Category Archives: News and politics

Ari Fleisher, the US President Press Wank has pulled the pin on his tenure as the Voice of Doom for Dubya.  Fleisher is well known for his selfless devotion to the Bush Presidency and his almost perpetual frown at the Washington Press Corps.

Fleisher is not a stupid man; he realizes that the job is just a deck chair on the Titanic and you can never win.  Journos won’t let you win, break even, or even quit the game, so why take the gig in the first place?  For starters, it is a resume-maker and career capper without parallel, but not while you’re in the job.  The money tit comes out after you leave.  The speech circuit, the dinner circuit, the university gigs and the requisite book are all on the table now.  Ari can take his pick of the money and run like a mad bastard for the bank.

Fleisher’s stated reason for leaving is he’s had enough and wants to spend some time with his new wife of six months.  Both are noble statements and probably accurate, except most observers of the Voice of Doom are not convinced he has a dick, let alone somewhere to stuff it, aside from up the ass of journalists.  Surprises exist every day.

The bets are now on for the replacement.  The job description is horrid:

Be the President’s mouthpiece 24-7-365. 

Explain things to stupid reporters using small words and simple concepts.

Be able to speak out of both sides of your mouth at the same time, as well as out of your ass, depending on the current political reality sweeping Washington this afternoon, or this minute.

Harvest the live infant stem cells for the hourly injections that keep Alan Greenspan alive and the economy running.

Ensure Trent Lott is muzzled at all times.

Teach Dubya English.

One front runner that has been mentioned is Victoria Clarke, whom you might remember from the Gulf War.  She was the Pentagon Mouthpiece and was known as Ari Fleischer With Balls.  She has the pedigree, the dour attitude and the ability to keep her teeth clenched while fielding inane questions.  She also collected the live insects for Donald Rumsfeld’s lunch feedings, so she know her way around handling the guys in the big chairs.

The Press Wank job is the only job that might be tougher than Commander in Chief and may all have mercy on those who apply.

Walking bombs are now all the rage in the Middle East, as a way to persuade various groups to do something or the other.  Known as suicide bombers or martyrs depending on your perspective, the basic concept is terror bombing, plain and simple.

The reason for walking bombs, as contrasted to car or truck bombs is easy enough.  The Beirut Barrier checkpoint is used all over the Middle East to keep trucks and cars from getting near things.  It’s a simple construction; three Jersey blocks, those concrete triangle barriers you see on freeway construction, set in a maze to force trucks and cars to go, one at a time, through a checkpoint with tight S-turns. 

This lesson was learned when a truck bomb blew up the US Army barracks in Beirut in the 80’s:  The truck sped up to the front door of the building and went boom, collapsing the building and killing a couple of hundred Marines.  Don’t allow vehicles to come near buildings in areas of the world where life has little or no value.

In North America we see some of this construction.  The new US Embassy in Ottawa has steel posts, called bollards, along the curb mounted six feet under ground, projecting four feet above ground on the sidewalk.  Each post is about four feet apart and circles the embassy, so bicycles and pedestrians can pass through. 

The idea is to keep the blast and overpressure of an explosion away from the building structure by not letting a vehicle get too close to the building.  The estimates with bollards in general are, you can drive a five-ton truck at 40 miles an hour into these things and still not get through the barrier.

Oklahoma City, as an example, was a “successful” blast because the Ryder truck bomb was within a few feet of the building.  The architects had put a turn-in lane close to the building to allow cars and buses to drop people off at the door.

Britain, especially during the Irish Troubles, did it a bit differently.  They hung blast drapes over the buildings that were likely targets.  Blast drapes look like that green or orange construction mesh you see on a building site.  The drape moves with the blast, dissipating the overpressure wave, reducing the effects and containing some of the damage.  Britain really doesn’t have the physical room for bollards and distance from the sidewalk for safety, so nets and drapes work for them.

Suicide bombers, the walking bombs, can pass through bollards and Beirut Barriers by the simple expedient of being on foot.  Security forces naturally look for individuals with big coats and a bulky build during hot weather.  Carrying a heavy backpack or big bag is also suspect. 

The technology is not complex: A vest stuffed with explosives, either dynamite, or plastique is worn under a coat.  The wearer walks into a crowded area and pulls the detonator, turning their body into small chunks of meat and using the blast wave to kill as many others as they can.  Vest pockets stuffed with nails, screws and scrap metal ensures the damage area is wider and more hideous.  Suicide bombs are easier to make in volume, as you don’t need a lot of explosive to cause a lot of damage, roofing nails are easy to get even for Palestinians in Israel and the wearer is not expected to come back looking for another fitting. 

This week, the walking bombs have added a new twist.  Line up with the rest of the folks at the security checkpoint to enter the shopping area.  Just before you get to the scanner or pat-down area, pull the cord and say goodbye.

The endpoint is the same.  People, regardless of political viewpoint become terrified of being in public areas.  Imagine going to the local Wal-Mart and seeing that hefty guy over there trying on overalls suddenly disappear in a cloud of blood, meat and bone, while bits of metal fly into your face and body and your ears ring like the Bells of Hell from the blast.  Talk about taking the fun out of retail.

Is this kind of terror coming our way?  North America is wide open, from a security standpoint.  The bad guys can get Ryder trucks, explosives and willing drivers as easily as we can get regular unleaded at the local Esso. 

North Americans have never lived under that kind of suspicion of every sidewalk planter, pedestrian, truck and car around you, that the Middle East lives under every day.

I took some time to read back over the postings since the beginning of Fun In Baghdad.  Fortunately I have been wrong on many fronts, especially predicting the resistance of the Iraqi Army or the potentialities of Weapons of Mass Destruction use.

The Iraqi Army, the various Republican Guard variants, Secret Police goons and Guerrillas all dissipated faster than a Nun Fart in a wind tunnel. The WMD nightmares have not played out and that is one that I am really happy I got wrong. 

The reason the Iraq military just ran away is an understandable one: Confronted with a highly technical enemy who prefers to fight at night and enjoys dropping very accurate ordinance on your forces, while all you have is artillery and some AK rounds, means you are essentially screwed.  If you were drafted at the point of a gun, you haven’t been paid, haven’t had rations, have seen your buddies executed by the Secret Police just for giggles and the Commander In Chief says Die for Me, your response would probably be a simple:  Hell, No.  I can appreciate that.  It’s sensible.

The WMD deal is more problematic.  The entire conflict was based on two factors:  One, Saddam Hussein has poison gas and nerve agents, with a high likelihood he either has nukes, or is so close to having nukes as to make no never mind.  Two: Saddam Hussein is so insane and brutal that Hussein having anything like biological or nuclear weapons is worse than an unmediated pyromaniac at the Zippo lighter factory in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

So, we’ve solved Factor Two.  Hussein is off the statue plinth.  He’s probably at Allah’s door, saying, “Uhhh, sorry, dude”  Factor One is difficult.  Until we see a hollowed out mountain full of nerve agents and nuclear material, like in 007’s Goldfinger, we might not be convinced.  The arms caches in schools, hospitals and mosques are seedy and disgusting, but not the outrageous over-the-top madness we were expecting.

Will the American people accept that maybe Factor One didn’t pan out like they said it would?  Intelligence sources told Bush and Powell that there were nukes and nerve gas piled four deep in the streets, a wild-eyed Republican Guard sitting on the top of it with a Bic just waiting for the word to blow everything up. 

If the Intelligence Sources are wrong, or misguided, or couldn’t interpret a Xerox of their own ass, then Bush has some hard choices.  The CIA, NSA, DIA, NIA, FBI and a bunch of other guys have some very serious explaining to do.

I’m not going to let George and Colin off the hook, as their chairs are the places where the final decisions are made.  Reality dictates that their decisions are made on the basis of the information provided to them.  As honourable men, George and Colin should make it public that they were wrong and take the public kicking they will deserve.  Resignation is about the only route available. 

Now, on to the purveyors of the data:  The security analysts. 

History has shown that those who give bad data or styled data, or groomed data and get caught, usually wind up at government think-tanks, or Bechtel, or Brown and Root, or SAIC, or EC&C.  Surf up those names on the web and you find sizeable companies with long traditions of government contracts in areas that are not the regular run-of-the-mill jobs.  Scope out the careers sections at some of those companies and you’ll see requirements for all kinds of “analysts”  These places are where the spooks go when they don’t want to, or can’t, play in the government any more.

If (and this is a big if, compounded on some other assumptions) the data that George W. and Colin were given was reality-modified, then those responsible should be not merely demoted, private-sectored, or left to retire early. 

My vote is to strip them naked and take them out into the Rose Garden at noon for a televised public flogging.  Make them wear a ball-gag, dog collar and Size 12 Butt Plug for a week, paraded up and down the Washington Mall, on hands and knees for anyone to piss on, beat up, or violate in every way possible.  Head of the line treatment for the families of any soldier wounded or killed in the war.  The rule is you can’t kill the guilty ones, but imagine your sickest, most emotionally scarring, violent, humiliating nightmares, double it up and make it real for these bastards.  If that includes Rosie O’Donnell and Bea Arthur, then so be it.       

I’m 98% certain that it will turn out that there are sizeable stashes of nerves and nukes in Iraq.  I’m 98% certain that the information that George and Colin got was accurate as neither person impresses me as someone who would take a decision as big as going to war without double and triple checking. 

It is that nagging 2% that will make the next few weeks nerve wracking for the security analysts.

With the Iraq War now on a nice simmer, rather than a full boil, we can season the pot for the future.  There is a robust educated class, middle class merchants and the usual smattering of dirt poor, filthy rich, crooks, gangsters, religious zealots, loonies, disenfranchised and just regular strange people.  Sort of like Canada or the US.

As noted in other posts, airlifting a Jeffersonian Democracy into Baghdad for all to use is probably not going to work, as humans always revert to tribal loyalty in times of stress.  But the concept of Iraq being run by the Iraqis is sound.  The US should make sure the lights come on, the water works, the phones ring and the cops are set to keep the gangsters from ripping up everything.  Aside from providing transport to and from the meetings, the US military should keep its mitts off, simply because Iraqis want to run their own show and who can blame them for that.

The danger in the US is lumping Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran and all the other pan-Arabic countries into the same group.  An ‘Arab’ is too broad a definition, often based on physicality, like Caucasian or Black.

For instance:  I am a White Middle Class Canadian Male, For Which I Am Sorry.  This does not mean I burn crosses on lawns, or my ancestors owned slaves, or I go out of my way to trash mosques.  It just means I am a White Guy, prone to baldness and I have the rhythm-recessive gene, which precludes me dancing in public or private.  Politically, I am a Red Tory or a Blue Liberal, Pro Choice, Anglican and Heterosexual. 

Meanwhile, Rob S, a friend of long standing, is also a White Middle Class Canadian Male, For Which I Am Sorry who is also rhythm-impaired, but is Ardently Heterosexual, Politically a Libertarian, Reform Druid, Choice-Neutral and calls the Linux operating system a Weapon of Mass Destruction.  Externally, we could be related and we can finish each others sentences, but we differ on a number of points. (Names obscured to at least try to skirt various slander laws).

Most Middle Eastern people I have met who are not Israeli have a somewhat benign attitude to all mankind.  Live and let live, share what you have and tolerate others as long as they aren’t in your face.  Except to a person they define themselves as Lebanese, or Iranian or Syrian, not always Arab.  Same with us White Folks:  Canadian, American, German, or from Dallas, Texas.  Texas is always a subset.  Don’t ask.

If the US can get over the term ‘Arab’ and worry more about the subsets of Iraqi, then there will be more possibility for success.  There will be endless hours of bickering amongst themselves as this is normal:  Just sit back and let it play out. 

Afghanistan is a reasonable model.  The tribal council, the Loya Jurgha (sp?) acted as a tribal parliament where the tribes came together, all as equals, to figure out their own solution which is working at least OK. 

We can’t hope for much more than OK in the foreseeable future in Iraq, because they have had 30 years of insane dictatorial rule and those who knew anything else are now dead or in exile.  There is a relearning curve that we will have to ride.