Nah, just a bunch of nice boys who were improperly rounded up by the BushCo military machine.
Terrorism
Poor Planning
I thought I would recycle another comment posting into a blog entry. This post over at Reason’s Hit&Run about porkbarrelling in Homeland Defense spending prompted me to think about how often poor foresight leads to crises which then set off rounds of panicked and ill considered decision making which wastes time and resources and provides opportunities for corruption.
Clooney, etc. Oppose bin Laden
bin Laden clearly is not in favor of UN peacekeeprs, wants Sharia law enforced throughout the Sudan, and appears to have few problems with genocide. Isn’t this the first tape in which he speaks directly of the Sudan and threatens jihad there?
Bin Laden said the United States and Britain were seeking to dismember Sudan and urged his followers to fight them in Darfur, calling the United Nations an “infidel body” and a U.S. tool.
That such figures as George Clooney find this an unattractive position is heartening. (Though I must say imagining Lantos, Jackson Lee & Clooney demonstrating boggles the mind.)
Bioweapons, Unk-Unks, and Delayed Gratification
Thanks, I suspect, to Glenn’s concern, Technorati shows 13 links to The Knowledge, Technology Review‘s article about the dangers of biological weapons — but only one to Assessing the Threat, the companion piece that casts doubts regarding the same subject. None of the links I found via Technorati lead to any lengthy commentary, and Glenn — whom I regard as a national treasure, so this is not meant to convey disrespect — doesn’t seem to get beyond saying “this is scary, and we ought to do something about it.” The blogosphere, it would seem, has its limitations, even in the face of mortal threats.
By way of starting somewhere, then, I have a framework to offer that might at least help us determine how much trouble we’re in …
Warraq Reminds Us of What We Forget
This week, Ibn Warraq, a Muslim dissident, argues in Spiegel: “The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience.” He contrasts the cultures – “the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection.”
Well, now the Norwegian Embassy as well as the Danish one has been torched in Damascus; in Beirut not only has the Danish embassy been attacked but the Maronite Catholic church has been stoned; in Gaza, the EU offices have been attacked. Americans are often seen as geographically & culturally challenged, but four-month-old graphics in a Danish newspaper seem only tangentially “punished” by stones to a church in Beirut or raids on EU offices in Gaza. So, we take stock of what we believe, we define our differences. For, surely they see us as “one” because we share the values of the open marketplace of ideas. We optimistically & confidently assume our beliefs can withstand satire & continue to sustain us. And they share, what, a profound sense that anything anywhere that is skeptical or critical of their faith wounds them at their core.