Fun with Ottomans

I am tired from racing last night, so I have mercifully little to say (for me).

I would think this to be a major developing storyline:

PKK attacks military outpost; 7 soldiers killed

ANKARA - Associated Press


The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party fired rockets and grenades at a Turkish military outpost, killing 7 soldiers in a bold attack that heightened tension at a time when Ankara has threatened military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

The army sent helicopter gunships and reinforcements to Tunceli province in southeastern Turkey after two PKK members rammed a vehicle into the military post on Monday, throwing hand grenades and opening fire with automatic weapons, the governor's office announced.

Soldiers returned fire, killing one of them - who had explosives strapped to his body, the governor's office said. Local media said the second attacker escaped injured.

Several other PKK members simultaneously opened fire on the outpost from a nearby forest, the governor's office said. The attack left seven soldiers dead and seven others injured. One of the injured was in critical condition, authorities said.

The attack came as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told European Union officials visiting Ankara that "we have every right to take measures against terrorist activities directed at us from northern Iraq."

Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to stage an incursion into northern Iraq to try to root out the PKK bases there.

...and this too:

Turkey says no army operation in N.Iraq just now

ANKARA, June 6 (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday it had no plans at present to send troops into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there, but it indicated this remained an option in the future.

Media speculation is high of a possible cross-border operation against rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses mainly Kurdish northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in Turkey.

Parliament, now in recess ahead of July 22 elections, would have to reconvene to authorise any military operation beyond Turkey's borders.

Asked if the Foreign Ministry was readying documents for such a move, spokesman Levent Bilman told a news conference: "At this time there is no work on such an authorisation, but Turkey is ready for anything at any time."

I especially liked this at the end of the Reuters story:

Turkey is furious with U.S. and Iraqi authorities for failing to crack down on the estimated 4,000 PKK rebels in northern Iraq.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people in Turkey since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the impoverished southeast region in 1984.

What a great situation. A NATO ally massing troops near the border of Iraq to pursue terrorists associated with the most supportive group in the country we invaded.

This brings up numerous points. The PKK is a terrorist group, based on the most basic definition. If you believe the insurgents in Iraq are terrorists, then the PKK would be as well. Kurds in Iraq may be harboring these terrorists. If Turkey were to follow the Bushian philosophy, they would be within their rights to just go right in and invade. After all, we did just that on far flimsier premises. I have to assume this would be unacceptable to Bush and gang, which means they will have to go out of their way to defuse the situation peacefully. They couldn't just let Turkey go in guns a'blazin' because this would presumably piss off the one real ally we have in the country. They might strike a deal wherein the Kurds give up PKK terrorists. I see this as unlikely, for much the same reason as above. So, here we are. If Turkey invades and we do nothing, this will be bad. If we oppose such an incursion, militarily or otherwise, we basically shelter terrorists, which would also have to be considered bad. Finding some way to weed out PKK members hiding out with Iraqi Kurds and handing them over to Turkish authorities is less bad, but not that great. The Bushies haven't shown themselves to be particularly willing to engage in tender diplomacy, nor do they show any real aptitude for it. Mostly, we have to hope that the Turks will decide not to get aggressive (they have some good reasons not to) and that Kurds will cooperate with us in the meantime to root out terrorist elements in the meantime (I'm not betting on this).

Not to pretend that this growing situation was one of the reasons I didn't support invading Iraq in the first place-Kurds were hardly on my radar at the time-but this is exactly the kind of unintended consequence that you would hope really smart war-planners who want to transform the military and establish a beyond-challenge hegemony super-ultra-massive-power might want to consider before launching a war.

Or, apparently, not.

Innovative Conservative Thinkers

Dick Armey. Great.

This is one of those examples of "thoughtful" conservatism based on supposedly "Jeffersonian" principles that makes all kinds of ludicrous assumptions. Particlarly the assumption that

Government can only expand its scope of power and authority at the expense of the citizen.

This is based on the either-or assumption that if government does anything at all, it is automatically at the expense of the freedoms of the American citizen. Thus, any and all government programs or laws or whatever are automatically tyrannical. Any government program, no matter how high-minded, is thus a violation of the principles of the founding fathers, true conservatism which is the natural state of being, blah blah blah blah blah, and thus needs to be curtailed altogether.

Whatever. That is a way of looking at it, I suppose. Not a good way, but a way. Another way of looking at it is that the American government and the American people fashion an agreement as to whether the government will expand or contract, based on whatever conglomeration of interests can tolerate one another enough to get along and cooperate. The way we decide such things as a nation is based on voting. If we want the governemnt to do more things in various ways, we vote for candidates who say they will. When we decide otherwise, we vote accordingly. It's not a perfect system, but for the most part, it works amazingly well. Unless, of course, you believe in theories of, say, a unitary executive who can do whatever he wants without answering to written laws , and who can then, say, spy on American citizens without warrants even though most Americans don't believe he has this authority. Or unless you desire to clamp down on who can and cannot vote, through, maybe, trumped up charges of voter fraud as seen by politicized agents of government institutions. If something like that were to happen, then certainly the expansion of the government would be at the expense of the people, because they could not effectively react to it excesses. Unfortunately for Mr. Armey, he happens to be a member in very good standing with the American political party who have tried exactly these things.

Armey's simplistic "Governement equals Red Tyranny" version of freedom versus government comes up short when he applies it to health care, his chosen example with this post. Simply put, health care isn't a choice. I need it. And since I need it, I have to pay for it somehow. This is only a "choice" in the Libertarian, anarcho-capitalism, "true-conservative" meaning of the word, wherein I can "choose" to be fired from a job and lose my insurance; or "choose" not to have enough money to pay for insurance on my own; or "choose" to curl up in a ball and die. By any rational measure, these aren't really "choices" at all. Since it's accepted economic practice to raise interest rates as a mean of increasing unemployment to control inflation, which of course might leave me and many others out of work and thus out of insurance, in many ways I am already not free to choose the manner of my health care coverage. Given all of this, I might actually welcome government "interference" of some kind to foot the bill for health care. This doesn't threaten my freedoms at all. At worst, it is freedom-neutral-it doesn't affect my freedoms any more or less negatively or positively than the current system; and it could actually increase my choices in other ways.

If this is one of the leading voices of the conservative "movement," then the Republican party is even more vacuous and listless than I thought.

Not-scared America

I have to agree with almost all of this by Fareed Zakaria.

I especially liked this section:

The presidential campaign could have provided the opportunity for a national discussion of the new world we live in. So far, on the Republican side, it has turned into an exercise in chest-thumping. Whipping up hysteria requires magnifying the foe. The enemy is vast, global and relentless. Giuliani casually lumps together Iran and Al Qaeda. Mitt Romney goes further, banding together all the supposed bad guys. "This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hizbullah and Hamas and Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood," he recently declared.

But Iran is a Shiite power and actually helped the United States topple the Qaeda-backed Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Qaeda-affiliated radical Sunnis are currently slaughtering Shiites in Iraq, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are responding by executing and displacing Iraq's Sunnis. We are repeating one of the central errors of the early cold war—putting together all our potential adversaries rather than dividing them. Mao and Stalin were both nasty. But they were nasties who disliked one another, a fact that could be exploited to the great benefit of the free world. To miss this is not strength. It's stupidity.

...largely because it makes a point (better) that I was trying to make here. (Man, linking to myself is just such a wonderfully pompous experience. I would apologize to my readers, if I had any).

Of course, his worldview validates my own worldview, so of course I like what he wrote and I am less likely to look for counter examples. But the he brings up a primary theme that is difficult to refute-America's open, democratic society is a strength, not a weakness. Given that we live in a time when, say, writers at respected, right-wing magazines can call for military coups to save our nation, this cannot be stressed enough.

Friday Cat Blogging

Diego. As you can see, he loves playing airplane.





Jackson. His ear has grown back. He looks pretty mad about the bow. Justifiably, I might add.

It seems so obvious to me....

...but then I'm just some guy in a call center.

I just read this:

Baghdad’s Sunni residents battle insurgents
Locals join fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq; mayor hopes U.S. stays away

BAGHDAD - Sunni residents of a west Baghdad neighborhood used assault rifles and a roadside bomb to battle the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq this week, leaving at least 28 people dead and six injured, residents said Thursday.

The mayor of the Amiriyah neighborhood, Mohammed Abdul Khaliq, said in a telephone interview that residents were rising up to try to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has alienated other Sunnis with its indiscriminate violence and attacks on members of its own sect.

Though the Republicans like to paint all Muslims with one broad brush, I have always privately thought that the goals of the native insurgents and Al Quaeda in Iraq were different enough that they might turn on one another. In fact, I am not particularly convinced that Al Quaeda, with it's rigid fundamentalism, is particularly popular amongst Muslims in Iraq, or anywhere. I suspected that Iraqis found them useful, and that if they stopped being useful, they would see them as foreign interlopers and would want them to leave.

Some of the quotes in this story bear this out:

Problems arose on Tuesday when the Islamic Army, a powerful Sunni insurgent group, posted a statement at a local mosque criticizing al-Qaeda in Iraq for killing dozens of other Sunnis in Fallujah and Baghdad "on suspicion only," without sufficient evidence that they had done something wrong, according to a copy sent to The Washington Post. The message warned al-Qaeda in Iraq to stop the practice, which it said could lead to clashes between them.

Late Wednesday afternoon, according to residents reached by phone who would not be quoted by name for security reasons, an armed group scrawled graffiti on a school wall reading: "Down with al-Qaeda, long live the honest resistance." When al-Qaeda in Iraq members came to wipe away the writing, a roadside bomb exploded nearby, killing three of them, residents said.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq then attacked a mosque associated with the Islamic Army, killing the group's leader, Razi al-Zobai, and four other fighters, complaining in a statement that the Islamic Army had become involved in the political process in Iraq, residents said. In retaliation, the Islamic Army attacked a mosque associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, killing one of the group's leaders, known as Sheik Hamid, and four other members, including Waleed Saber Tikriti, a doctor who treated al-Qaeda in Iraq's wounded, residents said

I don't think this necessarily means we have turned any corners, however. Iraqi insurgents are fighting for control of Iraq. If they see us as a threat to that-and I think it is obvious they do-and Al Quaeda in Iraq seems useful to them, they would almost assuredly strike up their alliance again:

Abdul Khaliq said he hoped U.S. forces would stay out of the fight. "But if the Americans interfere, it will blow up, because they are the enemy of us both, and we will unite against them and stop fighting each other," he said

I won't make the mistake of taking all of this at face value. Loyalties will shift constantly in a paramilitary-led war. Rhetoric is one thing, action is another. It's not like I have some direct connection to work with here-I am a blogger, writing in my spare time, working off of second-hand information from a confusing war zone.

I do think that Al-Quaeda is less popular in a real sense than it might actually seem. There could be many reasons-political, economic, social-that might motivate someone to become a terrorist or insurgent, and a religious believer might make a connection between political and religious domination without believing in rigid fundamentalist doctrine (think Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland). These people might find Al-Quaeda's ability to send zealous soldiers into buildings with bombs strapped to their bodies a usefull tool. It's almost like they're using Al-Quaeda as some sort of proxy army. But this does not mean that all potential Muslim terrorists share the same overall goals as Al-Quaeda's nuttiness, any more than the U.S. did when it funnelled support to the Mujahideen in the '80s.

I think that Al-Quaeda, while definitely not to be underestimated, is a stoppable force. But the Bush administration's constant saber-rattling about regime change plays into their hands in a way that is almost certain to make them more and more powerful no matter how many setbacks like this they might suffer.

AIDS: A Building Block for Power

At Hullabaloo, Tristero is justifiably suspicious of the motivations behind this initiative:

Bush Requests $30 Billion to Fight AIDS

WASHINGTON, May 30 — President Bush called Wednesday for Congress to spend $30 billion to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Mr. Bush’s humanitarian credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next week
The initiative, if approved, would build on a program that grew out of the president’s 2003 State of the Union address, when he asked for $15 billion over five years for prevention, treatment and care of AIDS patients in developing countries. Congress approved more than $18 billion, but the program is set to expire next year.

Mr. Bush’s announcement, delivered in the White House Rose Garden, adds to what has become an unexpectedly high priority for the White House. AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced it, and in part because Mr. Bush wants to build a legacy for the United States and a more compassionate image abroad to counter international criticism of American policies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Specifically, Tristero sees this largely as a means of feeding the access-capitalist beast the Bush administration is so fond of (and so much a part of). And this is, of course, true.

But I think we can expand upon this. Crony capitalism and spoils-system government in a democracy is hardly new. The scope of it is unprecedented, but it is more than simple cronyism at a whole new level. The Bush administration had been attempting to establish total and permanent control of outcomes for itself, and was hoping to use powerful conservative groups as a means of doing so. Anyone looking at the Republican party should view their actions through the prism of control. This desire for control of outcomes drives all of their decision making, moving them to: install people of total incompetence or ignorance into important government positions; enact truly idiotic, fact-free policy, regardless of effectiveness; and use noise and unscientific, discredited studies and reports from ideological think tanks to give their ideas intellectual sheen. Christianists and plutocrats make perfect cogs for such a machinee. In this way, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is not only a potential cash cow for Republican aligned business interests-I'm looking at you, pharma lords-it also melds these interests perfectly with Christianist's desire for political and social control.

In fact, they may be the driving force in this issue. Christianists have been instrumental in Bush administration'sthe growing interest in the AIDS epidemic. As the Times article states

AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced it...

And, yes, they certainly have been very active. This is of a piece with Bush's "compassionate conservative" posturing in the 2000 campaign, and his blather about his Christian beliefs.

Unfortunately, the Christian influence hasn't exactly been a boon. This is because of their love of the "Abstinence Only" programs they crow so magnificently about. Christian leaders, who obsess about the sex lives of others on a near-constant basis, seem to feel that, say, advocating correct condom use as a method of preventing AIDS will lead to wanton, uncontrolled sex; and that clean-needle exchanges will encourage intravenous drug use, immediately. Thus, any program that does not push abstinence-only programs should get no money from America at all:

Some leading Christian conservatives are calling on Congress to reduce U.S. funding allocations to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, saying that the Global Fund does not allocate adequate resources to faith-based programs and that it promotes condom use, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, the Global Fund is not "popular" among U.S. Christian conservatives, some of whom object to the Global Fund's policies, which include supporting needle-exchange programs for injection drug users. In addition, some Christian conservatives are "furious that just 6%" of the Global Fund's program grants go toward faith-based groups, the Globe reports. Peter Brandt, senior director of government and public policy at the Christian group Focus on the Family, said he wants the U.S. to stop financing all of the Global Fund's HIV/AIDS programs because the group does not provide sufficient money to faith-based groups and has given little support to abstinence messages.

There is only one problem: there is no evidence that abstinence programs work:

There is no good scientific evidence that teaching abstinence to teenagers will by itself prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, say the authors of a recent study. Yet they found that comprehensive sex education is declining and that more youngsters are being taught nothing more than abstinence...

...Kirby compared California and Texas, two states he said were similarly populous and were home to many Hispanics, a group whose teen pregnancy rates are high.
"California took a very progressive approach," he said. "Texas pushed abstinence and made it a little more difficult for teens to receive contraceptives. Pregnancy did go down between 1991 and 2004, but Texas had the second-lowest decline of all states, 19 percent. California had the second-greatest decrease, 46 percent.
"What's really sad is that Bush is trying to take some of the policies that didn't work in Texas and implement them nationwide."

Furthermore, the "Content of Federally-Funded Abstinence-Only Programs" study done by the House of Representatives found that such programs "Contain False and Misleading
Information about the Effectiveness of Contraceptives..."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Latex
condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing
the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”26 Contrary to this scientific
consensus, multiple curricula provide false information about condoms and HIV
transmission.

Several curricula cite an erroneous 1993 study of condom effectiveness that has
been discredited by federal health officials. The 1993 study, by Dr. Susan Weller,
looked at a variety of condom effectiveness studies and concluded that condoms
reduce HIV transmission by 69%.27 Dr. Weller’s conclusions were rejected by
the Department of Health and Human Services, which issued a statement in 1997
informing the public that “FDA and CDC believe this analysis was flawed.”28
The Department cited numerous methodological problems, including the mixing
of data on consistent condom use with data on inconsistent condom use, and
found that Dr. Weller’s calculation of a 69% effectiveness rate was based on
“serious error.” In fact, CDC noted that “[o]ther studies of discordant couples
— more recent and larger than the ones Weller reviewed, and conducted over several years — have demonstrated that consistent condom use is highly effective
at preventing HIV infection.”30

Despite these findings, several curricula refer approvingly to the Weller study.
One curriculum teaches: “A meticulous review of condom effectiveness was
reported by Dr. Susan Weller in 1993. She found that condoms were even less
likely to protect people from HIV infection. Condoms appear to reduce the risk
of heterosexual HIV infection by only 69%.”31 Another curriculum that cites Dr.
Weller’s data claims: “In heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV
approximately 31% of the time.”32

Other abstinence-only curricula contest CDC’s finding that “latex condoms
provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of STD
pathogens.”33 These curricula rely on the false idea that HIV and other pathogens
can “pass through” condoms. One curriculum instructs students to:
Think on a microscopic level. Sperm cells, STI organisms, and HIV
cannot be seen with the naked eye — you need a microscope. Any
imperfections in the contraceptive not visible to the eye, could allow
sperm, STI, or HIV to pass through. . . . The size difference between a
sperm cell and the HIV virus can be roughly related to the difference
between the size of a football field and a football.34
The same curriculum states, “The actual ability of condoms to prevent the
transmission of HIV/AIDS even if the product is intact, is not definitively
known.”35 This distorts CDC’s finding and scientific consensus.

Apparently, it isn't enough to spread Texas' failed system throughout the U.S. Bushco wants that kind of success all through Africa as well.

Of course, there isn't any reason sex-only-with-your-married partner should apply to, say, Bush operatives in charge of such programs.

This is typical of the controlling religious right. They will help you...with conditions. And those conditions are that you live in a manner that they get to choose for you (even if they do not live up to those standards themselves). The rewards for helping people with these conditions attached are obvious. They have used these occasions for bringing people in dire need into their fold, which helps to maintain their numbers and political power. This makes them invaluable to the Republican party, and this value puts them in positions of power, where they can reinforce that power all over again through programs like these. An ugly loop.

This deeply cynical symbiotic relationship has nothing at all to do with AIDS prevention or helping poverty-stricken countries dealing with a horrible epidemic. Any truly intelligent or generous approach would use what works without attaching dogmatic religious conditions. But the administration and the Christian right see AIDS as an opportunity, mutually beneficial for themselves and their agendas even as it leaves real people with real needs in the lurch. And it builds the ideological foundation that will allow for the plutocratic hog-wallow that almost certainly will follow.

Republicans

They are just awesome.

What with his general incompetence, lack of substantive policy ideas, whiff of corruption and "liberals are all gay tree-hugging taxers" rhetoric, it's a surprise he's not considered Presidential material.