Black Dog

This just in for Shady, CNN is reporting that Trent Lott thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info about he prisons to the Post last week. He says the details had been discussed at a meeting last week with GOP Senators and the Vice President, and that many of those details made it into the WaPo story. Money quote: "(Cheney) was up here last wek and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper." No link yet.

Talking sense to our right-wing friends. I was thinking about this and realized what was bugging me: it's the reference to the American experience with civil strife. Now, according to some, multicultralism is to blame for the civil unrest in France. Yet clearly, the United States (who's unofficial "melting pot" policy is the model for assimilationists) has experienced similar problems with its non-immigrant African American population. What that tells me is that state cultural policies are less to blame than a social system which creates and perpetuates the existence of a economic underclass. So the hubub about multicultralism (whatever its flaws) is a red herring in this case.

Actually, you're right. Looks like I was doing the same thing as you before. I hang my head in shame. Yet I've never said a word about multicultralism before today. So shove off.

Separation won't happen simply because Quebec can get more out of Canada by threatening to leave than they could by actually leaving.

Genocide is a hall mark of Nazism. Fact: France's policy is no longer multicultural. The rest is yet another strawman argument. Judgement is like opinions and assholes: everybody has 'em. Whether they are sound or not is a different story. You demonstrated some staggeringly shitty judgement here, creating a strawman out of beliefs I never articulated or professed to hold.

Heil Argus. Christ, can any of you half-wits make the distinction between cause and effect and justifying? By your logic, a statement like "the cause of World War 2 was Hitler's invasion of Poland" would be treated as an endorsement of Nazism. It's not hard, people. Actually (as I pointed out elsewhere), they aren't: rather, they are aggressivly assimilationist. In other words: you're wrong. But keeping beating that straw man. (Also, please refrain from telling me what my beliefs are: I've never taken any kind of position on the immigration/multicultralism debate, so you are, once again, full of shit.) I love the smell of rascism in the afternoon...smells like...privilege. But what is it about conditons of poverty and ghettoization that breed such "borderline" personality types? Maybe they are just inferior, eh....

It's a bad idea to dry clean a suit too often, as too frequent dry cleaning can damage the fabric. This is especially true with wool. If you wear the same suit very frequently, just have it pressed. Or consider buying more than one suit.

I said it elsewhere and have recieved no reply, so I'll ask again: were there a lot of Muslims in New York in 1964 and 1968, Watts in 1965, Detroit in 1967, San Francisco in 1966, Washington, DC in 1968, Baltimore in 1967 and 1968, and Chicago and Cleveland in 1968 or L.A. in 1990?

Here's the thing: most crimes have motives. If you spent more time trying to understand the basics of cause and effect and less on your soap box trying (and failing) to sound insightful, you'd see that. You are, again, equating understanding what could possibly cause a group of poor and marginalized people to engage in criminal behaviour en masse with justifying those criminal actions. Nothing of the sort is happening here. I also note you offer absolutely nothing in way of explanation, save for the tacit notion that "those people" are inherently criminal. Google news search "Paris+riots+ Muslim". Oh yeah, one more thing (and this is to all those who are pointing to these riots as evidence of the failure of multicultralism): France doesn't have a multicultralist policy. France's assimilation policy

Why would I care? If true, all that it would show is that hypocrisy is a human trait and not the sole domain of right wingers.

Nonsense. The violence reflects tensions in French neighborhoods marked by youth unemployment of more than 30 percent and large immigrant Muslim communities in the majority Catholic nation. Youths predominantly from France's large Arab-Muslim minority have rampaged through out-of-town neighbourhoods for 11 straight nights, setting fire to vehicles, businesses and public buildings and attacking police with stones and other missiles. The country's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree. It forbade all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others." BTW, were there a lot of Muslims in New York in 1964 and 1968, Wats in 1965, Detroit in 1967, San Francisco in 1966, Washington, DC in 1968, Baltimore in 1967 and 1968, and Chicago and Cleveland in 1968 or L.A. in 1990? Who said it did? Why is it that I keep seeing words like "housing projects", "slums", and even "ghettos", then? Unemployment in France overall is 10 per cent. Unemployment for immigrants is running at over 20 per cent. France has faile dto integrate its immigrant population, preferring to keep them marginalized and poor as a source of cheap labour. Spare me your supercilious crap. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that identifying the causes is not the same as supportring or justifying the actions. Nor does it take a genius to see that branding an entire population "criminals" on the basis of race or ethnic origin (all the while ignoring any social factors at work) is simplistic and ignorant.

Google doesn't lie. There's no record of this guy anywhere. Maybe he's "Curveball".

Yeah, poverty and ghettoization leading to crime and social degredation is a "flavour of the month theory". I don't know what's more tiresome: the facile nature of your theories or the pompous manner in which you issue them.

I think the real story here is in the regional changes. If the numbers stay this way through an election (though I agree things will be back to pre-Gomery levels by the time that happens), we'll see a minority government with even more regional polarization. Not good.

But he was a "sworn enemy" of the United States!? But it was never about oil, was it? Why do they hate our freedoms?

Well, a lot of it has been circulating for a while. Sy Hersh, the Independent (UK) and others reported on how the U.S. is keeping secret detainees starting back in (IIRC) 2003. And we know about the practice of "rendition" thanks to the Arar case here in Canda. So the pieces are there, it seems like the WaPo is trying to put them all together. Finally, the very nature of this story (that is: the high level of secrecy which keeps these gaols hidden even from other branches of government) means that "official" confrimation would be impossible. I dunno. When it comes to this administration, where there's smoke, there's probably fire.

Nonsense. Unless you are prepare to exterminate, not just every actual terrorist, but every single person with idealogical sympathies. And then, of course, those individuals' families. And anyone who could potentially, one day, think of sympathizing with terrorists. Then congratulations: you're Hitler. They ARE the government. (Actually, given the total lack of oversight, they are above the government). Why? No its differentiating between someone involved in the crime and someone you think may have been involved in the crime. Well, given that this is the same government that held hundreds of people in Iraq's worst prison by mistake (70 to 90 per cent of detainees in Abu Ghriab were innocent of any wrongdoing) and is holding a majority of detainees in these black sites who have little direct involvement in terrorism and limited intelligence value, I'd say I have every reason to believe that is exactly what is going on.

What is it with the right wing and their obsession with Babs Streisand? There's about four middle aged gay men in Chelsea, New York who care what she thinks. That's it. Speaking of stocks, I wouldn't put much stock in anything WolrdNut has to report.

Craxymf, you keep missing th epoint: Well, first, we're not necessarily talking about self-defence, so that dog doesn't hunt. Grabbing some guy who may or not be a terrorist, locking them away from any legal protection or representation and subjecting them to god-knows what kind of treatment is not "self-defence". As for "bad guys" not deserving human rights protections, why not? If we are as civilized and freedom-loving as we claim, we should be setting the standard, not debasing ourselves to the level of the fiends we claim to oppose. Call me crazy, but I believe that if these fellas are so dangerous, then surely a case can be built against them. Put them on trial, expose their crimes. "First they came for the Jews..." We know what happens when citizens of a democracy stop holding their government to account and surrender to the forces of a secretive state apparatus that claims to be acting in the best interests of the people. Perhaps. If it wasn't part of a continuing plan to expand the West Bank settlements. No, they just send 18 year olds to kill 16 year olds from the comfort of a helicopter cockpit. But we digress... You should read the article again. This covert prison system operates out of the reach of any checks and balances. To chracterize the struggle against the ideology that fuels terrorism as a war is both false and dangerous. False because it is a political and idealogical struggle (and please: spare me any von Clausewitz references) that cannot be resolved by force of arms). Unsavoury cloak and dagger activities are, to a degree, inevitable, but without a grand strategy, without a vision to confront th epolitical/idealogical realities, there can be no victory, only an unending and increasingly ugly struggle.

See thread in "Rest of the World"

n'er mind

You're missing the point entirely. We have no idea what these people are guitly of, or if they are guilty of anything at all. From the WaPo article: There's no trials, no charges, only the CIA's word that they are "bad guys". Now that may be good enough for some people, but I don't think a society where the rule of law is discarded and where the state's say-so is sufficient for the persumption of guilt has any business calling itself a democracy, let alone a bastion of liberty. Narrow, ignorant thinking. Stories like this (and Abu Ghriab before) only serve to undermine the effort to combat terrorism by further enflaming anjti-western sentiment and stregthening radical ideaologies. The root of terrorism is an ideology that states that the west is engaged in a crusade against Islam hat must be countered by any means necessary: stories like this only serve to confirm those suspicions. That's a laugh. Tell me, when has Israel ever conceded a damn thing? (Oh and one more thing: land mines may be banned under the 1999 Ottawa Treaty, but 42 countries have refused to sign on...including the U.S.A. Also, according to wikipedia, "Landmines generally refer to devices specifically manufactured for purpose, as distinguished from improvised explosive devices.") Shady's just trolling.

A) You don't know the status of the information before it got out, nor do you know how this information was obtained. The existence of these prisons has been discussed since at least last year, so its not really news. C) You're obfuscating. Or talking out of your ass. Probably both.

If you adopt the "enemies" tactics, you surrender any moral highground you may have had, which kinda terminates any claim you may have had on dictating right or wrong. Now, I'm realistic enough to know that there's going to be a fair amount of unpleasentness in any war between immoral or unscrupulous characters. C'est la guerre. The problem is that the way this has been conducted, the lack of oversight, the fact that people are bing pulled into this system (originally designed for "high value" targets) who have little or no appreciable intelligence value. That's not to say that torturing people is okay only if they are unrepentant bad guys, but all of this is pretty much anathema to democracy and the principles upon which it is founded. All this to say that stories like this blur the lines in a narative that depends so heavily on clear "good guys" and "evildoers". What good does preserving your way of life do when, in the process, you become that which you oppose?

I'm so tired of people missing the forest for the trees on this. Notwithstanding the fact that Iraqi oil is, in theory at least, far cheaper to extract than the stuff from the oil sands (three times cheaper), the oil argument has never been about supply, but about control over access. Prior to the Iraq war, U.S. companies were barred from dealing with Saddam's regime, which meant lucrative contracts were going to Russian, European and Chionese companies. Now, with Saddam gone (courtesy the U.S.A.) those American companies can move to the front of the line. Furthermore, a U.S. military prescence in the region ensures that potential rivals are denied or limited access to oil. Oil is probably the single most important driver of foreign policy today. I can't for the life of me understand why people are so quick to dismiss the only explanation that makes any sense from a strategic standpoint.