Useful tips from the U.S. Government

Want to build a bomb? Better yet, aiming to design some WMD in your basement? You'll probably need some sort of instructions, right? And perhaps maybe a basic understanding of chemistry or physics. Not to mention equipment, a secret lair, a secret handshake, and probably a Swiss bank account.

But even with all that other stuff, you're nowhere without instructions.

That's where the federal government steps in.

The New York Times today reports that a website the government set up to detail all of Saddam Hussein's weapons initiatives had posted for some time detailed instructions on some of the steps needed to build an atomic weapon. The IAEA apparently protested this level of detail sometime last week. Yet the site stayed up until NYT made some phone calls.

(Sidebar: amazing how NYT is seen as more of an expert on these things than the lil old International Atomic Energy Agency.)

It gets better.

This wasn't the first time such information had been posted. Apparently back in the spring there were directions on how to build chemical weapons. They stayed up until some UN agency got really uppity. Better still, the documents translated into English from Arabic.

This was apparently all part of some huge effort to convince the American people that the whole Iraq war thing was justified.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents

The politics of disgust

Unfortunately, it's almost time for an election. This means all forms of media (the term airwaves is no longer sufficient) are riddled with the most ridiculous and insane methods of scum-sucking mudslinging that the English language (and sometimes Spanish) can sustain. There are some particularly flashy examples, but I'll let you find those on your own. More up my alley is the creative analysis of all this garbage found mostly on the internet.

One embarrassment is that the British (via BBC Magazine), known for their own mad dirt digging skills, have dubbed our current election season particularly spooky.

I suppose there was a time when candidates asked people to vote for them because they shared a political philosophy. I suppose that time predates modern democracy.

Now, it's vote for me because I'm not a paedophile, or a drunk, or a mistress-choking adulterer, or a moron - all of which members of Congress have been accused of, with varying degrees of veracity, in the last month.

As Mark Twain once said, there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.

I certainly agree with the author, and I especially dig Mark Twain's lovely addition. It seems about accurate, and in spite of my belief that the "mistress-choking adulterers" will probably lose, I'm not terribly confident that anyone more decent will when.

But then the president and his former challenger get involved, and it gets worse. From NYT:

When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.

I feel like that about sums it up. All fear, all lies, all the time. I really wish "freedom from fear" had been written into the Constitution. Maybe that would make campaigning a little nicer.

Is civility too much to ask for? Or do I have to spend my life learning about who fucked whose corrupt, gay, illegitimate pet monkey?

Funny quote from the New York Times

Today's NYT contains a nice little article about the effects of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) starting to buy its condoms from Asian firms, rather than American companies, especially those in Alabama. Aside from tracking Alabama congressmen's attempt to save the domestic condom industry, which is a funny enough thought in itself, the article quotes a former USAID official defending the need to preserve domestic production thusly:

"The foreign aid program has very few rabbis. Why make enemies when you don't have to?"

I'm fairly certain that's supposed to say "allies." Nonetheless, if you know any rabbis in need of a job, you might call them. :)

Randomness generally pertaining to politics

I took this quiz just now that tests on civics profiency. I got 52/54, which ain't bad. The test is targeted to baby boomers, but I feel like basically everyone should know this stuff.

I continue to be amused by the Tennessee Senate race. For one, things in Tennessee don't usually garner a lot of attention. Secondly, an ad run by the RNC (or RSCC - I forget which) declared that Rep. Harold Ford, the Dem candidate, attended a Super Bowl party at the Playboy Mansion, and the ad was rounded out by some alleged porn star saying "call me, Harold." What amuses me more though is Ford's response: "I like women, and I like football, so yes, I went to the party." A remarkable amount of candor for a politician these days. You can find the goodness either on YouTube or Wonkette.

Also, election day is coming up. I get to revel in voting for non-voting people. Ah, the joys of District of Columbia living. Of all the democracies and pseudo-democracies on earth, DC is the only capital of such that is not represented in the national legislature. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity to get a better Congress out of this contest, though I'm not terribly hopeful. Notice I said "better" rather than "Democratic." It'll take a lot more than getting to see Speaker Botox sworn in to make Congress better.

And yet, Chester Crocker expressed last week that Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf would probably be a better head of state of the U.S. than our current POTUS, while said EJS was speaking at Georgetown. This is particularly funny coming from a man who was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. On the whole though, not a bad idea.
Sorry for not putting in more links. Too lazy. :)

EDIT: Mother Jones' blog is now claiming that the above mentioned basically racist ad was pulled because the Canadians protested over a derogatory line pertaining to their country, rather than, ya know, just being racist.

Miniature ode to DC

Living in DC, there are certain things you can count on (aside from political idiocy). One in particular effects me from time to time.

Simply put, whenever you're running late to work, the Green Line is bound to do all in its power to make you later. Just remember that when choosing where to live.

Also, while walking through Georgetown to connect from the bus from work and the bus to school, I continually have the urge to encourage the proletariat to rebel and end the god-awfulness that is that section of this lovely city. I can barely afford to stand on a sidewalk in Georgetown, much less live there. And all the cutesy wealth is just tacky.

Besides, the Georgetown H&M has an abysmal selection of menswear, and thus the whole area is useless to me. ;)

Breaking: U.S. suddenly gives a damn about UN Security Council

Following the current scuffle with North Korea (DPRK) has been, for me, an amusing exercise in watching the United States come grovelling to the UN because it now has virtually no leverage to act independently on anything but routine trading of back scratches.

After a week of wrangling, the U.S. yesterday finally pushed through a resolution sanctioning the DPRK. Then, immediately after the vote was cast, China stepped out and said something to the effect of, "by the way, we're not going to participate in the shipment inspections regime mandated in the resolution." Ambassador John Bolton's response was absolutely hilarious:

“I can’t believe that China won’t adhere to obligations that the Security Council has imposed.”

Seriously, reading that almost made me fall out of my chair. To think that any country, let alone one of the permanent five members of the SC, would have the audacity to ignore all or part of a resolution that is technically legally binding. Whatever is the world coming to?

Apologies

Sorry for the brief hiatus. Life came a-knockin' and I stopped a-writin'. While I can't promise to do terribly much better, I will at least make an effort to post more than once every month and a half or so.

Paix.

UN Security Council and Western nations need a wake-up call

I meant to write this a week or so ago, but personal circumstances prevented me from getting it done. As you are all well aware, this has been a busy summer with regard to "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression." Israel, the world leader in failing to grasp the concept of a proportional response, went and blew the hell out of Lebanon in a failed effort to rescue two of their captured soldiers. The peace agreement in Darfur has effectively collapsed and only succeeded in creating a shift of alliances on the ground. And yet at the same time, international responses to these and other crises have been half-hearted at best.

On the Lebanon front, the UN Security Council managed to approve a resolution that called for a cease-fire and a 15,000 strong peacekeeping force (sans Chapter VII mandate), but only after weeks of wrangling. Even then, the European countries that had been so adamant about the need for a strong peacekeeping force then initially refused to cough up any respectable number of troops for it. Indeed, getting troop committments from them required an extended period of "intense prodding and pleading" by the UN from Kofi Annan and others.

In Darfur, the situation on the ground continues to detiorate, in spite of the May peace agreement, and possibly because of it. Again, the UN Security Council has authorized a peacekeeping force, this time of 24,000 personnel, but on the contention that the Sudanese government must approve the mission's deployment. Sudan, of course, has said no. After all, they're pursuing a genocidal policy, so why should they agree to letting the world curtail such activities?

There are two main lessons here that the world, especially the wealthy and powerful nations, seem to be missing.

1) All peacekeeping missions have a certain element of risk. Contributing nations (usually developing nations with big militaries) should be aware that some of their soldiers and police may be injured or killed. These peacekeeping operations don't just go anywhere, they deploy in places where there is a genuine need to prevent further violence, and the role of such forces is to basically stand between combatants and then work to consolidate a more durable peace arrangement. For the French (or any) government to assert that the potential loss of even one of its troops is too high a cost for the protection of a substantial group of people is preposterous on any number of levels.

2) The UN General Assembly opening summit in 2005 agreed that all nations have a "responsibility to protect" (R2P) their own civilians from genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that the international community has an obligation to ensure that this responsibility is met both at home and abroad. Clearly, in Darfur, Lebanon and elsewhere, this principle has been violated. Honestly, R2P is a pretty basic concept that should have been adopted well before 2005, but that's beside the point. The fact remains that governments have agreed that this is a core concept of international relations, and thus it needs to be enforced.

To be perfectly honest, I'm tired of sitting around and waiting for the world to respond to the various crises that pop up each year. I'm tired of Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh being the biggest peacekeeping troop contributing countries. If the Western world has all these wonderful values about protecting civilians and ensuring international peace -- the U.S., after all, essentially wrote the UN Charter -- then they should step up and do something about these conflicts. To fail to act smacks of everything from irresponsibility to racism. Yet to claim these lofty values from some higher level of morality while refusing to stand up for them simply reaks of the most arrogant hypocrisy. We need to not only reform the United Nations. We must also reform the way our leaders here in the West act and think.