2>Tom Englehardt also looks back at how much we previously knew about the administration's plans for permanent bases in Iraq, lately known as the "Korean model": </FONT><A href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/print/174807/Tomgram:%20%20How%20Permanent%20Are%20Those%20Bases?"><FONT size=2>The Great American Disconnect</FONT></A><FONT size=2> TomDispatch.com 06/07/07. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iraq" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iraq</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/iraq+war" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>iraq war</FONT></A></DIV></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-64122677663160015912007-06-10T18:03:00.000-07:002008-12-12T19:12:18.736-08:00Zorro: Capítulos 79-82 (June 4-8) (Updated)<DIV><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZBJSmeVDG3XLsg2OGIyANRsg1pu_JKGqW8gcDdLw0ZzLMj_bT6fYef6mug-wLIGlq45cUSj58v70DqFDXqteDV1LZKlegFrA7HnZ5Kk9itE9WXnZP7HMfZXzAhf-Uh3n6IF0DUQtKLQ/s1600-h/selenia+36.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074315343079475106 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZBJSmeVDG3XLsg2OGIyANRsg1pu_JKGqW8gcDdLw0ZzLMj_bT6fYef6mug-wLIGlq45cUSj58v70DqFDXqteDV1LZKlegFrA7HnZ5Kk9itE9WXnZP7HMfZXzAhf-Uh3n6IF0DUQtKLQ/s200/selenia+36.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>It's not <U>nice</U> to fool Mother Nature! (Valentina Acosta as the One the Only the Great Selenia)</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Olmos demanded that Selenia demonstrate her powers before they completed their transaction for the love potion. The One the Only the Great Selenia was not happy. But she waved her new magic ring so that it sparkled three times, which let her hypnotize Olmos so that he would see himself in her mirror as dashingly handsome, the way she promises that Mariángel/"Mangle" will see him once the potion takes effect. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2007/06/zorro-monday-june-4-wednesday-june-6.html"><FONT size=2>Cathy at Caray, Caray!</FONT></A><FONT size=2> was also reminded by this scene of Selenia and Olmos of the old TV commercial where Mother Nature gets grimly threatening at the end because some shampoo or other is imitating her work too closely. <BR/><BR/>A common scene in telenovelas is one that I think of as the "bitch face-off". Maybe someone can tell me if there's a standard trade name for it. But it's where two female characters, usually rivals in love and/or business, confront each other with nasty looks and barbed words. Sometimes the face-off is followed by another hallowed convention, the cat-fight. We saw that progression this week when Mangle visited her half-sister Esmeralda in the basement where el Comandante Montero is holding her. <BR/><BR/>The bitch-face-off is a good way of establishing the power hierarchy of the moment, and it's also a way of establishing character. In the Mangle/Esmeralda one this week, Mangle was obviously in a more powerful position at the moment. But Esmeralda responded with tragic dignity. Mangle recognized that she'd lost the face-off when she jumped Esmeralda. <BR/><BR/>There are face-offs between men and women, too. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhePxhurdsvrvZJdcBwkdfsKj_WDIZiOrhxzs3LLVVDDRjBglxxxYkvDGgHVkkcQ01p7Qf_anfUkrf5NegRGayws_FJ1x2Rij8EYHQ-UqrRe1_plrTHPjdqI-rNkndCZEBSrSw0jkWDI8I/s1600-h/diego+4.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074556887745235042 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhePxhurdsvrvZJdcBwkdfsKj_WDIZiOrhxzs3LLVVDDRjBglxxxYkvDGgHVkkcQ01p7Qf_anfUkrf5NegRGayws_FJ1x2Rij8EYHQ-UqrRe1_plrTHPjdqI-rNkndCZEBSrSw0jkWDI8I/s320/diego+4.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Diego with his adoring wife</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Diego had one with Mangle when they got back from Esmeralda's (presumed) grave. Diego doesn't trust her and knows she's bad. He just doesn't realize yet how bad. This week he offered to make sure she was taken care of and that the child is educated. But he says there's never going to be any romance between them. Mangle's trying hard because, well, that's just what she does. Anyway, this expression of dignified and restrained but unmistakable contempt pretty much sums up Diego's attitude toward Mangle. <BR/><BR/>The men don't always win the man/woman face-offs, by any means. For instance, the Queen had a face-off with el Duque Jacobo and told him, in a polite, regal kind of way, to cut out the stalling and set up her trip to the New World. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve-iGteUwaMQkSKgC2tVuOt5F4s7qV8NZYZxbDGszZJJDBjx7McqED8zLd4MyOeSqJt_-LV-mZIS3u8svUla3bqFkhFpYZlIVWb8UD2pKAiNl6n7wewcUXhHlhoHaQzis7aO69NmC-SI/s1600-h/reina+y+jacobo.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074543152439822402 style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve-iGteUwaMQkSKgC2tVuOt5F4s7qV8NZYZxbDGszZJJDBjx7McqED8zLd4MyOeSqJt_-LV-mZIS3u8svUla3bqFkhFpYZlIVWb8UD2pKAiNl6n7wewcUXhHlhoHaQzis7aO69NmC-SI/s200/reina+y+jacobo.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>La Reina straightens out el Duque</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Then there are guy-to-guy face-offs, which in <EM>Zorro</EM> often involve weapons. We had a few of those this week, including Alejandro almost killing el Gobernador Fernando, Fernando almost killing some guy in the tavern who was daydreaming out loud about María Pía and Zorro facing down Pizarro and one of his thugs, each of them holding pistols. But Zorro had two pistols, and his were revolvers and theirs were single-shot. So they had to lower their pistols and acknowledge that Zorro was the alpha-dog of the moment. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWytWmjKWOaOKKmUTBn_3NOLG15p4AesAbRGvUq-bBcWTXwlz3IGVBpRu-Tyk-09C-EAR-PoHHB9tKfxH-tn2PqcelNop6aaFJgBHQNgSWRtHDJZd9QtgLliFPHGKpfySfX-Wy1NC5AHU/s1600-h/zorro+two-gun.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074604776630585458 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWytWmjKWOaOKKmUTBn_3NOLG15p4AesAbRGvUq-bBcWTXwlz3IGVBpRu-Tyk-09C-EAR-PoHHB9tKfxH-tn2PqcelNop6aaFJgBHQNgSWRtHDJZd9QtgLliFPHGKpfySfX-Wy1NC5AHU/s320/zorro+two-gun.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Two-gun Zorro shows he's the alpha dog - or alpha fox, as the case may be</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>But somehow, in the telenovelas the face-offs between the women are often particularly dramatic and ferocious. At the end of the week, Mangle was ridiculing Olmos with her madwoman cackle and <S>demanding that he set up an appointment for her with Selenia</S>. The Mangle/Selenia face-offs are going to be fun. If Mangle is out of her depth in dealing with Diego and his family, she'll be deep down in the pit confronting Selenia! [<STRONG>Update</STRONG>: </FONT><A href="http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2007/06/friday-june-8-2007-esme-names-her.html#4977344347248195750"><FONT size=2>Margarita</FONT></A><FONT size=2> pointed out at Caray, Caray! that it was actually the old blind Indian medicine woman that Mangle was demanding to see. I checked the tape, and she's right. Darn! I had a Freudian mis-hearing on that one, because I really wanted to see Mangle and Selenia have a showdown. Too bad.] <BR/><BR/>Selenia has had only one of that kind of face-off so far, with the barmaid at the tavern. It was no contest. Mangle is going to wind up feeling as small as Tarsisio, Selenia's magic dwarf. I assume he's magic, but so far all we've seen him do is serve her table. Tarsisio set up Selenia's triumphant line of the week by praising her brilliant sorcery. To which she replied that she was "la única, Tarsisio, la única, la Gran Selenia", (the One, the Only, the Great Selenia). <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJF4X0qoRgGWjypDcLDACAJG9mkjyr8T9Bq-3GkZzvujt-So3G-ORyAqTWBDOH_Y8NfpqwNCRLLrqVp3MynxkDq2GqHn3H-hA4tADaAdkyJdetnEx7iPj5PUKEJ7ISgzB3yDVUZ4akxj8/s1600-h/tarsisio+and+mad+hatter.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074520303213807650 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJF4X0qoRgGWjypDcLDACAJG9mkjyr8T9Bq-3GkZzvujt-So3G-ORyAqTWBDOH_Y8NfpqwNCRLLrqVp3MynxkDq2GqHn3H-hA4tADaAdkyJdetnEx7iPj5PUKEJ7ISgzB3yDVUZ4akxj8/s320/tarsisio+and+mad+hatter.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2> <BR/><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Separated at birth? Selenia's magic dwarf slave Tarsisio and the Mad Hatter</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Selenia's appearances have become the highlights for me. But plot-wise, the most important development of the week was Esmeralda having her second "resurrection". As I mentioned in an earlier summary, her mother Sara Kalí/Mercedes Mayorga de Aragón was presumed dead but was "buried" in the dungeon for 20 years, then she was literally buried and dug up by Agapito the surgeon and general jack-of-all-trades. Like Elijah the prophet, he can even raise the dead! (For the godless heathens out there, that's Elijah from the Old Testament.) <BR/><BR/>Esmeralda is presumed dead and was "buried" (it was actually a body substituted by el Comandante), but she was really "buried" in the dungeon, too, just like her mother. She was moved to another "grave", the basement room in the cabin in the forest. And this week she escaped. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjijHCY_shyuJQdJ6vbFBhiXevmNtwXkM3KCR8S78irSWmXSsiAuqJz0LyeoysrRzWvdwoKcW9ZKSVFm3IqioqBPtPTv_IbbWNdTeNXy5P76DbS5BGDaTGy9m7MGKPyNP5uFGg1Z3f1U/s1600-h/Esmeralda+resurrected.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074329756989720530 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjijHCY_shyuJQdJ6vbFBhiXevmNtwXkM3KCR8S78irSWmXSsiAuqJz0LyeoysrRzWvdwoKcW9ZKSVFm3IqioqBPtPTv_IbbWNdTeNXy5P76DbS5BGDaTGy9m7MGKPyNP5uFGg1Z3f1U/s320/Esmeralda+resurrected.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Esmeralda resurrected</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>The visuals of Esmeralda escaping in the night running through the woods hiding from el Comandante's thugs, tinted in blue as in this screenshot, were some of the best of the series. In this moment, Marlene Favela gets to combine the tragic adult Esmeralda with her intrepid Nancy Drew girl-adventurer side. This combination has been one of the appealing aspects of her character all along. <BR/><BR/>And it's worked well in the story. For instance, at the end of the week, she has made it to the edge of the De la Vega hacienda, where she would be safe. But she sees Diego's carriage right at the moment that Mangle is throwing herself at him yet again. She impetuously decides that the smooching is voluntary on Diego's part and let's the carriage go right by her without calling out. Instead she stands there feeling sorry for herself like a jealous teenager. Now, since she was being held in a basement with her family and her True Love thinking she was dead, being tortured and starved by her sadistic husband el Comandante Montero, feeling sorry for herself is understandable. But the more mature Sara Kalí or María Pía would have done a double take for a second or so, then called out to Diego for help, whether he was smooching her rival or not. <BR/><BR/>As we see in the previews, el Comandante catches up to her just after that. So it's potentially a fatal delay. It won't be, of course. Having been resurrected, I'm guessing she won't even wind up back in her "grave" in the basement. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-wVzwQrSkH4HtF1dQsHFffquDTcN8vEgA9y5yGY-Z1XOvfMxENT35U29WWM34k71mnBUZRsbvE0KelbK_srTCP_2VclSQugl2QW2dbWbGBYNrHo51U8Xm3RSU-ALwgIc0xvt0NmzgM8/s1600-h/zorro+hood.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074523653288298546 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-wVzwQrSkH4HtF1dQsHFffquDTcN8vEgA9y5yGY-Z1XOvfMxENT35U29WWM34k71mnBUZRsbvE0KelbK_srTCP_2VclSQugl2QW2dbWbGBYNrHo51U8Xm3RSU-ALwgIc0xvt0NmzgM8/s320/zorro+hood.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Zorro Hood: Zorro distributes Montero's fortune - which he liberated shortly before - to the poor</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Zorro had some good action this week. He saved the Marquesa on her way back to Mexico City from being assassinated by Pizarro and some hired thugs. And he robbed el Comandante Montero's treasure stash from the El Callao prison,leaving a big Z behind slashed on a blanket on the wall. Montero does not take this well. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDjKabm-JCLvBsdOaB6ktuNW76df14Qua_ueh832GRE8nlBdZzNJI98O02B964uCWBLfub2KJFRSJ7yck59Ag-0jsOmsTNxAJuiPrbs68cRhwwZ1yGRQOozArPNb4RNzW13b6hl5RECtY/s1600-h/montero.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074336929585104898 style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDjKabm-JCLvBsdOaB6ktuNW76df14Qua_ueh832GRE8nlBdZzNJI98O02B964uCWBLfub2KJFRSJ7yck59Ag-0jsOmsTNxAJuiPrbs68cRhwwZ1yGRQOozArPNb4RNzW13b6hl5RECtY/s320/montero.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Zorro steals Montero's fortune - Montero responds by nearly allowing his head to disintegrate</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Here we get to see Zorro in his Robin Hood role that makes him so popular among the poor of la Ciudad de los Ángeles. In the scene where he hands out Montero's treasures to los pobres, he thinks to himself that this is money and valuables that el Comandante essentially stole from Esmeralda through her forced marriage and torturing Diego. So he's doing this particular action for her, getting revenge on el Comandante and also making sure that the money goes to help the needy, because that's where her sympathies lie, as well. <BR/><BR/>One of the things I find appealing about telenovelas is that they give more serious attention to social issues like immigration (for the ones set in the present day) than the typical American TV series does. Not that they are didactic social dramas, far from it. The issues often arise in the stock romantic situation of a poor woman falling in love with a rice man, or a rich man with a poor woman, etc. <BR/><BR/>In <EM>Zorro</EM>, the condition of los indigenos, the native Indian tribes, gets a lot of emphasis. Of course, the notion of a Spanish priest like Padre Tomás and the convent being strong advocates for protecting the Indians and sheltering escaped slaves is a romanticized version of that period in California history. Despite the Pope's ill-considered pronouncement in Mexico last month, the Church not only forced conversions but enslaved many Indians outright. There were individual dissenters, and there may very well have been individual characters like Padre Tomás in the 1810-1820 period in which <EM>Zorro</EM> is set. But his character seems to owe more to social-activist priests of the last century than to the actual Californio priests of the 19th. <BR/><BR/>As I mentioned in </FONT><A href="http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2007/06/zorro-june-7-2007-mp-and-cami-reveal.html#5225273499140923764"><FONT size=2>comments atCaray, Caray!</FONT></A><FONT size=2>,the Isabel Allende novel <EM>El Zorro</EM> gives some background that I think is helpful for the telenovela. For instance, "limpieza" (pure blood) was a big theme in Spanish life going back to the days of the Inquisition. And in her novel, the various distinctions between "pure blood" Spaniards, local-born "pure" Spaniards, mestizos and native Indians is discussed quite a bit. In the telenovela, it comes up explicitly in the discussion of why Toypurnia/Regina went back to her tribe while Alejandro went to Europe. And Diego's mixed blood was mentioned a couple of times in connection with the suitability of his marriage to one of Fernando's daughters. The intense contempt that Mangle showed for Yumalai/Guadalupe in Friday's episode could also be understood in that context. <BR/><BR/>Interestingly enough, despite the number of tough and determined women in this telenovela - Esmeralda, Yumalai/Guadalupe, Toypurnia (in flashbacks), María Pía (off and on), Almudena (despite her physical weakness), the Marquesa, Selenia, of course - the story also depicts the Spanish women as being clumsy and inexperienced in things like horse riding and handling weapons. Actually, it was more the norm at that time for the colonial women in California to be very good on horseback, for instance. Even in the pulp serial </FONT><A href="http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2007/03/14/zorro-a-masked-man-with-many-faces/4522"><EM><FONT size=2>The Curse of Capistrano</FONT></EM></A><FONT size=2> in which author Johnston McCulley first introduced Zorro to the world in 1919, Zorro's love interest, Lolita Pulido, is an expert horseback rider. Isabel Allende tells us in the last part of her novel that Diego would eventually marry Lolita Pulido. <BR/><BR/>Of course, this week there was a scene which was apparently inserted to show that Sara Kalí is also not someone who takes to being pushed around. Still disguised as a leper, she and a group of others from the leper colony are harassed by some soldiers sneeringly "flirting" with them. As one young guy addresses Sara Kalí individually, she slugs him in the face and he goes down on the ground. I guess she spent a lot of time doing pushups for those 20 years in the dungeon! <BR/><BR/>The Tobías comic-relief thread took another step this week, though it's getting darker. Tobías was playing around in his Zorro suit when Maestro Samaniego walks in the room and is (literally) scared todeath by the sight. But while trying to get approval for his burial - there's a bureacratic snag because el Maestro doesn't have family around - Tobías watches el Capitán Pizarro and Tobías wife Catalina doing the Wild Thang again. Pizarro this time talks about murdering Tobías to get him out of the way. Catalina objects, but proceeds to make love to Pizarro anyway. Tobías could be forgiven for thinking this was less than a whole-hearted defense on Catalina's part. At the end of the week, he's calling her a slut and choking her with his hands in the room with el Maestro's coffin. Could be ominous symbolism for Catalina's immediate future. <BR/><BR/>María Pía finally leaves the convent this week after fessing up to her undying love for el Gobernador Fernando. But she doesn't intend to marry him, with his being a serial killer and all. But she gets drunk at the tavern with Diego and then tells him that el Gobernador was the one who murdered his mother Toypurnia/Regina. As J.R. puts it in her detailed summary of the episode at </FONT><A href="http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2007/06/zorro-june-7-2007-mp-and-cami-reveal.html"><FONT size=2>Caray, Caray!, </FONT></A><FONT size=2>Diego "is muy impactado". <BR/><BR/>And the Almudena death watch continues. She's accepted her near-term death as inevitable. But she's determined to complete her training of Yumalai to be a proper Spanish lady (Yumalai's Guadalupe mode) and expects her to take over as Alejandro's husband. Something Alejandro will no doubt solemnly agree to do, since he practically drools every time he sees Yumalai. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GIoy0M4jBFOs-lgD7wJKOQ5gmuoAiMxd_cYN9OSoPnGVi94yFiXe6v-pLmaj0XtVHIHrdYdeV54xuESryfVeCWRamIH5bGeWuayJc_69zax56kDy5v6ToLUr7fwRX9-YuoJ6cSbFoms/s1600-h/almudena+y+yumalai.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074545488902031442 style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GIoy0M4jBFOs-lgD7wJKOQ5gmuoAiMxd_cYN9OSoPnGVi94yFiXe6v-pLmaj0XtVHIHrdYdeV54xuESryfVeCWRamIH5bGeWuayJc_69zax56kDy5v6ToLUr7fwRX9-YuoJ6cSbFoms/s320/almudena+y+yumalai.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Almudena prepares Yumalai to take over as Wife #1</FONT></STRONG> <BR/><BR/>Silvia in </FONT><A href="http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2007/06/zorro-june-7-2007-mp-and-cami-reveal.html#3090422104397769266"><FONT size=2>comments at Caray, Caray!</FONT></A><FONT size=2> poses a question that's crossed my mind, too, "I wonder if she would be so encouraging if she knew her beloved Alejandro boinked little sister [Yumalai] on his wedding night?" <BR/><BR/>Actually, I'm thinking that Almudena pretty much figures that something like that is going on. After hanging around with Fernando and a bunch of aristocratic Spanish types all her life, she probably figures a mistress is just part of the deal. Plus, she genuinely likes Yumalai. By training Yumalai to be Guadalupe, she bridges the gap between the best of Spanish culture and the best of native culture. <BR/><BR/></FONT><A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_rpOyIQLSSm6lcflu2QoBCQd6Q2yWDTVdCts1PmdK838K-oT8GXUFNb__DnK8FKFpuoQmCAYyR3Bh0qkF7JIT6Bztbr-hv5QgvwBWf5iCs-IVvLhwGVFb7N97glYi4Oz_LfMCJyhdmI/s1600-h/Mystery+picture.jpg"><FONT size=2><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074334812166227954 style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_rpOyIQLSSm6lcflu2QoBCQd6Q2yWDTVdCts1PmdK838K-oT8GXUFNb__DnK8FKFpuoQmCAYyR3Bh0qkF7JIT6Bztbr-hv5QgvwBWf5iCs-IVvLhwGVFb7N97glYi4Oz_LfMCJyhdmI/s320/Mystery+picture.jpg" border=0/></FONT></A><FONT size=2>After all, in the native world whose rules Yumalai plays by (well, except when she doesn't), and which the De la Vega family generally honors, the tribal rules say she's Alejandro's wife and doesn't have a real choice. Alejandro has already said she would not be able to take a husband in her tribe because of the rule. So he's not going to do the Hagar routine on her. (Another Old Testament reference, Abraham kicks Hagar and Ishmael out to die in the desert because his wife Sarah is jealous.) And the fact that María Pía's immediate reaction in an earlire episode when Alejandro first told her that Yumalai was Toypurnia/Regina's sister was amusement because of the little-sister rule, tells me that Yumalai is going to wind up more as Rachel (another O.T. reference, Jacob has to marry to homely older sister Lea but works another seven years to marry his true love Rachel, too) than as Hagar. <BR/><BR/>Finally, the <STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>Zorro mystery of the week</FONT></STRONG>. El Gobernador Fernando keeps a picture of a woman on the wall behind his office desk. It doesn't appear to be María Pía and that's unlikely anyway. He hates Esmeralda and Sara Kalí/Mercedes, so it's not likely to be one of them. It could be Almudena or Mangle. I'm guessing Mangle's mother. But it adds a ghostly touch to Fernando's office. <BR/><BR/>Tags: </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro</FONT></A><FONT size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://technorati.com/tag/zorro+telenovela" target=_blank rel=tag><FONT size=2>zorro telenovela</FONT></A></DIV>Bruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.com0