*Jim Henley serves an ace on the libertotalitarians at Volokh
*Arthur Silber’s back, asking “How many liberations does it take to power a lightbulb?”
*Gene Healy doesn’t give a f**k what Cheney says – except when he’s shredding the Constitution and lying us into war
Monday was the 90th anniversary of the Sarajevo assassination, the event that sparked (but did not cause) World War One. Though most media were trying to deal with the early transfer of bogus sovereignty to the puppet regime in Iraq, wire services found time to note the anniversary. Some, like the Associate Press, used boilerplate propaganda denying Austria-Hungary’s aggressive designs and instead claiming that Gavrilo Princip, the young assassin, was one of the “Serb nationalists who saw their own nation as the rightful master of the region.”
AP even quotes a former Izetbegovic henchman, Muhamed Filipovic, saying that “the same force drove Princip in 1914 as drove Milosevic and his henchmen in 1992 – ‘the idea of using force to create … a greater Serbia’.”
Austria-Hungary has been dead for 86 years, but that Vienna-spawned lie not only lives still, but has grown in the telling.
On the other hand, Agence France-Presse (AFP) put together an article entirely devoid of propaganda. Found thanks to Google News , it was published in the Philippines’ Manila Times. No indication any US paper picked it up, though it is possible; at least three US papers carried the AP story. Continue reading “Propaganda and History”
On the verge of his departure from National Review, William F. Buckley sends a message to the snotty punks now running his magazine:
“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago,” Mr. Buckley said. “If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”
Disingenuous, no doubt – did any intelligent person really consider Saddam a danger to the U.S.? – but a sign of how badly things are going. (From the NYT.)
A bit of a reality check has crept into this article from Stars and Stripes on NATO’s promise to train Iraqi security forces:
Taliban Targeting Women in Afghan Election Registration Efforts
Those loathsome dudes, the Taliban, are doing their despicable best to squelch the women of Afghanistan, having killed two Saturday and an unknown number on Friday when 16 folks were gunned down for carrying – voter registration cards! The Friday attack was reported by various news sources as having resulted in 16 deaths, but then, no, a man claiming to represent the ousted militia called to correct this: It was 19 – not a mere 16, he claimed. This is like something out of a really, really bad Western, say, The Good, the Bad, and the Taliban, where the banditos brag to the world about how many innocent townspeople – including women and children – they’ve slaughtered. Yes, we’ll remember this, too.
Although the Taliban vowed continued efforts to destroy the upcoming elections, of the 4.5 million people registered to vote so far one-third are women. This is not bad considering the obstacles geographical, logistical, and, of course, sociological these women have to overcome to get registered to vote. And I’ll bet that voter turn-out will be better in Afghanistan in September than it will in the US.
According to preliminary results of the runoff election, Boris Tadic of DOS – I mean, DS – is the new President of Serbia, having won 54% of the votes by 48% of the Serbian electorate.
Notes our resident Balkans observer Chris Deliso, the results were accompanied with much self-congratulatory rhetoric from the Empire and the Serbian political classes. Given that Tadic was supported by the entire political establishment, most media, and the Empire – which not so much rooted for him as demonized his opponent – the fact that his victory was hardly a landslide ought to be sobering. But the Powers That Love Democracy are too intoxicated with success to pay attention. Continue reading ““Reformer” wins Serbian election”
