Missed Him By That Much

Patrick Cockburn, on the recently revealed U.S. attempt to assassinate Muqtada al-Sadr:

[Mowaffak al-]Rubai'e had gone to Najaf in August 2004 to try to mediate an end to the fighting. He met Mr Sadr who agreed to a set of conditions to end the crisis. "He actually signed the agreement with his own handwriting," said Dr Rubai'e. "He wanted the inner Najaf, the old city, around the shrine to be treated like the Vatican."

Having returned to Baghdad to show the draft document to Iyad Allawi, who was prime minister at the time, Dr Rubai'e went back to Najaf to make a final agreement with Mr Sadr.

It was agreed that the last meeting would take place in the house in Najaf of Muqtada's father Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr who had been murdered by Saddam's gunmen with two of his sons five years before. Dr Rubai'e and other mediators started for the house. As they did so they saw the US Marines open up an intense bombardment of the house and US Special Forces also heading for it. But the attack was a few minutes premature. Mr Sadr was not yet in the house and managed to escape.

Although Dr Rubai'e, as Iraqi National Security Adviser since 2004 and earlier a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, is closely associated with the American authorities in Baghdad, he has no doubt about what happened.

He sees the negotiations as part of a charade to lure Mr Sadr, who is normally very careful about his own security, to a house where he could be eliminated.

The cloddishness on display here, the utter ignorance of history and symbolism, is no less staggering for being unsurprising. Attempting to kill Muqtada as he entered the house of his revered, martyred father Grand Ayatollah Sadeq al-Sadr(assassinated by Saddam in 1999), under a flag of truce, in Shi'ism's holiest city...Like so much else having to do with this war, it seems like it could have been designed in a lab to produce precisely the opposite of the the desired result: Increased distrust of the U.S. Coalition by majority Shi'is, massively enhanced street cred for Muqtada.

Even if the assassination attempt had succeeded, I doubt it would have made things better, and could very likely have made things worse. The success of Muqtada has less to do with his own political acumen, though it's become increasingly apparent that that is a factor, more with the deep resonance among poor Shi'is of his father's populist-nationalist program, which even before 2004 was supported by a large network of clerical activists. At least, in Muqtada, you have a figure who can draw together a substantial majority of the groups identifying as "Sadrist," rather than it devolving into a contest between Sadrist leaders to see who's more hardcore.

Also, the Israelis have been killing "key" Palestinian leaders for decades; if you want to know how well that's worked out, note that they've been doing it for decades.

Notes on Argentina (II) - Political Awareness

"30 years of impunity and repression, of theft and hunger
30,000 reasons to keep fighting"

"More than 30,000 reasons - popular justice. Never again. Looking to the other side" (Stencil of former president Jorge Videla)
Sidewalk painting by the law school, with names of disappeared law students.
Plaque marking the police-murder of Gustavo Benedetto in 2001.
Plaque marking police-murder of Gaston Riva in 2001.

Another thing I noticed while in Argentina was that the political activism was not limited to celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Everywhere you went, recent politics were still exteremely present and felt, particularly regarding the dictatorship. There was graffiti everywhere protesting against the continued (relative) impunity of war criminals like Jorge Videla and others (granted, Videla is under house arrest, but such a “punishment” is beyond offensive for a president who, for five of its seven years, led a state that killed upwards of 30,000 of its own citizens). Near the law school, there were sidewalk paintings commemmorating the disappeared from the law school during the dictatorship.

Awareness of recent politics even in the mundane of daily life went well beyond the dictatorship, though. One day, while riding in the cab, my wife asked about the recent shift in cars in Argentina (almost all cars we saw were 2-3 years old). What started as an innocent enough question simply based on curiosity became a fascinating conversation in which the cabbie went on and on (to our pleasure) about the absolutely destructive effects of Carlos Menem’s neo-liberalism in the 1990s, and how those led up to the economic collapse of 2001, and that only with the economic recovery launched under Nestor Kirchner have things improved.

Finally, although not as large as the dictatorship, the events of that economic collapse in 2001 also made themselves very present in the public arena. Along the Avenida de Mayo (which culminates on one end in the Congress, and on the other end with the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosa), there were plaques commemmorating some of the protestors who Argentine police shot and killed during the upheaval that saw President De La Rua have to flee the country after its extreme downward turn (aided in no part by his ineptitude). Plaques like those above were visible along the sidewalk at random points, and one even was even re-done, because the first had been destroyed by police.

If you just went and talked to the average “person on the street”, I’m not sure you would necessarily hear anti-dictatorship or anti-Menem or anti-De La Rua talks – as with any politician or leader, some have their supporters. With the overthrow of the dictatorship and the (generally) anti-neoliberal policies of Kirchner in the wake of Menem, the victors are certainly inscribing the historical narrative in public spaces. Still, the physical presence of the darker aspects of Argentina’s recent history were far more obvious and tangible than anywhere I’ve ever seen in Brazil (although, doubtlessly, the 30,000 dead in Argentina vs. the 700+dead in Brazil probably explains some of this difference).

Twiggy

An Unfortunate End To a Very Nice Day

So, my abilities to post over the last few days and, likely, the next few, have been caused by the theft of my glasses and, difficult as it is to see the moniter, it is a slow chore.

This past Saturday, I went to a show in a parking lot which separates two bars of generally mixed crowds. With all the surrounding walls, I think that the acoustics work right and it's a nice place to see a show. It was a rock show this time (I'd seen a country show there previously, when it was much, much colder) but, even though it was a beautiful day, very few came. Anyway, me and a couple friends of mine, we'll call them C and J, stayed at the bar and had a few more drinks. As we were leaving, a group of apparent frat guys had just been kicked out of the bar. We left right behind them which, I suppose, was our first mistake. In any case, C (who happens to cook at the bar) had walked a little ahead of us and was loudly accused of "following" them out. This was patently false, but they were clearly convinced of it and pushed him down...very hard and sending him to the road. There was some yelling and then we tried to diffuse the situation but, unfortunately, they would have nothing short of beating C, who I could never see hitting anybody. J nor I could stand by to watch our friend get beaten and so, failing all other attempts, after another very hard push on C, we both stepped in. As a result, J is pretty cut up from a suckerpunch to the side of the face and a fall. I am badly bruised from a big straight punch to the eye with a hematoma and some attractive road rash down the right side of my face. C came out unharmed, which was the point. Three cowardly things happened there. First, after they threw their suckerpunches they ran and drove away. Second, my glasses fell to my side after the punch and, whether they were broken or not I never found out, because I have every reason to believe they picked them up while I was on the ground. Third, and worst, one of the guys pulled his girlfriend into the fray to use her as a shield. Truly Shameful.

Anyway, two days later and my face looks worse (although it's better) and I go to the eye doctor to make sure it's ok and to get new glasses, which I was due to get anyway. This doctor, despite the fact that all my signs were normal, my motor skills are sharp, and I am in minimal pain, he was worried about it enough to make me, before he would do anything about the new glasses, go to the ER and get a CT scan. Unneccessary, if you ask me, but I understand. It was my first scan, and my first visit to ER in many years, and it was all a very nice experience, given the circumstances. Unfortunately, the eye doctor cannot see me until wednesday, so I'll be in my (perscription) sunglasses for the next two days, which will at least help me from scaring the neighborhood children. It works, but it's pretty hard to see indoors, and typing gives me a headache.

The Memoirs of a Palestinian Patriot

“Real lasting peace is made between peoples, not governments,” writes Sari Nusseibeh near the end of his excellent memoir, Once Upon a Country. Nusseibeh is a philosopher and some-time Fatah activist who has dedicated himself to making that peace a reality by, among other things, cultivating relationships with like-minded Israelis. In this, he and his allies have been repeatedly undermined by the suspicion, mistrust, and belligerence of extremists on both sides, and in both governments, Israeli and Palestinian.

Nusseibeh comes from a noted Palestinian Arab family, whose ancestors entered Jerusalem along with caliph Omar in the seventh century. Having family roots in Palestine that go back thirteen centuries, Nusseibeh repeatedly confronts and eviscerates the notion that the Palestinians “aren’t a real people,” as well as the frankly preposterous idea that some dude just off the plane from Kiev or Brooklyn should somehow have more of a moral claim than he to the land in which he was born and raised.

One of the central themes of the book, unfortunately little remarked upon in the reviews and interviews which have followed its publication, is the way that the efforts by Palestinian activists to develop democratic institutions, such as trade unions and academic associations, organizations which could support and strengthen a mature Palestinian state, have consistently been frustrated and crushed by Israel. Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, virtually all efforts by Palestinians to organize around the principle of their own nationhood have been vigorously stamped out by an Israeli government that saw the very existence of Palestinian political consciousness as a national security threat. Israeli support for the pan-Islamic Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, as a means of diluting support for the secular nationalist PLO is just one example, one with particularly severe consequences.

Nusseibeh has no illusions about his own side. He recognizes that tragic mistakes have been made, and good opportunities missed, by the Palestinian leadership. He recognizes that the use of terrorist violence has been both morally disastrous and politically counterproductive. But neither is Nusseibeh willing to give any credence to the lazy “equal blame to go around” dodge, a form of rhetorical hand-washing that works decidedly in Israel’s favor, that unfortunately characterizes so much mainstream American liberal thinking on the issue. The root cause of the conflict in Palestine is, and has always been, the attempt by one group to realize its own national aspirations at the expense of another’s, and Nusseibeh is very clear that the Israeli occupation, and the illegal settlement enterprise which it facilitates, is, has been, and continues to be the single biggest obstacle to peace between the two peoples.

Historical Image of the Day

Harold Lloyd

Historical Image of the Day

Diaz Family, Fort Madison, Iowa. Early 20th century

Lyrad's Random 10

It's a day late, but so it goes when you don't come home until after you can't see a screen anymore.

Anyway, Roy Budd is a really interesting, if now a virtually unknown figure, in music. A true child prodigy, he made his public debut at age six on the piano at the London Coliseum and developed a vast ouvre in only a few years. He made regular appearances on television and the radio at twelve and left school at sixteen to start his first jazz band. After releasing a few albums, he got heavily involved in film composition, where he spent most of the rest of his days. These soundtracks were performed with small jazz bands instead of the standard orchestra, and he was innovative in using the film's sound effects in his music, which gave a lot of continuity with the films and a cinematic listening quality. The Intercine Project is a British thriller from 1974 starring James Coburn and directed by Ken Hughes. The theme song is a smooth but tense track for piano, guitar, bass and drums.

1. Roy Budd--The Intercine Project: Theme
2. Seks Bomba--Untitled
3. Ludwig van Beethoven--Variations (33) on a Waltz by Diabelli for Piano, Op.120; 22.Allegro molto (Arthur Schnabel, Piano)
4. The Melvins--At a Crawl
5. Ray Colcord--The Amityville Dollhouse (Soundtrack); More Dead Dad
6. Joel Perri--Quanne ta fatte mammeta
7. Tom Waits--Dog Door
8. Erich Kunz--I Dreamed Last Night
9. Muse--Supermassive Black Hole
10. Jesus Lizard--Horse Doctor Man

The Worst Part About Being An Academic

I suppose it will be different once I get a tenure-track position, but I must say that the worst part of being an academic is saying goodbye to friend after friend as they move on. And now I am moving on to and I can see that people are sad about that. After saying goodbye to yet another close friend this evening, I can say that this is the most frustrating thing about this profession. Sure, I have friends that I can visit across the country, but it's not the same. At times, I wish for a normal job. Tonight is one of them.

Mr. Trend's Random 10

This week’s seventh song comes from Buddy Guy’s “Damn Right, I've Got the Blues.” For whatever unfortunate reason, people just don’t pay much attention to the blues anymore. And we’re not just talking music listeners – you really don’t see many new blues acts anymore, either (the rock band the Black Keys are perhaps one of the only exceptions). But how many under-40 blues musician do you know of? It’s not like the blues have nothing left to say, and Guy’s work is a perfect example of that. Although it’s from 1991, “Damn Right, I've Got the Blues” is just a top-notch blues album from top to bottom, drawing from the old Chicago blues tradition, even while making it fresh and giving Guy’s own re-take on it, with just great songs (the tribute "Remembering Stevie" is far better than Vaughan himself ever did). Additionally, he shows how blues lyrics can be adapted to modern times, even while the themes stay the same. “Black Night” is a perfect example of that – while lamenting the loneliness he feels as all have left him, he laments that “My brother’s in Iraq/and I don’t know what to do/Black Night is falling…”. While 16 years old, the lyrics are hauntingly resonant even today, and show how vital and fresh the blues still can be.

1. “The Wait” – The Pretenders
2. “Eu Trago Sereia” – Música Foclórica do Brasil (Disc 4 – Paraíba)
3. “Little Bug” – Big Bill Broonzy
4. Der Zauberflöte – Zweitens Akt: “In diesen heil’gen hallen” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5. “Black Snake Moan” – Blind Lemon Jefferson
6. “Gavião” – Música Foclórica dlo Brasil (Disc 2 – Paraíba)
7. “Black Night” – Buddy Guy
8. “Bad” – U2
9. “Leg of Lamb” – Queens of the Stone Age
10. “Saint Simon” – The Shins

Gone, Gone, Gone

I will be out of touch for the next week while participating in an environmental history field camp on the US-Mexico border. I'll be in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and northern Sonora. Should be a great time. There will be lots of interesting environmental issues to discuss when I get back and I plan to write extensively about it.

Luckily, having excellent co-bloggers makes this blog more than worthwhile when I am gone. I will, however, be posting a small bit about other issues while I am away.

Historical Image of the Day

Bluegrass creator Bill Monroe

Erik's Random 10

Does anyone under the age of 50 listen to Fats Waller anymore? And if not, why? This post could just repeat what I said about Dizzy Gillespie a couple of weeks ago. Again, for younger people, Waller is not really what they listen to. Not to be fair, Waller's music is something of a period piece. He was very much a man of his time. Some of the things he did probably wouldn't work today. But Waller was an amazing entertainer, a shockingly good piano player, and a first rate lyricist. Not to mention that "You're A Viper" is one of the great drug songs of all time.

1. Fats Waller, The Joint is Jumpin'
2. Butch Hancock, Neon Wind
3. Wilco, Another Man's Done Gone
4. Townes Van Zandt, BW Railroad Blues
5. Dizzy Gillespie, You Stole My Wife, You Horse Thief
6. Pink Floyd, In the Flesh
7. Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon, Plastic Jesus
8. Dock Walsh, Bulldog Down in Sunny Tennessee
9. Rosalie Sorrels, Lonesome Georgia Brown
10. Johnny Cash, Sweet Betsy from Pike

Why Not To Vote For Bill Richardson

I've been skeptical of the Richardson campaign from the beginning. I see him as a pandering Democrat who stands for little but himself. He has been quite pro-business since becoming governor while doing essentially nothing about poverty in the state. He takes the big, brave stands like wanting stricter supervision of sex offenders.

Kos provides a good summary of reasons not to vote for Richardson.

Not only does he remind us that Richardson said his ideal Supreme Court justice was Whizzer White, a man who voted against Roe, but he also thought Roe was decided in the 1980s! Shouldn't a president have some clue Roe was decided? I sure think so.

It's also relatively well-known in New Mexico that Richardson's history with women makes Bill Clinton look like a puritan. He also claimed to have played minor league baseball when he never did. These are the kinds of things that Republicans jump all over and make him a weaker candidate. And anyway, why would you lie about something like playing minor league baseball.

I am very, very skeptical of a Richardson campaign and I hope his support continues to slip. However, I do think he would be an excellent choice for Secretary of State.

Historical Image of the Day

The descendants of Sally Hemings

Where's the Dinosaur Jr.?

Somehow (I think it was in a petition asking for Gonzales's resignation a few months ago), I got on Hillary Clinton's e-mailing list, and I'm too lazy and apathetic (to this point, at least) to have removed myself from it. So today, I get an e-mail asking me to help her pick her campaign song. My choices range from the somewhat logical (The Temptations, "Get Ready", U2, "Beautiful Day) to the crappy covers (Smash Mouth, "I'm a Believer") to the "I want the red states so I'll pick country music" (Shania Twain, "Rock this Country!" and Dixie Chicks, "Ready to Run") to the illogical (U2, "City of Blinding Lights"). Overall, it's basically at-best mediocre music. Part of me hopes someday in my lifetime, somebody just goes nuts, and picks something that is out of the mainstream. "Teenage Riot" by Sonic Youth is my secret desire, but even if it's just something with a politically awkward title and not that well-known (Dinosaur Jr.'s "Sludgefeast" springs to mind) would be nice. Instead, we get vanilla music for vanilla politicians.

Peretz Droppings

I know that I cannot be the only one who finds Marty Peretz’s smug satisfaction at the escalating violence in Gaza to be reprehensible, even if it isn’t the least bit surprising. There is literally nothing that transpires among the Palestinians that Peretz will not attempt to use as a prop for his rancid bigotry, as he rehearses yet again the utterly discredited, racist hasbarist myth that “there is no such thing as Palestinians.”

Let's face facts. Only if you are "Eyeless in Gaza" can you believe that these people are a "nation."

And:

There were no Palestinians until there were Israelis. And there will be no Palestine until Israel imposes it. Then it will be a nation-state like most of the other non-nation-states in the Middle East. Yes, a fraudulent nation-state.

More :

Why are men wearing ski masks on the streets of Gaza? So that they will all look alike, and people will think that this proves the unity of the Palestinian people.

It gets worse, if you can believe it :

And, as Steve Erlanger reported, the Palestinian death toll from Palestinian killing rose to 17 on Wednesday. Any bets on high it will go on Thursday?

What kind of twisted pervert thinks, let alone expresses, these sorts of things? And what kind of “liberal" journalistic establishment allows him to get away with, virtually without censure, for so many years?

Not Balanced, Perhaps, But Certainly Fair

In light of Lyrad's post marking the Rev. Falwell's doing the mortal coil shuffle, I feel I should say something nice.

I'm playing softball on my brother's office team, I bought a new baseball mitt the other day. I brought it home, oiled it up, and carefully wrapped a ball in it with a strong rubber band, as I was taught. It's amazing the way that smells make you smell other smells, as the leather and neatsfoot oil made me smell the grass and dust of a baseball field. Interestingly, sunshine and cigarettes make me smell neatsfoot oil.

Anyway, we were supposed to play the Reuters team Tuesday night, but the game got cancelled at the last minute because they had to stay late and work the Falwell story. We had practice instead, which is good, we needed it. And that's really the nicest thing I can say.

RIP?--Jerry Falwell

The sun seemed to shine a little brighter today. I didn't know what it was, but it sure did feel springy this morning. Then I saw: Jerry Falwell, dead at 73. "Oh, no!" I cried, "Now who's going to blame homosexuals for 9/11?!" And then I laughed.

Some may think it's disgusting to speak ill of the dead, but not me. I celebrated when my friend's melanoma was successfully removed, and so I celebrate here. Anathema of human progress, there have lived few others since the Apostle Paul (nee Saul, Persecutor of Christians) who could pervert the teachings of Jesus so successfully for their own ends. Falwell started one of the largest entrepreneurial churches in the country, Thomas Road Baptist Church, in 1956 at 22 years old in his hometown of Lynchburg, VA. From this base, he began an illustrious career of subverting the separation of church and state, using the multi-million dollar lobby of the Moral Majority to voice his support of both segregation in the 50s and 60s and Apartheid in the 80s. If there is a sentient god and Falwell trying to get into some kind of heaven, I hope this is the scenario: God makes a deal with Falwell. If he can beat [the also recently deceased] Diego Corrales in a 15 round fight, he can enter the gates of heaven. Otherwise, sorry, it's hell for Jerry. We could make some money...let's call Don King. On a side note, I think that Falwell's envisionment of Hell would be a pretty cool scene, so maybe he'll have some fun. Anyway, enough laughs. Here are a few choice quotes:

--"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

--"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

--"Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions."

and my personal favorite

--"Textbooks are Soviet propaganda"

This guy was a peach, and the sun shone a little brighter today.

Because forced conversion was such a great idea

While in Brazil, the Popet (who had already gone after abortion, pentecostals, marxists, and others) couldn't just leave quietly into the night. After claiming that he supported neither capitalism nor marxism (apparently, the pope is either a closet socialist or prefers the feudalism of the old days - I'm guessing the latter).

Instead, he had to go after indigenous groups, contradicting pretty much every historical detail we know about indigenous "conversions" to Catholicism in the Americas by claiming that Brazil's indigenous had been "silently longing" for Christianity when the Catholic priests arrived. Thus, claimed the pope, "the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas." And in its missionizing, the church had performed a wonderful duty by "purifying" indigenous peoples, and that any reversion to their ancestral practices must be considered a step backwards.

Not surprisingly, indigenous groups whose ancestors were tortured, enslaved, or just plain killed via war and disease in the efforts to Conversion in the Americas are a little upset over this, and the sheer stupidity of it is something else. John Paul II (not exactly a "liberal" pope, having gone after liberation theology and pushing for the withdrawal of the Catholic church from politics even as the poor used the gospels to mobilize and try to improve their lives) himself apologized to indigenous peoples across the hemisphere for the Church's treatment of them throughout the previous 500 years. Yet Benedict apparently disagrees with his predecessor, and apparently would re-convert and "purify" the indigenous peoples all over again if he had to (forcibly, if necessary).

This was really just the icing on the cake for a trip that saw Benedict go after drug addicts, women seeking control of their own bodies on the abortion issue, any abortion supporters (one headline here read that he threatened a "mass-excommunication", or "excomunhão" to all supporters), and many more. Boz puts the Pope's trip to Brazil the best: "To briefly round up the trip, the Pope attacked (in alphabetical order) abortion, authoritarianism, capitalism, contraception, divorce, "ethical relativism", gay marriage, hedonism, indigenous religions, liberation theology, Marxism and Pentecostalism (along with Catholics who are too much like Pentecostals).

He then encouraged everyone who is left to attend church because attendance seems down recently."