We’re in deep doo-doo.Dick Cheney, in a closed-door meeting with congressional Republicans, on the situation in North Korea. Cheney may be right, but his credibility is undermined both by his own record of assessing foreign threats and, perhaps more significantly, the fact that he used the word “doo-doo” to describe the prospect of nuclear war. He gets points, however, for reportedly wearing a cowboy hat to the meeting. source
Now that [North Korea] has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet. If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States.Fidel Castro, writing in Cuban state media to advise its ally North Korea against starting a war. source
Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with the South because war could break out at “any moment”, it said on Wednesday, days of after warning the United States and South Korea of nuclear attack.
The move is the latest in a series of bellicose threats from North Korea in response to new U.N. sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and to “hostile” military drills under way joining the United States and South Korea.
The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the U.S. military that supervises the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.
While officials in South Korea and the United States continue to downplay recent threats from the North Korean government, both have also repeatedly condemned the increasingly incendiary rhetoric, which follows the implementation of new U.N. sanctions against the North. The United States has also bolstered its missile defense systems in the region as an added precaution.
Most Americans see the establishment center as an empty, decaying void that commands neither their confidence nor their love. It is the establishment center that has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster — a terrible cancer eating away the soul of the nation. … It was not the American worker who designed the Vietnam war or our military machine. It was the establishment wise men, the academicians of the center.
— George McGovern on war and the politics that produce war, from a campaign speech in April 1972. (via Reason)
Statements like this have earned McGovern huge respect among progressives even to this day.
apocalypsesunshine says: If you’re interested in what’s happening in Syria, this is good. That said, I find it mildly disturbing that they refer to it as a recap of sorts, as I identify recaps with entertainment media. Pop culture, stop infiltrating absolutely everything.
» SFB says: Recap is a synonym of “summary,” and it’s useful when writing not to keep repeating phrases. To just make a point on this, sort of a general thought on these types of comments, which we seem to get a lot: If we treat every phrase like a loaded word, we miss out on the big picture. Let’s consider the full context instead of the semantics. — Ernie @ SFB
Conor Friedersdorf: In Defense of Chris Hayes
Very few Americans wake up early on weekend mornings to watch public intellectuals chat. For the tiny number who do, Up With Chris Hayes, a show hosted by Chris Hayes of The Nation, has distinguished itself for its unusual success bringing thoughtful, intellectually honest conversation to cable news. The show’s producers try to cover what they judge to be important, even when more trivial topics would result in higher ratings. During the panel portion of the show, the host and most guests actually grapple with fraught issues rather than shying away from them. Straw men, ad hominem attacks, and cheap point-scoring are exceptions* rather than the rule. Partisan hackery is discouraged. And Hayes tends to highlight rather than elide complicating facts and arguments that cut against his ideological instincts, preferring to interrogate his own views and to treat positions with which he disagrees fairly (something I’m attuned to because my politics are different enough from his that we’re often at odds).
Despite all this, Hayes is suddenly under fire for weekend remarks he made about heroism, war, and politics. Our public discourse is such that anyone can find him or herself viciously denounced by complete strangers based on a single sound-byte from which everyone extrapolates wildly. This controversy is worth highlighting because Hayes’ words and the reaction to them helps explain why so few broadcasters forthrightly discuss complicated, controversial subjects. Hayes subsequently issued an apology, but it’s his critics who’ve behaved badly.
An impassioned defense of Chris Hayes. We’ve read a few in the past day or so.
» An Afghan soldier opened fire on members of the U.S. military, from a nearby rooftop, killing one soldier and the local interpreter who was accompanying him. The gunman managed to wound three more soldiers before being killed by return fire. Three United States soldiers were also killed in eastern Afghanistan, all victims of a bombing, as were three Afghan women after the house they sought shelter in was hit by a Taliban mortar shell. Details on all of the deceased were released under the condition of anonymity by U.S. officials.
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No one asked their names | By Qais Azimy AJE
In the days following the rogue US soldier’s shooting spree in Kandahar, most of the media, us included, focused on the “backlash” and how it might further strain the relations with the US.
Many mainstream media outlets channelled a significant amount of energy into uncovering the slightest detail about the accused soldier – now identified as Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. We even know where his wife wanted to go for vacation, or what she said on her personal blog.
But the victims became a footnote, an anonymous footnote. Just the number 16. No one bothered to ask their ages, their hobbies, their aspirations. Worst of all, no one bothered to ask their names.
In honoring their memory, I write their names below, and the little we know about them: that nine of them were children, three were women.
The dead:
- Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
- Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
- Nazar Mohamed
- Payendo
- Robeena
- Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
- Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
- Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
- Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
- Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
- Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
- Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
- Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
- Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
- Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
- Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali
The wounded:
- Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
- Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
- Parween
- Rafiullah
- Zardana
- Zulheja
This post makes a good point. The priorities of the U.S. media are so out of whack in cases like these that these things don’t get reported. They become meaningless statistics, blips on a radar that don’t register. There’s a campaign to be had here. The next time Afghan civilians die at the hands of the U.S. military, the NY Times, WaPo and other mainstream media outlets should put as much work into finding out about the people who died as they do the suspect. This is a war full of “forgotten” deaths. The media should be doing more to prevent them from being forgotten.
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I believe that Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money that we have spent to liberate these people. They are not a poor country.Rep. Michele Bachmann during an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning.• Bachmann added that Iraq was a “wealthy country” that would be “subject to dominance by Iran and their influence in the region” once American troops withdraw by the end of the year. source (via • follow)
![pantslessprogressive:
Dr. Cornel West at the Occupy Wall Street protest Tuesday evening. [Photo: @linktothepast86]
Hey, it’s that guy from “The Matrix Reloaded.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls7q0f1Kiv1qzr73ro1_500.jpg)
Dr. Cornel West at the Occupy Wall Street protest Tuesday evening. [Photo: @linktothepast86]
Hey, it’s that guy from “The Matrix Reloaded.”
A video game called Warco—currently in development—hopes to change the first-person shooter dynamic. In the game you get a video recorder instead of a shotgun, and you can’t kill anyone or blow up buildings. Your job is to sit back and document the scene. Warco, you see, is the first video game instilled with the principles of journalism. Keep reading …
Novel approach. We don’t like modern FPS games, but we would play this. Fascinating.
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