Month: August 2006

Just how obnoxiously self-righteous is the U.S. government? From retired ambassador John R. Hamilton:

Attempts to explain the vehemence of anti-U.S. feeling abroad correctly home in on Iraq and other unpopular policies of the current administration. But over the past three decades the kudzu-like growth of another U.S. practice, used by Congress and by Democratic and Republican administrations alike, has nurtured seething resentment abroad.

This is what might be called “foreign policy by report card,” the issuing of public assessments of the performance of other countries, with the threat of economic or political sanctions for those whose performance, in our view, doesn’t make the grade. The overuse of these mandated reports makes us seem judgmental, moralistic and bullying.

The degree to which public reports accompanied by the threat of sanctions have been institutionalized in U.S. policy is stunning. A partial list:

Each year we issue detailed human rights reports on every country in the world, including those whose performance appears superior to our own. We judge whether other countries have provided sufficient cooperation in fighting illegal drugs. We place countries whose protection of intellectual property has been insufficient on “watch lists,” threatening trade sanctions against those that do not improve. We judge respect for labor rights abroad through a public petition process set up under the System of Generalized (trade) Preferences. We publish annual reports on other countries’ respect for religious freedom.

And more: We seek to ensure the adequacy of civil aviation oversight and the security of foreign airports through special inspections and categorizing of government performance. We ban shrimp imports from countries whose fishing fleets do not employ sea turtle extruder devices and yellowfin tuna imports where the protection of dolphins is in our view inadequate. We report on trafficking in persons and categorize the performance of every country where such trafficking is a problem, which is just about everywhere. And we withhold military education, training and materiel assistance from countries that do not enter into agreements with us to protect our nationals from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. …

I don’t recommend the whole thing, which quickly turns dull and predictable, but here’s the link anyway.

The great Charles Goyette, host of the morning show on KFNX 1100 AM in Phoenix, Arizona, interviewed 7 different guests – including Antiwar.com founder and managing editor Eric Garris – Thursday, on the subject of the possibility of military conscription in the United States.

Check out the description of the three-hour show along with the guests.

Listen to the mp3s here: First Hour – Second Hour – Third Hour

6:00 am-6:30 am Bill Galvin Center on Conscience

6:30 am-7:00 am Jon Soltz VoteVets.org

7:00 am-7:30 am David Zieger Sir, No Sir!

7:30 am-8:00 am Debbie Hopper Mothers Against the Draft.org

7:30 am-8:00 am Jeff Deist Congressman Paul’s Office.

8:00 am-8:30 am Eric Garris Antiwar.com

I read with interest and amusement, once again, that the military is warning that Iran will have nuclear weapons in as little as five years. Let’s ignore that there is no evidence that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons program, that they really have little substantial to gain from such a program, and that we can be almost totally certain that even if they have nukes, they will never use them. I want to focus on something else, one of the earliest political/foreign policy memories I have.

I think I might have been 7, or 8, or 9ish… and I distinctly recall my dread at the idea that Iran — of course run by insane psychos who only want to kill Americans for the sheer fun of it — would have nuclear weapons in as little as five years. I can’t come up with anything online (maybe a better googler can), and I don’t know where I heard it or who it was that said it, but I remember dwelling on it for a while. If you think kids don’t pay attention, if you think they aren’t affected emotionally and possibly developmentally by the constant braying about the relatively minor threat of terrorism and the “threat” from various and sundry enemies overseas, think again.

Anyway my point is: It’s been around 20 years. Where the hell are those nukes? They’re just now going through the first stages of refining uranium. And once again, not for the first or even second time, we’re being shrieked at about the nuclear threat from Iran. Some Americans I have had contact with actually think that Iran is RIGHT NOW building nuclear weapons. The propaganda is working on some.

But why should we believe them now?

UPDATE: Thanks to Paul who sent this link, another five-year prediction from 1995 [pdf].

According to the Israeli website Arutz Sheva:

“Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in Atlanta have arrested the Israeli security officer at the Israeli consulate in the city. Details to follow.”

Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with this, or — more ominously — this. Stay tuned…

[Hat tip: National Review]

Update: No, it’s not espionage …

I just finished reading Charlton Heston’s autobiography — one of two he’s written, I think — In the Arena. Unlike some of my friends, I don’t mind his guns rights work nor his anti-Ice T Cop Killer agitation. I wanted to know more about two of my favorite dystopian movies, Planet of the Apes & Soylent Green. Why did a right-wing hawk make an antiwar film (based on a French sci-fi novel) during the Vietnam War? I also liked Touch of Evil. Turns out Heston was in a bunch of other movies that I haven’t seen, & some plays. He marched for civil rights but hates affirmative action racial preferences.

In my unscientific sample, Heston’s book is better than sleeping pills when recited to very pregnant person.

Heston was stationed in Alaska during WWII & just when he was about to go help invade Japan, the nukes fell, & Heston got to go home. So it’s sorta understandable that he would be in favor the mass destruction. It saved a million Japanese lives, blah blah blah. Fine. But then he comes back to it chapters later & it’s rah-rah-rah for Enola Gay. Here’s the real deal on Hiroshima, a p.o.v. that Heston doesn’t even mention: http://antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=9443. Regardless, Heston’s ends-justify-the-means enthusiastic support for the destruction of cities full of civilians is terroristic.

So that was enough reading of every word for me. I skipped forward to the parts I was interested in. And he never did explain the whole Apes thing.

~ Sam

I see David Weigel has a response to my column, posted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog: he, Michael Totten, and the blogger formerly known as Wonkette are filling in for Candy Andy while he takes yet another vacation.

I don’t really have that much of a bone to pick with David: as I said in my original post, he’s one of the Good Guys, a critic of the War Party, a reasonable person, and, by the way, an interesting writer. Which is why I don’t get his rather odd objection to a button handed to John J. Mearsheimer at the CAIR forum [.pdf], which read: “”Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby.”

Weigel finds this button “weird” — but why so? Surely Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt deserve all the adulation they can get, especially in view of their continuing vilification at the hands of the Lobby. And, speaking of which, why not fight the Lobby? This isn’t a debate over abstractions: it’s a political battle, and there is nothing “weird” about wanting to recapture American foreign policy from a well-funded, well-organized, and single-minded foreign lobby.

What’s weird, however, is that I was originally responding to Weigel’s post at Reason‘s “Hit and Run” blog: he’s cross-posting at Sullivan’s blog. The only post that doesn’t appear on both blogs is his response to me.

Could it be that there is a “No Raimondo” rule at Reason? Hilarious, if true… Poor Nick Gillespie: is he really that humorless? Probably.