Monthly Archives: June 2006

A Secret the Terrorists Already Knew

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Richard Clarke and Roger Cressey, from the New York Times:

There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it were up to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to use terrorism to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls again this year.

The administration and its Congressional backers want to give the impression that they are fighting a courageous battle against those who would wittingly or unknowingly help the terrorists. And with four months left before Election Day, we can expect to hear many more outrageous claims about terrorism — from partisans on both sides. By now, sadly, Americans have come to expect it.

Here.

Insanity Defense

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From the Moscow Times, Chris Floyd on Ron Suskind’s new book “The One Percent Doctrine”:

But perhaps the most revealing moment in Suskind’s book is a brief vignette that captures the quintessence of Bush’s callous disregard for the American people — and the regime’s strange, preternatural calm in the face of imminent attack. In August 2001, while Bush dawdled on his Texas dude ranch, the entire national security system was, in Tenet’s words, “blinking red” in expectation of a major terrorist strike. On Aug. 6, a CIA official brought the infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo to Crawford and read it out personally to the president. In response, he got nothing but a snide dismissal: “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”

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Ullrich and Basso out of Le Tour

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From the BBC:

Team manager Olaf Ludwig said: “We talked to the riders several times and even have their declarations of innocence in written form.

“At first we had no reason to doubt the riders’ statements, but that situation has now changed profoundly.”

Ullrich, Basso and Mancebo are unlikely be the last big names to be suspended from the Tour de France after organisers ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) revealed that they have been given a list of more than 50 riders involved in the probe.

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The Hidden Power

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From The New Yorker:

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David S. Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, “all Addington.” Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was “an unopposable force.”

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Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantanamo

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AP, from the New York Times:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court’s decision would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”

The court’s willingness, Thomas said, “to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

In his own opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said, “Congress has not issued the executive a ‘blank check.”‘

“Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary,” Breyer wrote.

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Review: Absurdistan

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Absurdistan : A Novel

Absurdistan, by Gary Steyngart.
[rating:5/5]

“May we help you with something?” the flattop repeated. His face had a single long crack running from forehead to chin, as if he had been dropped one time too many as a child. “This place isn’t for you, fellow. The consulate is closed. Shove off.”

“I want to see the charge d’affaires,” I said. “I am Misha Vainberg, son of the famous Boris Vainberg who peed on the dog in front of the KGB headquarters during the Soviet times.” I leaned against the wall of the consulate building and spread my arms out, exposing the white of my stomach the way a puppy shows he’s defenseless in front of a larger dog. “My father was a very big dissident. Bigger than Sharansky! Once the Americans hear of what he’s done for freedome of religion, they’ll build a statue to him in Times Square.”

The two security guards smiled broadly at each other. It isn’t often anymore that you can beat up a Jew in an official capacity in Russia, so when the chance comes, you have to grab it. You have to beat the Jew for church and fatherland or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. The guy with the Caesar cut flexed the rolls of his neck in provocation. “If you don’t leave immediately,” he said, “you’re going to have some problems with us.”

Steyngart’s novel follows events that Misha Vainberg, son of a the 1,238-richest man in Russia. He’s heavy and Hasidic Jews botched his adult circumcision. He ends up in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, oops, I mean Absurdistan, as it enters a state of ethic civil war.

The crowd passed me around, squeezing and poking. This is what Jesus must have felt like on a good day. I was relayed under the tentacle-arches of the Sevo Vatican and toward the sad greenery of the waterfront. There was rumbling above us. A deep groaning sound. Then a couple of pop-pop-pops. Small arms fire. I looked up, hoping to catch sight of my favorite GRAD missiles. Nothing doing. The teenage members of one of the True Footrest Posses were scrambling up a hill with their mortars and surface-to-air missiles. Good luck, kids! I hit something hard and stony. An old woman was laid out on an enormous marble conch shell, part of some defunct art nouveau fountain. Her whole family was crying over her, children by her feet, grown-ups at the head. “Is she dead?” I asked them.

“We’ll never forget her,” the relatives wailed.

“Don’t be so sure,” I said, trying to be sympathetic. “What may seem like a terrible loss today may be just an uncomfortable memory tomorrow. She was old. Hard to carry. use this opportunity to move to America.” But after I spoke, the sobbing only increased. A fist waved through the air attached to some glandular epithets. I moved away, shaking my head. the people had lost their senses. It was all just jungle emotions now. They couldn’t wait to start mourning one another. That was the one thing they knew backward and forward. Death from above, death from within. Tyrants and heart attacks. The three most popular words in the Russian language: “Stalin. Gitler. Infarkt.”

The book has great scenes with American contractors from KBR and Halliburton who are partying away in posh hotels as Absurdistan destroys itself. An intelligence officer talks about the American electorate:
“Then we really let the cat out of the bag. We tell them, ‘Look, there’s a genocide happening, and the U.S. can invade one of the following ten countries.’ We give them a list of countries, real and imaginary. We’ve got Djibouti, Yolanda, Costa Rica, Eastern Tuchusland, Absurdsvani, and so forth. Guess what came in dead last, even behind the reviled Homoslavia? That’s right. See, the way ‘Absurdsvani’ is pronounced and spelled, it’s utterly impossible for an American to feel anything for it. You have to be able to use a country as a child’s first name to get anywhere. RWANDA Jones. SOMALIA Cohen. TIMOR Jackson. BOSNIA Lewis-Wright. And then you this REPUBLIKA ABSURDSVANI. Hopeless.”

Absurdistan, by Gary Steyngart.
[rating:5/5]