and now for something completely different

stock tips from sean paul

oval office space (from my neighbor)

beatnik rummy (from blogamy)

echidne had me trying to lick my elbow (i failed)

hostages

another bomb in uzbekistan. this one in andijon (and the 6th according to their count). meanwhile militants have seized hostages in tashkent.

with the time change the fourth day of violence has just begun in the country.

it goes on and on

more confusing news from uzbekistan--this morning i just saw a wash of reports of detentions, shootings and explosions. its not clear whether they're reporting what happened over the past few days or new stuff. it can be really frustrating to try to follow news from central asia when you don't read russian. the christian science monitor has a fairly good overview of the situation, although it's only as of yesterday. so it doesn't help me figure out what is happening there now.

the best blog coverage, i think, is at the agonist (like here and here) and the argus (like here) [ed's note: why do all the blogs following central asian news start with a definite article? apparently, i never got the memo]

there's an argument that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks are not al-qaeda here. and this article reports that powell has offered u.s. assistance to the uzbek government.

i don't usually focus on uzbekistan that much here (at least i haven't since september when i was blogging from there), so perhaps i lost many of my regular readers by my obsession with these attacks. i don't know why, but they've really affected me in a way that other, perhaps worse, attacks have not. i've had this pit in my stomach ever since i got the first email about them monday morning. it's very strange. i mean, i never lived there, i just went to the country for vacation. there have been bombings in other places where i have visited (e.g. turkey, tunisia) but i haven't felt such an emotional impact from those attacks. perhaps the explanation for my reaction is that this attack, unlike the others, came much sooner after i visited there--a matter of months not years. and i made several friends in uzbekistan who i have kept in touch with by email. the emails of those who have written me this week have added a personal dimension to the whole thing. (actually, what's a little more frightening are the friends who have not written--which is most of them, in fact. but most likely, they just can't get to an internet cafe. obviously checking in with me is not a top priority for them right now).

violence continues

more uzbekistan news here (via the agonist). its still not clear what exactly is going on there--there are several bombings, some shoot-outs with police, etc. no confirmation of any of my rumors of the tashkent subway, charvak dam or fergana bombings (they were unconfirmed to begin with). the whole thing is likely to stay confused for the time being. one thing is certain, uzbekistan is experiencing a second day of violence. i fear for the safety of some people i know there.

the government seems to be pinning the blame on hizb-ut-tahir, their usual scapegoat--an organization that has no proven record of violence (HuT is an islamist party that advocates institution of an islamist government but only through non-violent means. the uzbek government nevertheless claims it is secretly a terrorist organization and often groups it with the overtly violent Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan/Turkistan). again, it will be a little while before the dust clears and we can see what comes of all of this.

incidentally, there are a large number of u.s. forces in uzbekistan now in karshi (southern uzbekistan). there are probably also a fair amount of off-duty u.s. military personnel in tashkent, a city they use for R & R from operations in afghanistan. (a guy i met in tashkent told me that soldiers are not allowed to go to any city in the country except for tashkent and karshi). so it's possible the u.s. military could get involved in some of the uzbek government's anti-terrorist raids.

UPDATE: for what it's worth radio free europe has picked up on the "unconfirmed reports" of an explosion near the charvak resevoir. this obviously doesn't mean the rumors i heard are true, just that others are hearing the same rumors. if it's true, it's pretty clear that any attempt to blow up the dam failed. someone would notice if tashkent was flooded.

more on uzbekistan bombings

my sources in uzbekistan tell me that there are more bombs that have been reported in the news. in addition to the chorsu bomb in tashkent and the bomb(s) in bukhara, they say there was also a bomb in a tashkent subway stop (oybek) and at least one bombing in the fergana valley.

i have no idea whether these inside tips are actually worth anything. they didn't actually witness any bombings first hand and it would not be surprising if rumors were flying pretty fiercely around uzbekistan right now (remember the stories of the car bombing at the state department on 9-11-01?) on the other hand, the uzbek government has every incentive to try to minimize the size of these attacks and i wouldn't put it past them to underreport at least the fergana incident (a tashkent subway bomb would be harder to hide. 3 million people live in that city and there are plenty of foreign reporters passing through there on the way to afghanistan)

meanwhile, what is being reported is that uzbek special forces have raided an alleged militant hideout in the suburbs of tashkent.

sean paul also has a good post and he directed my attention to this article from eurasianet and this post from the argus.

UPDATE: as i was typing above, i got another email. it seems the fergana bomb rumor is that it was intended to blow up the charvak dam, which would have flooded tashkent had it succeeded. tashkent has apparently been sealed off from the rest of the country, no one can go in or out of the city.

yikes

explosion in chorsu market in tashkent. there aren't many details but it's very freaky. i feel like i was just there (even though it was 6 months ago). if it's an al-qaeda type bomb designed to retaliate against a close ally of the bush administration, the chorsu is an odd choice--when i was there the market was crowded with locals and farmers coming from the fergana valley. meanwhile a mile or two southeast is "broadway" the tourist strip that is often frequented by u.s. soldiers on break from afghanistan.

i am sure this will immediately be blamed on the islamic movement of turkistan (formerly the islamic movement of uzbekistan) and hizb-ut-tahir (an islamist political party that claims to be non-violent but always suffers when the government moves against the IMU/IMT). expect one of our "close allies in the war against terra" to get even more oppressive.

UPDATE: ever so slightly more information here.

UPDATE2: now it looks like a suicide bomb. or rather, bombs. it seems there was another (and more deadly) explosion in bukhara provence (but not bukhara city?).

ladykillers

last night we saw the ladykillers, the latest film by the coen brothers. i'm a big fan of their films. they wrote and directed my official favorite movie and basically, everything they've done i've at least thought was "pretty good" if not better. it used to be that i had to wait 2-3 years in between coen brother films, but these days they're coming out roughly once a year. i've started to wonder if quality will start slipping. i was not a huge fan of intolerable cruelty (i would call it "pretty good," i.e. the lowest coen brother rating) and so when ladykiller came out this week to mixed reviews, i was wondering if this would finally kill the coen allure for me.

it did not. i really liked "ladykillers." it had its problems (e.g. the lump hudson character was particularly drab in a movie that is almost entirely driven by its colorful characters), but i honestly don't get some of the criticism (e.g.). i guess it just comes with the territory of remaking an alec guinness classic--the critics seem to be spending a lot of time comparing the coen brother's film with the original (which i have never seen). standing on its own, i thought the new ladykillers was quite entertaining, although not the coens' best.

grading flags

i just happened upon this site which grades to the flags of the world.

i actually disagree with at least 1/2 of the grades (my favorite flag was given a "C"!!!) and, i like many of the "failing" flags better than the "A" group. i mean, come on, how can you can honestly say that chile (an "A" grade) is more asthetically pleasing than, say, iran or kazakstan (both got failing grades). but for what it's worth, go check it out.

fact checking brooks and myself

via atrios, i read this article which checked on some of the generalizations brooks has made about the contrasts between urban and rural america and found them to be untrue.

it's a good article and when people get so much attention for their writings, they should be called to task for it. but i read the article less as an indictment of brooks than as a reminded that many commonly held prejudices (including many that i have, consciously or not) about other parts of the country are not necessarily true. when brooks writes about "the meatloaf line" in american geography--a line which, once crossed, means that "there will be a lot fewer sun-dried-tomato concoctions on restaurant menus and a lot more meatloaf platters"-- it taps into some of my own sense about the regional differences in this country.

it seems to me that the only reason brooks is so successful at misrepresenting "red" america is because people like me happen to believe it. that doesn't excuse brooks, but it doesn't excuse me either

june 30th

it never ceases to amaze me just how openly the bush administration is treating this june 30th handover of sovereignty as a sham:

With fewer than 100 days to go before Iraq resumes its sovereignty, American officials say they believe they have found a legal basis for American troops to continue their military control over the security situation in Iraq.

...

Showing his confidence that the approach was grounded in international law, L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the occupation authority, issued an executive order this week specifying that the newly formed Iraqi armed forces be placed under the operational control of the American commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who has been named to lead American and allied forces after the transfer of political authority to the Iraqis.

Mr. Bremer and other top American officials say they believe Security Council Resolution 1511, which conferred the mandate for the American-led alliance, can be used to provide legal justification for the American military command to operate until Dec. 31, 2005. That is when a timetable agreed on by Iraqi leaders envisages the final transition to an elected Iraqi government.

...

The United Nations official said that while it would be a "practical reality" for American domination to continue despite Iraqi self-rule, "it has to be done in a way that's not offensive to Iraqis and the international community, which emphasizes Iraqi sovereignty rather than Iraqi impotence."

so, to summarize: on june 30, 2004 iraq will become a sovereign independent country again, not an occupied territory, even though its entire government will be appointed by the american military and the iraqi armed forces will be "under operational control" (i.e. actual command) of an american general. the above quoted u.n. official calls american domination to be a "practical reality," but he really should go further. it simply won't be sovereignty, at least not in any manner that the term is normally defined. instead, it sounds like iraq will still be occupied power with some more iraqi faces in mid-level positions than there are now.

the administration, however, badly wants whatever happens on june 30th to be seen as a handover of sovereignty. but the arguments they offer against the common-sense notion of sovereignty are pretty weak. like this one from the end of the above-quoted article:

Another official said Iraqis could hardly claim that Iraq's sovereignty was compromised by having its troops under American command when nations like Britain and Poland had placed military contingents here under an American general. "There's no sovereignty issue for them," the official said.

of course there's no sovereignty issue for britain and poland when they place command of a small number of their total armed forces under u.s. command in iraq. but there would clearly be an issue if britain placed all of its armed forces under u.s. command in britain. can we really image britain or poland standing for that?

how stupid do they think we are?

nice try

someone found my site early this morning searching for richard clarke communist party. i looked at the search results and i am afraid that the searcher probably will be disappointed. perhaps in another few days enough bullshit will be thrown up on the internet to satisfy him/her.

testing...

nick kristof is trying to draw attention to the ethnic cleansing that is going on right now in western sudan:

The most vicious ethnic cleansing you've never heard of is unfolding here in the southeastern fringes of the Sahara Desert. It's a campaign of murder, rape and pillage by Sudan's Arab rulers that has forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages.

The desert is strewn with the carcasses of cattle and goats, as well as fresh refugee graves that are covered with brush so wild animals will not dig them up. Refugees crowd around overused wells, which now run dry, and they mourn loved ones whose bodies they cannot recover.

Western and African countries need to intervene urgently. Sudan's leaders should not be able to get away with mass murder just because they are shrewd enough to choose victims who inhabit a poor region without airports, electricity or paved roads.

The culprit is the Sudanese government, one of the world's nastiest. Its Arab leaders have been fighting a civil war for more than 20 years against its rebellious black African south. Lately it has armed lighter-skinned Arab raiders, the Janjaweed, who are killing or driving out blacks in the Darfur region near Chad.

kristof also notes that the bush administration has been better than prior administrations in dealing with the ongoing civil war in southern sudan, which is true (although unfortunately it's also not saying all that much). but he doesn't mention why the bush administration has taken an interest in sudan's civil war in the south.

the civil war in the south is between the largely christian locals and the muslim arabs who dominate the national government and control the army. as the civil war is one of the front lines between christianity and islam, it has become a cause celebre among the christian right. the brutality of the fundamentalist sudanese government against the christian rebels fits nicely into their simplistic image of islam, an image that has only been enhanced since 9/11. bush's relative activisim on the issue, i think, has more to do with pandering to the christian right than anything else.

don't get me wrong, trying to stop the brutal civil war in the south is the right thing to do. i just question the administration's motives. i could be wrong. maybe i'm just cynical.

but the new ethnic cleansing in the darfar region of western sudan is bush's chance to prove me wrong. because of the attention to the civil war in the south, the government has largely halted its offensive there and instead gone after the muslim non-arabs in darfar. because this is not a christian region, i think the sudanese government is betting that the west will not care about its crimes there. and i think they're probably right. time will tell whether the president makes any effort to stop this sudanese offensive. if he doesn't i expect that a few years from how some american leaders will be apologizing for their inaction in this latest bout of genocide in a forgotten corner of the african continent.

a modest proposal

perhaps this is the only sensible compromise in the gay marriage debate: oregon county bans all marriage.

finally, a government has found a way to both: (a) make sure they don't issue marriage licenses in a way that discriminates against homosexuals, and (b) will not allow gay marriages to "redefine the traditional definition of marriage" or "weaken the institution of marriage" or whatever this week's slogan is. if you think about it, it's quite brilliant--it's like saying if you can't play nice with this marriage thing, no one gets to play!

okay, i read the link. i realize the marriage ban is just temporary. but it is worth reflecting which is more damaging to the institution of marriage: issuing licenses to any couple who applies (gay or straight), or not issuing them at all to anyone.

(link via see why?)

passing the buck

i never got around to posting today, so here's some other things to keep you entertained:

take the mustang bobby challenge

as the bush administration unleashes jim wilkinson to trash richard clarke, andante lists what's left out of wilkinson's official bio

cathy has seen the invoices

maru quacks

kirk has a good essay about how the hardline can backfire.

and if all else fails ming the merciless should keep you busy for a while (just keep clicking on stuff to see what they do) (via left is right)

no basis

maybe i’m being nit-picky or maybe this is just more evidence of the long term side effects of law school, but this morning joe lieberman waltzed right into something that really annoys me. lieberman was referring to the richard clarke’s newly published book and accompanying interviews in which clarke charged that the bush administration focused more on iraq than al-qaeda immediately after 9/11:

"I see no basis for it," Lieberman said on Fox News Sunday. "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric."

"no basis?" isn’t clarke’s eyewitness account a basis? isn’t the fact that it is largely corroborated by former treasury secretary paul o'neill's similar accusations a basis? of course there’s a basis. while clarke could be wrong–he could be lying, or maybe he just misunderstood the discussions going on around him in some kind of three’s company-esque series of coincidences, overheard bits of conversation and remarks taken out of context–you can’t say his story is baseless.

baseless means there is no evidence, not even bad evidence, to support the assertion. eyewitness accounts to meetings is a form of evidence and thus it is a basis.

here’s an example of something that has no basis: lenny bruce says that in private briefings just after 9/11, the president announced he will invade benin after iraq finally stabilizes. there’s no basis because lenny was not in any post-9/11 meetings. he was dead. there is no basis for believing his account is true.

clarke’s account, on the other hand, has a basis. the basis is clarke’s own account of the events, coupled with the fact that clarke was actually present at the meetings he is talking about. again, just because it has a basis for believing it, does not mean it is necessarily true, but it does count for something. it at least needs to be addressed by those who want to contradict clarke's account

but "no basis" (along with its close cousin "no evidence") in political discourse has come to be used as a synonym for "wrong." "wrong" however is falling out of favor because it requires support–you need to back up the "wrong" charge with an argument. if lieberman has just said "clarke is wrong" he would be expected to explain just why that is. with "no basis" he isn't because the term implies a sort of objectivity that "wrong" does not have. right or wrong is an opinion. whether or not something has a basis is about reality. but because it has this air of objective truth, it actually operates to stifle debate. note that lieberman did not actually have anything concrete to contest what clarke was saying. he did not counter clarke's story with any contradictory evidence. he didn't even try to cite any. instead he resorted to scolding: "speak facts and not rhetoric." but who exactly, is speaking about facts and who is resorting to rhetorical tricks like "no basis"?

shakhrisabz photos

last november sean-paul kelley went to uzbekistan with his father. now all of a sudden, months later, he's missing uzbekistan and is starting to post about it.

yesterday, he posted an email he got from his father about their trip to shakhrisabz and after reading it, now i'm getting all nostalgic too. anyway, here are some photos of the places papa kelley mentions in his email (i've been promising to post uzbek pictures for ages--this, at least, is an excuse to finally get around to it):


the road to the mountain pass between shakhrisabz (taken from a car window as i sped past--the yellow things are sunflower fields)




























village along the takhtakaracha pass (i happened to pass through a funeral, these guys were jumping in their car to follow a funeral procession)



























"the remains of Timur's Palace" (Ak Serai)



























blue domed mosques



























old man sitting near mosque



























the marketplace

























UPDATE: when i first published this entry, the images apparently didn't post right (i ran off to see the sopranos before i could verify that they posted correctly). i think i fixed it now.

the battle of algiers

i got a lot done for once this weekend. and believe it or not, i even went into work today and managed to avoid blogging the whole time i was there.

on friday night we saw the battle of algiers. the movie was recently re-released after it was allegedly remastered. i wouldn't know if it was. the sound quality in the theater where we saw it was pretty bad. i think one of the speakers was blown. or maybe we just had a bad print. in any event the music (which is supposed to set the mood of many of the scenes) was accompanied with this distortion. it really did take away some of the enjoyment of the film

but putting aside from the crappy sound, it's a remarkably realistic film about a terrorist-based insurgency. i had read that the amazing thing about the film is that by the end you're rooting for the terrorists. but that wasn't my reaction. by the end, i didn't like either side. like i said, it was pretty realistic. it's hard to watch the film without thinking about iraq. apparently the u.s. military does too. last summer the pentagon had its own screening of the film. as much as i liked the movie, it is a little frightening to contemplate just what the military guys watching it would get out of this film. you could argue, for example, that the film teaches that torture and brutal retaliation against civilians is an effective way to stop an insurgency--although you could also argue that the film views such tactics as counter-productive in the long term.

who knows what anyone takes away from a film with as much moral ambiguity as this one.

TLC blogroll update (probably the last one for a while)

i just added all facts and opinions (natalie davis), yellow doggerel democrat (steve bates), wtf is it now?!?, indigo ocean, and norbizness to my liberal coalition section of my blogroll. all of them have been listed as "contributors" to the coalition for quite a while, i guess i never should have left them out. but now that there's no practical difference between "contributors" and "members" like me, i decided i really should link to them. i'm sorry it took me so long. hopefully, i can send some traffic their way to make up for it.

some points about the spanish election

in the past 5 days i have read about a half-million posts and articles about whether or not the election of the new socialist government in spain constitutes "appeasement of terrorists." but i wish that those who want to argue that it is at least acknowledge the below facts:

1. the socialist party might have won the election even if the march 11 attacks had not occurred

a poll conducted four days before the attack showed the socialists trailing in the polls by only few percentage points which was well within the margin of error. furthermore, a poll taken on march 10, 2004, the day before the bombing, indicated the socialists were in the lead by 2 percentage points, this was also within the margin of error. (thanks to ntodd for that second link). in other words, the race was a statistical dead heat. we will never know for sure whether the socialist would have won anyway, but, at least commentators should stop referring to it as if it is some kind of upset.

2. outgoing prime minister jose maria aznar was not running in the last election

aznar has been a staunch ally to president bush, a stance which seriously hurt his reelection prospects. several months ago, he decided not to run for reelection, in part, many believed, because he really didn’t stand a chance to win. (he also had several other reason to be unpopular, such as his government’s less than forthright handling of the prestige oil tanker spill off the spanish coast. for a discussion of aznar’s political liabilities and a good summary of the modern history of spanish politics see this article from salon). the fact that the popular party put up a different candidate in the election illustrates just how clearly the spanish public was against supporting the u.s. in iraq before the madrid bombings. the ruling party knew the only way it could be reelected is to distance itself from the policy and the divisive politician who symbolized it.

3. jose luis rodriguez zapatero, the incoming spanish prime minister, is not saying he will end cooperation with the u.s. in the “war on terror”

zapatero has vowed to make anti-terrorism a top priority for his administration. under zapatero, spain will continue to aid american forces in afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. even in iraq, zapatero has not said that he will withdraw spanish forces from there immediately, but rather after june 30, 2004. in a sense, he's only calling the bush administration's bluff when they claim to hand over sovereignty on that date. the date, clearly chosen with the american electoral calendar in mind, is supposed to create the impression that the iraq mission has been accomplished. but if that's the case, what is wrong with spanish troops leaving after iraq "rejoins the community of nations?"

furthermore, zapatero has not said that spain will definitely pull out after june 30. they will stay if they get a u.n. mandate. zapatero is simply playing hardball with the bush administration, trying to get them to rejoin the community of nations if they want foreign help to rebuild the country. you may not agree with the policy or tactic, but that's not necessarily the same as appeasement.

4. zapatero's socialist party is not a communist party

americans cannot keep communists and socialists straight, and thus they are easily confused by the concept of a democratic socialist political party. but the fact is, in virtually every other democratic country, there is a democratic socialist political party. (a few months ago i read this book it didn’t happen here which discusses many of the historical and structural reasons why a democratic socalist party did not take hold in the u.s. when it did everywhere else). the democratic socialists parties go by various names in the various countries, but these days they are mostly on the moderate-left end of the political spectrum. notably, in britain the democratic socialist party is called the "labour party," the party of bush’s buddy tony blair.


if you want to argue that the spanish elections equals appeasement of terrorism, fine. but if you want to make a serious case for it, you have to at least address the above points.

[oops, forgot to write a title for this one]

i just read an excellent article about the spanish elections. i've been mostly sitting out the whole post-election brew-ha-ha that has been bouncing around various blogs and op-ed columns over the past few days. i got a few things to say on this issue, but when everyone else is already discussing it, it is less likely i will try to add anything, especially if i feel that it's already being said elsewhere.

that may change soon (or maybe not. i'm trying hard to resist the impulse to promise future posts here because i so rarely follow through). right now, however, i'm off to the labor board for a hearing, then court for another hearing, then my arabic mid-term. ba'da dhalik anwii an sa'aktub kathiran hunaa, insha'alla