Good Analogy

Oh my, some “repulsive characters” from a “coven of fringe libertarians” are “crucifying” Conrad Black. Well, if voicing a little schadenfreude as one of the biggest statists of our time is harassed by the state amounts to crucifixion, then call me Pilate. As an act of penance, I’ll sign the first “Free Lord Black” petition anyone sends my way.

Now: when should I expect that more-libertarian-than-thou article on Black’s legal victims?

Finally, an Ignoble Lie

Upset by Pentagon propaganda in Iraq, Christopher Hitchens crawls to his porcelain throne at Slate and upchucks on his own reflection:

    I remember reading, decades ago, of a moment when Richard Nixon had made some desperate speech from his bunker and had then arranged for telegrams of support to be sent to the White House. And I wondered — did he eagerly tear them open and turn moistly to his aides, saying, “See: You can always count on the horse sense of the American people”? Was he, in other words, utterly and happily insulated and yet alarmingly insane?

I’m sure Andrew Sullivan will call it courageous, and I do hope that it ruined Arthur Chrenkoff’s day, but this guy knows the score:

    Chris Hitchens has finally found something so atrocious he can’t stand by it in this war. Ready for it? He is upset that the U.S. is lying to the Iraqis. It was ok, I suppose, when they were only lying to their own citizens about this war, but now that they are planting bullsh*t in the Iraqi media rather than feeding it to Judy Miller, now that’s a crime.

Around the blogs

Fun link: A Short Play Starring Christopher Hitchens, by Jonathan Schwarz.

Speaking of troublemakers…

It all began with a recommendation to celebrate Veteran’s Day with a donation to AntiWar.com. Well, at least that was the proximate cause of this round. Be sure and read Brad Spangler’s evaluation, which begins, “If there’s one thing Tom Knapp knows how to do well, it’s stir up a bunch of shit. This is, in fact, laudable on his part. If I may explain…”

Clark Stooksbury defends Bush! OK, Bush may not be the worst President ever yet, but can anyone rival him in chimpiness?

The Cunning Realist has some important points to make about the Egyptian elections and the American response to them, here first, and then here.

Abu Aardvark compares the Bathrobe Bloggers to Global Voices.

Here’s Bob Geiger shining a light on the pro-war “Move America Forward” Cindy-Sheehan-stalkers, via MoxieGrrrl, who doesn’t bother being diplomatic about her opinion of Melanie Morgan, MAF’s lead pitbull.

John Robb on why current US strategy (clear and hold, aka oilspot)in Iraq will fail. How badly? Robb says, “If we do it flawlessly (which is going to be very difficult given a thinking enemy), the controlled chaos may hold long enough for the US to get most of its troops out.” How hard will it be for the US to get the troops out? According to Martin van Creveld, who should know:

Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable…

Shoe(t)ing at Allawi

An astute AntiWar.com reader explains why Allawi would rather claim to have been the victim of gun-wielding assassins than an angry mob throwing tomatoes and shoes:

In Arab culture its more acceptable to a man to be hit by a bullet rather than a shoe -or even worse!-by a sandal.

thats why they tried to cover up that most humilating incident by claiming that it was an assasination attempt !

And from the Department of I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that, The Wege at Norwegianity points at this post with this comment:
They were shoe(t)ing at Allawi the other day. Amazing how that Iraqi press turned shoes and tomatoes into guns and knives.
So, I stole it for the title of this post.

UPDATE: Swopa speculates on Allawi’s electoral chances vs. Team Shiite.

The colour of honour

Why do Bush-boosting, pro-war Americans especially seem to find it impossible to imagine walking in another’s shoes?  Via Jim Henley and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, you’ll recognize the typically American Bushie right-winger attitude in the following Al Jazeera post:

The following exchange took place in between an Anonymous poster and myself in the comments section of this blog:

Anonymous:

Though you broadcast these screeds in detail because it is "news" that you have a "duty" to report, when I search the Al Jazeera site for the phrase "honor killings" I get nada. Not a single hit. Don’t you think that the murder of women throughout the Islamic world by their uncles and fathers and husbands because these women have the audacity to date who they want or express what they think is newsworthy?

Me:

You make mention that our website does not mention "Honor Killings" – that is true since we don’t use American English – we use English English.

Try your search using "honour" instead – or just click here  for Google results.

You see, sometimes little cultural misunderstands can cause such a big fuss.

Let’s keep talking. Enjoy the weekend..!

By Mohammed posting on the Al Jazeera staff’s weblog, Don’t Bomb Us

"Let’s keep talking," Mohammed says.  But Mohammed’s cheerful optimism causes me to cynically recall this line from an old song:

All lies and jest, still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Najaf mob tries to assassinate Allawi with shoes?

Who to believe? Here’s Allawi’s account:

Iraq’s former prime minister Iyad Allawi said gunmen tried to assassinate him in Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrine on Sunday, forcing him to cut short an election campaign visit pursued by an angry mob.

“It appeared to be an assassination attempt,” the secular Shi’ite said on his return to Baghdad from the holy city of Najaf.

He said 60-70 men in black, armed with guns and knives, set upon his party as he prayed at the Imam Ali mosque.

Here’s an Iraqi police captain’s account:
A crowd hurling shoes, rocks and tomatoes forced former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to cut short a visit on Sunday to Iraq’s holiest Shi’ite shrine during a campaign trip to the city of Najaf, police officers said.

A spokeswoman for Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, said she had no information on the incident but confirmed that Allawi, who is challenging the ruling Shi’ite Islamist Alliance bloc at next week’s parliamentary election, had been in Najaf during the day.

A police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large crowd of worshippers at the Imam Ali mosque hurled sandals and shoes at Allawi — a grave insult in Iraqi culture.

A second police officer said some of Allawi’s bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd and that also threw rocks, sticks, tomatoes and other projectiles. Police also intervened to break up the disturbance, he said.

Both policemen said they believed supporters of militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were responsible for the disturbances, though evidence for this was unclear.

“When Allawi entered the shrine, a few people, believed to be Sadrists picked up batons and threatened to attack him,” the police captain said at the scene after the incident.

“His American and Iraqi guards fired in the air when everyone started throwing shoes and sandals at him.”

I like the shoe story better.