Bill Whittle is at it again. The guy who brought you the mind-blowing essay "Magic" is at it again, with a two-part article entitled "Strength." (As in, why being strong should not make us hate ourselves.) It has to do with why we will not give up the faith, and why we cannot. And why this war is crucial to the survival of the West. It's about the length of an Atlantic feature, so make yourself comfortable.

It contains within it both a defense of the War in Iraq and a defense of U.S. strategy in Fallujah.

This one is impossible to summarize, but here's a passage I like because it's acerbic, and well-written:

Senator Kennedy claims Abu Ghraib is simply Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers “under new management – U.S. management.” Taking him at his word – a somewhat iffy proposition right out of the gate – he apparently cannot see the difference between the humiliation and bullying of enemy combatants, which is shameful, disgusting and reprehensible, and the gleeful, mocking murder, torture and gang rape of over 300,000 innocent men, women and children -- which is something worse. So Senator, here is a helpful analogy which you may find useful: The difference is about the same as pulling over and leaving a young female secretary on the curb in the rain, which is shameful, disgusting and reprehensible, vs. leaving her trapped in the car at the bottom of a river while you look at the bubbles and ponder the political repercussions.

Which is something worse, Senator.

Americans living today have never known torture or oppression or state-sponsored murder, and so it becomes nothing more than a rhetorical concept for most of us. People who defend Saddam and Kim and Castro have no idea at all about what that life entails. None. And so, in their safe and antiseptic little worlds of coffee shops and chat rooms, it all reduces to rhetoric. And since, in the end, itÂ’s nothing but words anyway, they feel they can win an argument because their rhetoric goes up to eleven.

Bushitler.

(And, by the way, if you're too young to know what Bill's talking about with respect to Senator Kennedy, you need to Google the name Chappaquiddick, and/or drop by here, to find out why the Third Brother was never considered Presidential material.)

Via Reverend Pixy.

Posted by: Attila at 11:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 398 words, total size 3 kb.

Dean Esmay discusses land mass on our little planet, and how there's a bit more of it than you might think. It's required reading, so get to it.

Posted by: Attila at 11:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 34 words, total size 1 kb.

I hear that Gore's family is organizing an intervention to get him into treatment. The crack situation is out of hand.

The full text of his embarrassing hiccup of a speech is at Salon. The New York Times also has a brief summary. (It's lovely to note that although several of the officials and cabinet members Gore called upon to resign issued brief "we serve at the pleasure of the President" statements, Condi Rice didn't dignify Gore's remarks with a response. Quite right.)

I won't fisk it or anything, but there are a few priceless quotes:

In my opinion, John Kerry is dealing with this unfolding tragedy in an impressive and extremely responsible way. Our nation's best interest lies in having a new president who can turn a new page, sweep clean with a new broom, and take office on January 20th of next year with the ability to make a fresh assessment of exactly what our nation's strategic position is as of the time the reins of power are finally wrested from the group of incompetents that created this catastrophe.

Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, and our country's, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over.

In other words, the Democrats should get to throw grenades at the President's plan without having to offer any real alternatives. Vote for Kerry! Take Door #3! The Lovely Carol Merrill will show you what you've elected!

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace.

Honestly. When my husband and I saw this we just burst out laughing and looked at each other in amazement. Because, of course, this is Clinton's Vice President discussing dishonor and disgrace. And all we could think about was Clinton in the Oval Office, discussing troop deployments while getting a blowjob. American lives were, to him, just part of the high of abusing the highest office in the land for cheap thrills. Talk about dishonor.

Gore didn't just look bad in terms of the silly things he had to say: he also really looked bad. I mean, he wasn't that bad a specimen in his psuedo-hippie days, but isn't he getting a little fat in his embittered middle age? I'm just asking . . .

But there's this, and it's serious:

He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness and bungling at stirring up hornet's nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us . . . . It's not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists.

And that is the part that isn't funny. Because what Algore is trying to do here is prepare us for another terrorist attack. And program us to receive this news, when it occurs--for it almost certainly will--as something that is Bush's fault. We are to accept any terrorism over this long, hot, event-filled summer not as evidence of a flaw in our defenses, but as something provoked by the behavior of the President. Gore wants us to blame George W. Bush for the next attack, just as his political allies blamed Bush for 9/11--against all reason.

There are some in the Democratic Party that hope more dead American bodies will pave their path to the White House.

They are hoping al Qaeda will succeed this summer.

It is disgusting, and egregious. And it brings a new definition to dishonor.

Posted by: Attila at 02:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 643 words, total size 4 kb.

The Westside's* own Phil Carter has moved his blog. Update your blogrolls.

Via James.

*Not in New York, silly. LA. Specifically, Santa Monica IIRC.

Posted by: Attila at 01:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.

My thanks to Mikal for tipping me off; please go to his site and check out all the obscure and outrageous books he's offering today.

Isn't it nice to have Rachel Lucas back? Things weren't the same without her.

Apparently Rachel had the idea, and LagMonkey executed it. Now we need to get them printed professionally; as Rachel points out, it would be just like printing money.

Posted by: Attila at 02:18 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Click on Rachel's page to get the full-sized version. I'm sure it can be blown up a bit, printed on 11x17 paper or the like, and sold for a tidy profit at gun shows, NRA meetings, and other gatherings of folk who despise Fat Mikey and everything for which he stands.

Posted by: Mikal at May 20, 2004 02:40 PM (fcVnT)

2 Thanks for the link Miss Attila!

Posted by: Libbo at May 21, 2004 05:06 PM (jPrTF)

3 Perfect target

Posted by: Dave at May 22, 2004 10:05 PM (BQkC1)

4 It is rather charming.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 23, 2004 01:37 AM (i+lmP)

5 Of course, if anyone actually takes Mikal's idea and makes money off of it, they should give a small cut to him and to LagMonkey, and possibly a slighly larger cut to Rachel, for coming up with the idea. Most of the money they should keep for themselves, paying as little taxes on it as feasible (0 is a good figure).

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 23, 2004 01:40 AM (i+lmP)

6 I love your Tax policy

Posted by: Dave at May 23, 2004 04:48 AM (BQkC1)

7 Hey--let's keep this economic recovery going.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 24, 2004 12:39 AM (i+lmP)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Kate of Small Dead Animals finally lets the cat out of the bag. Here are a few of the money quotes (I've Dowdified it for those who are in a hurry):

Over at the Shotgun, Laura is frightened.

"This is scary shit. The prison abuses are scary shit. All of the lies are scary shit."

Well, Laura, you found us out. I confess... there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and nobody noticed until now. I know this is true, because, well . . . I'm in it.

There never were any weapons of mass destruction. None. Anywhere. We knew that all along - there never was a Halabja. It was filmed in a remote part of Texas hill country. Mexican illegals, playing dead for the camera.

We murdered Vince Foster, just to watch him die. And so we could blame Hillary.

Udday was gunned down by the capitalist forces of globalization. His hands were in the air, his fingers pleading - "Peace". He knew the cure for cancer, so they couldn't let him live. There were panties on his head.

Nick Berg is on a secret tropical island, with his Helliburton pension, golfing with Jack Kennedy and sharing peanut butter and bacon sandwiches with Elvis. Yucking it up with Danny Pearl. There's a greenish glass jar in the entertainment center, beside the big screen TV. Inside, a Roswell alien floats gently, gently, upside down. A pallid little creature bobbing in a lava lamp. Some sick bastard has slapped a decal on it; "Don't Mess With Texas."

"Don't Mess With Texas," Laura.

There are alligators in the sewers of New York. I once had a friend who knew someone who had a Doberman who choked on the finger of a burglar. In the fifties there was a engine that got 200 miles to the gallon but Big Oil stole the plans and murdered the inventor. The drug companies created AIDS through genetic engineering to kill the gays. Ronald Reagan told them to. The WTC towers were taken out by Israeli missiles, there never was a Holocaust and the JEWS RULE THE WORLD!!!

So, Laura, there you have it. You're free to go. You've got the truth now - spread the word. Proclaim it far and wide. Write your newspaper. Nobody will believe you, because...

We're a vast right wing conspiracy.

And we own the media.

Be afraid; be very afraid. And go read the whole thing; it's mandatory.

Via James.

Posted by: Attila at 02:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 421 words, total size 2 kb.

Venomous Kate discusses a practice that makes me see red, every time:

Even so, “honor killings” are believed to be on the rise in Turkey as rural Kurds immigrate to the cities where their daughters, previously sheltered from objectionable lifestyles, are now exposed to situations which their parents believe justify their deaths. As recently as May 1, a 14-year-old girl was buried after her father strangled her with a wire, his idea of expiating the “dishonor” brought to his family when his daughter was kidnapped and raped. (The girl’s father, brother and uncle - who committed the murder at the behest of a family council - have been charged with her death and were released pending their trial.)

The increase in honor killings isn’t limited to the Middle East. In Rochester, New York last month, a Turkish immigrant was charged with killing his wife and fracturing the skulls of his 4- and 22-year-old daughters in an “honor killing” after learning that his own brother had molested his wife and oldest child. He has pled not guilty, explaining to investigators that it was an “honor killing.”

Slow as it is, progress is still occuring. PakistanÂ’s President Musharraf has called for a ban on honor killings, despite the practice being outlawed already. Hundreds of such murders are believed to occur in Pakistan each year.

But the tide may be turning, as not only the Pakistani ban but similar legislation in Jordan seems to indicate. Much of it is due to women who are willing to speak out and demand an end to this ancient form of victimization. Recently, a woman known only as Souad published what is believed to be the first book by a survivor of a failed honor killing. The book, Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men, is receiving worldwide attention from human rights groups due to its powerful look into a practice so poorly documented in the press.

What knocks me out about this is the fact that in the Middle Eastern tradition rape brings dishonor to a family--so that rape victims are often killed by their own fathers and brothers (and sometimes mothers). It's hard to even wrap my mind around that concept.

It makes me want to go there and start handing out Beretta Tomcats to the entire female population, but I'm afraid the solutions will be more complicated. And it'll take a lot of time to educate people and change the laws. Change those fucking laws.

Posted by: Attila at 01:04 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 419 words, total size 3 kb.

This wouldn't be enough to change my decision about whom to vote for. But it makes me feel good about the decision I happen to have made.

Via Dean Esmay.

Posted by: Attila at 03:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.

Apparently a lot of men who served with John Kerry in Vietnam will be getting together tomorrow to publicly sign a document that makes a remarkable assertion: they don't feel he would be a good commander-in-chief:

“What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension,” John O’Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

“We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief,” O’Neill said.

Via James, who makes this point:

ThereÂ’s nothing new here, just a renewal of the debate over the Winter Soldiers hearing and KerryÂ’s anti-war activities. Presumably, these things have been factored into votersÂ’ minds at this point, to the extent anyone much cares thirty-odd years later. Further, this is in some sense the mirror image of the chicken hawk argument. Since all theyÂ’re doing is assessing purely political matters, IÂ’m not sure why the opinion of KerryÂ’s former Navy mates should have any special weight.

What is relevant to the question of KerryÂ’s fitness to serve as commander-in-chief is his present maturity on defense matters. Given the advantage of thirty-odd years additional seasoning and reflection, what are KerryÂ’s views on Vietnam now? More importantly, what is his vision for the war on terror and our future in Iraq? ItÂ’s still very early in this campaign but Kerry will need to give a much more coherent view on those issues than he has so far.

And that's the hard part, for Kerry. He wants to be everything to everyone. This may change a few moderate minds in the months ahead, if the story has "legs." It does have a certain drama in it.

McCain will be pissed, of course.

Posted by: Attila at 12:13 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 346 words, total size 2 kb.

James discusses a new ABC poll that shows Bush/43 scoring somewhat higher than John Kerry on "likeability" and "compassion."

If this holds, Bush will be re-elected much more easily than most of us have been predicting. [Editor's note: except me, of course.] It’s probably not surprising that Bush is considered more likeable but Democrats tend to have an edge on the “caring” and especially “shares my values” question.

Off the top of my head, I canÂ’t think of a single presidential election . . . where the candidate that was perceived as more likable and compassionate lost. IÂ’m not old enough to remember the Nixon elections; he was an odd duck [anyway] . . .

I've said all along that it wouldn't even be close. Barring some unforeseen disaster, it'll be Bush by a comfortable margin.

Posted by: Attila at 11:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 141 words, total size 1 kb.