Edward Rothstein reviews Steven Speilberg's new movieMunich in Monday's New York Times. It appears he didn't care for the film, alleging that Speilberg's treatment of terrorism - "a violent and extreme reaction to injustice - the last resort of the oppressed" - both lends a justification to terrorism and oversimplifies the problem of ending it. The thing is, Mr. Rothstein seems to be doing much of the same in his own review.

Mr. Rothstein suggests that the idea of terrorism as a response to injustice is never applied to right-wing terrorism - he cites the bombing of the Oklahoma federal building as an example. But I think that he's wrong here. While some talk about terrorism as a response to injustice, I think more often people talk about terrorism as a response to perceived injustice. In that case the idea most certainly applies to right-wing terrorists such as McVeigh, and I think that those interested in talking about the causes of terrorism in a non-ideological manner will recognize that.

Whether or not terrorism is a response to an injustice - perceived or real - is really beside the point, though. Terrorism is really simply an attempt to coerce or intimidate in order to acheive a political end; preceding injustices can always be manufactured defend such acts - just ask Joseph
Goebbels or LBJ.

Rothstein goes on to question the cycle of violence, claiming that Speilberg paints Isreal as overreacting and causing decades of continued killing:

The elimination of context makes the Israeli response seem intemperate, while all future acts of Palestinian terror are treated as if they were responses to the Israeli assassinations. But as the historical Meir well knew, in the years before Munich, maniacal terrorists aligned with the Palestinian cause had bombed a Swissair jet, thrown hand grenades into crowds at Israel's airport, hijacked planes and associated themselves with other terror groups trained and partly financed by the Soviet Union. These, like the attacks that followed Munich, were part of a continuing war, not evidence of an amorphous cycle of violence that developed out of Israel's attempts to undermine terror.

Mr. Rothstein is correct that Munich was not the first incident of Palestinian terrorism, but the idea that Israel was an innocent party pushed to a breaking point is also ahistorical. After all, Israel was born of violence. In 1923, 25 years before the founding of the state of Israel, Zionist Ze'ev Jabotinsky wrote in Ha'aretz Daily

".... Settlement can thus develop under the protection of a force that is not dependent on the local population, behind an IRON WALL which they will be powerless to break down. ....a voluntary agreement is just not possible. As long as the Arabs preserve a gleam of hope that they will succeed in getting rid of us, nothing in the world can cause them to relinquish this hope, precisely because they are not a rubble but a living people. And a living people will be ready to yield on such fateful issues only when they give up all hope of getting rid of the Alien Settlers. Only then will extremist groups with their slogan 'No, never' lose their influence, and only then their influence be transferred to more moderate groups. And only then will the moderates offer suggestions for compromise. Then only will they begin bargaining with us on practical matters, such as guarantees against PUSHING THEM OUT, and equality of civil, and national rights."

Certainly Jabotinsky does not represent the views of all Israelis, but that does not erase the history of terrorist violence perpetrated by Israelis. After all, Israelis and Palestinians had been terrorising each other for 24 years before the Munich killings. Mr. Rothstein, however, only remembers one side of the violence.

Nothing can excuse the actions of the terrorist murderers who committed the terrorist acts in Munich in 1972. Steven Speilberg's film may not do justice to the incident, but Mr. Rothstein's review does justice neither to those who have died as a result of violence in Israel/Palestine nor to Mr. Speilberg's film. The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the great problems with no good solutions. Historical revisionism, though, only fuels the fire.

Sniveling Quisling vs. Patriot:

“None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former judge and close ally of the president who sits on the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who has led a bipartisan filibuster against a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, quoted Patrick Henry, an icon of the American Revolution, in response: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

He called Cornyn’s comments “a retreat from who we are and who we should be.”

- via The Hill

Seriously, this is the best the GOP can come up with? "Civil liberties don't matter much after you're dead"? What a pathetic bunch of cowards.

I like the old films like His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story where the reporter is almost a hardened detective out to get his story no matter what. The idea that reporting would be done by someone interested only in breaking the truth and informing the public seems almost quaint these days.

The truth is, it's important to know who's behind the news that we receive. Some of them are well known - George Soros, Rupurt Murdoch, Ted Turner, Conrad Black. But some of the most influential names are not as well known, though, arguably, they should be.

Bruce Kovner, for example.

Bruce Kovner would never raise his voice in the provocative manner of that morning’s panel, but he has continually underwritten hard-right ideas, giving them legitimacy in political discourse. Lefties may dominate discussions in universities and New York dinner parties, but neocons never fade into that distance. They hang around Pennsylvania Avenue.

Kovner, over two decades, has underwritten the infrastructure the neocons have used to achieve their current prominence. On the fifth floor of the AEI building, the Project for the New American Century helped lay the ground for the Iraq war by regular statements describing Saddam Hussein as the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East. The Sun ran an editorial asserting that people protesting the Iraq war were committing treason, while AEI’s Perle and David Frum published An End to Evil, in which they argued that extreme Islam wants to dominate the world, and the U.S. faces “victory or holocaust.” The U.S. should show as little compunction about “destroying regimes” as a police sniper feels icing a hostage-taker. When George Bush was elected in 2000, Dick Cheney swept in a raft of neoconservative thinkers, many from AEI.

- George Soros’s Right-Wing Twin

Or how about John Rendon?

Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists. Two months before al-Haideri took the lie-detector test, the Pentagon had secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda. One of the most powerful people in Washington, Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam.

...

Unlike many newcomers to the field, however, Rendon is a battle-tested veteran who has been secretly involved in nearly every American shooting conflict in the past two decades. In the first interview he has granted in decades, Rendon offered a peek through the keyhole of this seldom-seen world of corporate spooks -- a rarefied but growing profession. Over a dinner of lamb chops and a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape at a private Washington club, Rendon was guarded about the details of his clandestine work -- but he boasted openly of the sweep and importance of his firm's efforts as a for-profit spy. "We've worked in ninety-one countries," he said. "Going all the way back to Panama, we've been involved in every war, with the exception of Somalia."

The Man Who Sold the War

Now, Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart they're not. But if you want to know what's going on in the world, they've probably got a better idea than most. Of course, you're not going to find out by reading what they publish.

Being out of the country, I missed this the first time around.

The Nation: Are you predicting a coming military dictatorship? And that the American people would stand for that?

Gore Vidal: They'll stand for anything. And they will stand for nothing.

Gore Vidal, Octocontrarian

Now, I'm not one to predict such hyperbolic futures for the United States. While this is certainly a difficult time for civil-libertarians, we're still far better off than many, perhaps most, nations.

But the past few years have certainly made me more and more concerned about the way we Americans take for granted our freedoms, our readiness to take the plunge down a slipperly slope that is far easier to descend than to reverse.

We are looked up to in the world not because we have bigger cars and unfettered access to shopping malls. We're looked up to because we do not allow our government to threaten and control us; that we do not live in a climate of fear and suspicion.

In recent days many people, including self-proclaimed "libertarians", have bent over backwards in attempts to rationalize and justify this administrations lawless and authoritarian behavior. They tell us that to be free, we must be willing to give up our freedom; that if we demand liberty, we only threaten it.

This, not some modern day bogey-man like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, is the greatest threat to our liberty, to our way of life: that we allow ourselves to be controlled by fear and suspicion, and that in this fear we willingly forfeit our liberty.

Today's Washington Post features advice from Henry Kissinger on How to Exit Iraq.

Tomorrow, Bill Clinton gives marital advice.

One of the most frustrating things about the current state of politics in the U.S. is how so many people have become such predictable partisan hacks. When Bush is caught authorizing illegal wiretaps on private citizens, too many partisans (NRO, for one) try to gloss over the issue, or, worse yet, justify it. This isn't a tactic that Republicans have a monopoly on, either. If we're going to remain the leaders of the free world, we're going to need some intellectual honesty.

Following are excerpts from a debate between conservative Republicans Bob Barr (former Congressman, GA) and Dana Rohrabacher (Congressman, CA). I might not agree with Bob Barr on much, but I'm proud of him for having the integrity to honestly stand up to the President and his party when the President is (far) out of line.

Perhaps there is a legitimate argument for Bush's action, though at this time I seriously doubt it. Nevertheless, I respect the right of people to both disagree with me and, well, to be wrong. I have to admit, though, that I'm actually shocked by some of Rohrabacher's statements. If he thinks that the Constitution of the United States only applies when it's convenient or easy, then he has no understanding of the law and has no place in the House of Representatives.

BLITZER:...Congressman Barr, what's wrong with what the president has decided to do?

BOB BARR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What's wrong with it is several-fold. One, it's bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it's bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without court order.

...

Well, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution is the Constitution, and I took an oath to abide by it. My good friend, my former colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, did and the president did. And I don't really care very much whether or not it can be justified based on some hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that, if you have any government official who deliberately orders that federal law be violated despite the best of motives, that certainly ought to be of concern to us.

...


REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: And by the way, how do we know who wasn't deterred from blowing up other targets. The fact is --

BARR: Well, gee, I guess then the president should be able to ignore whatever provision in the Constitution as long as there's something after the fact that justifies it.

ROHRABACHER: Bob, during wartime, you give some powers to the presidency you wouldn't give in peace time.

BARR: Do we have a declaration of war, Dana?

ROHRABACHER: You don't have to do that.

BARR: We don't? That makes it even much easier for a president.

...

BARR: Here again, this is absolutely a bizarre conversation where you have a member of Congress saying that it's okay for the president of the United States to ignore U.S. law, to ignore the Constitution, simply because we are in an undeclared war.

The fact of the matter is the law prohibits -- specifically prohibits -- what apparently was done in this case, and for a member of Congress to say, oh, that doesn't matter, I'm proud that the president violated the law is absolutely astounding, Wolf.

ROHRABACHER: Not only proud, we can be grateful to this president. You know, I'll have to tell you, if it was up to Mr. Schumer, Senator Schumer, they probably would have blown up the Brooklyn Bridge. The bottom line is this: in wartime we expect our leaders, yes, to exercise more authority.

Now, I have led the fight to making sure there were sunset provisions in the Patriot Act, for example. So after the war, we go back to recognizing the limits of government. But we want to put the full authority that we have and our technology to use immediately to try to thwart terrorists who are going to -- how about have a nuclear weapon in our cities?

BARR: And the Constitution be damned, Dana?

ROHRABACHER: Well, I'll tell you something, if a nuclear weapon goes off in Washington, DC, or New York or Los Angeles, it'll burn the Constitution as it does. So I'm very happy we have a president that's going to wiretap people's communication with people overseas to make sure that they're not plotting to blow up one of our cities.

BLITZER: We're out of time, but Bob Barr, I'll give you the last word.

BARR: Well, first of all, or last of all, this so-called plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge was bogus because it had to do with a group of idiots who were planning to dismantle it with blow torches.

CNN: The Situation Room
via everywhere

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies at George Washington University, brings up an interesting question about the revelation that President Bush signed a directive authorizing the NSA to spy on American citizens.

The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. A government agent can try to avoid prosecution if he can show he was "engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction," according to the law.

"This is as shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush administration," said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the administration's surveillance and detention policies. "It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans."

- The Washington Post 16 December 2005

So, if I understand this correctly, the President told NSA operatives to commit illegal acts. But the President doesn't have the authority to break the law, nor allow others to do so. I'm pretty sure we impeached Nixon for doing this, and the mantra during Clinton's impeachment was "the President is not above the law." So, what now? As with past questionable (to put it lightly) actions by GWB, I expect this to pass relatively unnoticed. I have to hand it to him, George Bush truly is The Teflon^TM Don.

via Americablog

As if anyone needed another reason not to vote for Hillary Clinton.

A while ago a good friend of mine told me a funny story. His brother had been to some chain clothier to purchase a new suit to wear at a wedding. At the clothier, he was shown several standard blue and charcoal suits. Looking over the selection, he said to the salesman, "You know, I'm really looking for something a little different. Like, I don't know, maybe something with a modern lapel or five-buttons or something. You know, something different." The salesman stood quietly for a moment looking at him. The silence went on just long enough for my friend's brother to feel a little awkward. Eventually the salesman said, "You might want to try S&K Menswear. That's where the, um, athletes shop." Not totally sure what that statement meant, my friend's brother headed to S&K. When he got there he noticed that he was the only person in the store who wasn't black. That's where the "athletes" shop.

We thought this was a great story. Aside from the racial stereotyping of fashion, what a weird way to get around saying "black people". Apparently, though, it's not that uncommon. Cue right-wing radio host and syndicated columnist Neal Boortz. In a 12 December blog post, Boortz predicted that Stan "Tookie" Williams would not be executed because Gov. Schwarzenegger feared riots.

I believe that the main reason the execution of Tookie Williams won't be executed is because Schwarzenegger knows full well that as soon as Tookie's death is announced there will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. The huge media exploitation of this story has made drop-dead sure of that. There are thugs just waiting for an excuse ... not a reason, an excuse. The rioting, of course, will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now.*

Boortz was, as he is on just about every issue, dead wrong on all counts. That's not surprising. To be honest, I'm not really surprised by the blatant racism of his statements either. What I find most interesting about his blather is the use of "aspiring rappers and NBA superstars" as a euphamism for the old tried-and-true "niggers." Does this guy get paid by the word or what? Your average Klansman might not get published by TownHall.com, but at least he's got better word economy than Boortz.

So, I'm curious about what other ways I can refer to someone as black without actually coming out and saying it. Aspiring Secretaries of State? Aspriring PGA Master's winners? Who knows? I can't wait to find out.

* Emphasis mine

I haven't mentioned this before, perhaps because it was too hard to deal with. I have, for as long as I can remember, been looking for a magazine like what I think The New Yorker should be. I finally found it a few years ago in Harper's. Of course, then I leave the country and return to find out that Lewis Lapham is retiring. Great. Will Harper's continue to be the same without him? I hope so. I'm too tired to find something new right now.

Also, I saw The Squid and the Whale today. Excellent.

I returned to the States the day before Thanksgiving - right at the beginning of the heaviest shopping season. Because of this, many people have welcomed me back with a laugh and comments like, "Welcome back to the land of consumption!" I always find this sort of comment funny because it implies that things are different outside our borders.

I'm sure there is somewhere where people do not consume like we do here. Okay, to be fair, as I understand it, most people don't really consume the way Americans do (certainly not when it comes to energy). But, that's not to say that mass consumption of goods - even unnecessary goods - does not take place all over the world - including in the third world. Try going to a market the weeks leading up to Eid al Fitr and you'll see what I mean.

Bangladesh is unbelievably overcrowded. But the difference between going to a market before Eid and going on a regular weekday is significant. Even going on a typical Friday afternoon is likely to be overwhelming to one used to the barren halls of American shopping malls the day after Thanksgiving. Sure, they're probably not buying $120 basketball shoes or $400 iPods, but they're still buying a lot of stuff.

Now, I'm not saying that all this buying of junk is good, but lets not pretend that we're somehow unique because of it. People like stuff. Getting people to think more about what they're buying and why is going to take a lot more than just hating Wal-Mart*. And it's a lot harder to tell people living in the third world to be content with less.

So, next time you see me, you don't have to welcome me back to the land of crass consumerism. I never left.

* That said, I do continue to hate Wal-Mart and encourage you to do the same.