"We will bury you - but only after conducting a rigorous study to ensure that you are fully biodegradable!"
While considering this image of the former Vice President of the United States apparently auditioning for a walk-on in a Riefenstahl film while giving a speech laden with biblical references and impugning of his opponents' patriotism, I can only think:
Dude, what happened to the beard?
Captions, anyone?
Ofc. Krupke at 6:04 PM
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26 May 2004
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26 May 2004
Today your humble correspondent was pulled from the street to attend a training class, one of several the SCPD runs for those too junior or unlucky to get out of it somehow. The topic was "Police Ethics", and the class consisted primarily of viewing an episode of "A&E Investigative Reports" that someone had taped off TV circa 1992 (one of the featured interviewees was a dapper young U.S. Attorney named Rudolph Giuliani). "Bad Cops" was the title, and curiously, the LAPD was not mentioned. The program examined several cases of cops gone way, way wrong, talking about the lure of drugs, peer pressure, the "blue wall of silence", the "us vs. them mentality", and also included a few vox-pops of people stopped in the street and asked what they thought on the subject of police corruption.
It was during these man-on-the-street interviews that I noticed something. I don't like dirty cops (and these guys were way dirty), and I really don't like the pressure they bring on good cops in order to avoid getting caught. I can't imagine I would ever do the things they did. I had little sympathy for them. And yet, as I watched the citizens saying things like, "Yeah, it makes you have to wonder who the cops are really protecting," I felt an instinctive, visceral clutching in the back of my head:
Oh, you have to wonder, huh? How dare you throw accusations at me? You haven't been where I've been. You have no clue what it's like out there. You've never walked up on a robbery alarm at one in the morning in the middle of the ghetto with a loaded shotgun in your hands, half of you hoping you'll find a bad guy waving a gun, and the other half praying you won't. Just once I'd like to see you pin on a badge and -
And there it is: Blue wall. Us vs. them. Just for a fleeting, irrational moment. But it was there.
A cop's collective identity goes deep; after all, people don't say "we worry about the bad cops," they say, "we worry about the cops." I know I've been the subject of (to put it mildly) exaggerated Internal Affairs complaints, and I will be again. We don't want to protect the bad ones. We want to protect ourselves.
The rest of the class was a lecture by the Chief of Police, which consisted of about 10% war stories about corrupt acts he had come across in his career with various agencies, and 90% bragging about how great it is that he pays us so much so we don't have to be corrupt.
How reassuring.
It was during these man-on-the-street interviews that I noticed something. I don't like dirty cops (and these guys were way dirty), and I really don't like the pressure they bring on good cops in order to avoid getting caught. I can't imagine I would ever do the things they did. I had little sympathy for them. And yet, as I watched the citizens saying things like, "Yeah, it makes you have to wonder who the cops are really protecting," I felt an instinctive, visceral clutching in the back of my head:
Oh, you have to wonder, huh? How dare you throw accusations at me? You haven't been where I've been. You have no clue what it's like out there. You've never walked up on a robbery alarm at one in the morning in the middle of the ghetto with a loaded shotgun in your hands, half of you hoping you'll find a bad guy waving a gun, and the other half praying you won't. Just once I'd like to see you pin on a badge and -
And there it is: Blue wall. Us vs. them. Just for a fleeting, irrational moment. But it was there.
A cop's collective identity goes deep; after all, people don't say "we worry about the bad cops," they say, "we worry about the cops." I know I've been the subject of (to put it mildly) exaggerated Internal Affairs complaints, and I will be again. We don't want to protect the bad ones. We want to protect ourselves.
The rest of the class was a lecture by the Chief of Police, which consisted of about 10% war stories about corrupt acts he had come across in his career with various agencies, and 90% bragging about how great it is that he pays us so much so we don't have to be corrupt.
How reassuring.
Ofc. Krupke at 5:54 PM
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25 May 2004
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25 May 2004
Jason Van Steenwyk sticks it to several major media outlets for heavy quote-mangling in service to either lazy journalism or making the U.S. look bad. Or both.
Unsurprising. Appalling, but unsurprising.
Here's a good reason for the U.N. to take over in Iraq: they might make us look good by comparison. If these had been American troops - well, you know.
LT Smash has some points about the Sarin shell (remember that?)
And finally, David Wong at pointlesswasteoftime.com has some ideas for the new generation of wargame simulators.
Unsurprising. Appalling, but unsurprising.
Here's a good reason for the U.N. to take over in Iraq: they might make us look good by comparison. If these had been American troops - well, you know.
LT Smash has some points about the Sarin shell (remember that?)
And finally, David Wong at pointlesswasteoftime.com has some ideas for the new generation of wargame simulators.
Ofc. Krupke at 9:42 AM
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24 May 2004
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24 May 2004
Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palm D'Or at Cannes this week. This clears the way for it to see wide release in American multiplexes, despite Moore's largely concocted tale about Disney trying to snuff it at the last minute. Where it will no doubt be received by critics with the kind of skepticism and in-depth historical scrutiny that met The Passion of the Christ, right? Right?
Fahrenheit also got a twenty-minute standing ovation. I consider myself to be a fairly movie-loving guy, but I can't imagine clapping for anything for twenty minutes. That kind of ovation seems more like self-congratulation: they're applauding themselves for their own dislike for George W. Bush, sort of like Hollywood types saluting one another's "courage" for expressing political views held by approximately 99.242% of the industry. I eagerly await the day when a Cannes audience finds itself locked into a Twilight Zone applause spiral, with no one willing to be the first to stop clapping (and thus declare their devotion to The Cause to be suspect), until they start to collapse and die. I'd buy tickets.
Hey, that might make a good short film. I could pitch it as a modern take on Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel. Weinstein would have to give me money, he wouldn't be able to help himself.
Jury foreman Quentin Tarantino (those are words to chill any prosecutor's heart) insisted that they weren't trying to make a political statement. "I made a statement early on that I didn't want politics to be involved. All that mattered was the reels of film." Sure. Fahrenheit is the second Moore screed on the rot of all things American to be showered with praise by the swells of Cannes, but POLITICS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Quentin, I love ya, but go to the back of the class and sit down. We are also, I suppose, to ignore that Tarantino and jury members Tsui Hark and Jerry Schatzberg have heavy ties to Miramax.
Moore's response to Tarantino: "[T]hat means more to me than anything. If I wanted to make political statements, I would have run for office. I want to make movies."
You know, it's not so much that they think we're stupid. I expect that. It's that they expect us to agree.
Fahrenheit also got a twenty-minute standing ovation. I consider myself to be a fairly movie-loving guy, but I can't imagine clapping for anything for twenty minutes. That kind of ovation seems more like self-congratulation: they're applauding themselves for their own dislike for George W. Bush, sort of like Hollywood types saluting one another's "courage" for expressing political views held by approximately 99.242% of the industry. I eagerly await the day when a Cannes audience finds itself locked into a Twilight Zone applause spiral, with no one willing to be the first to stop clapping (and thus declare their devotion to The Cause to be suspect), until they start to collapse and die. I'd buy tickets.
Hey, that might make a good short film. I could pitch it as a modern take on Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel. Weinstein would have to give me money, he wouldn't be able to help himself.
Jury foreman Quentin Tarantino (those are words to chill any prosecutor's heart) insisted that they weren't trying to make a political statement. "I made a statement early on that I didn't want politics to be involved. All that mattered was the reels of film." Sure. Fahrenheit is the second Moore screed on the rot of all things American to be showered with praise by the swells of Cannes, but POLITICS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Quentin, I love ya, but go to the back of the class and sit down. We are also, I suppose, to ignore that Tarantino and jury members Tsui Hark and Jerry Schatzberg have heavy ties to Miramax.
Moore's response to Tarantino: "[T]hat means more to me than anything. If I wanted to make political statements, I would have run for office. I want to make movies."
You know, it's not so much that they think we're stupid. I expect that. It's that they expect us to agree.
Ofc. Krupke at 10:53 AM
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22 May 2004
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22 May 2004
Today one of the tony settlements on Devil's Island started selling property for their final development phase. It began promptly at ten and sold out in about half an hour. There were 30 lots, 50 salespersons, and about 200 buyers, people from all up and down the eastern seaboard, jostling to own a chunk of Southern City dirt. One of the real estate types described it to me as "a yuppie cattle drive." Which made me something of a Nouveau-Riche Wrangler, piloting my Fuzzmobile through the throngs as they ran pell-mell over the sticky tar of the half-finished roads, trying to keep the proceedings to a dull roar. It's sad when a Crown Vic police interceptor is the smallest, least showy vehicle on the road; there were so many rolling convoys of huge dark SUVs with tinted windows that the scene looked like the HRT was on their way to kick the crap out of somebody. Still, I have blue lights on my roof and a Mossberg 500 in the trunk, so I win.
It wasn't even houses they were after. It was lots, ugly, sandy patches of recently domesticated swampland, each with a value that would pay my SCPD salary over the course of my career, with enough left over to buy a Taiwanese knockoff gold watch and a farewell lunch at the IHOP. Soon enough, though, the giant houses will spring up, seasonal Xanadus for absentee podiatrists from Long Island. It was the American economy at its most muscular and robustly absurd. If John Kerry had been there, his new-fangled Misery Index would be pegging the top. Or the bottom. Or however his is supposed to work, I forget. Me, I just hope they're going to spray for mosquitos.
In other news, last night one of my colleagues locked up a crazy woman who had been stalking and threatening a local Devil's Islander, whom she was convinced was trying to steal the heart of her ex-husband (don't ask). She had upped the ante by running over the victim's daughter with her car; our guy put out the APB, and cops from a neighboring jurisdiction picked her up. Nice work: Assault with Intent to Kill, and two pending warrants that only needed signing before a judge to become fully serve-able. Crazy X. Wife also had a modest prior record for offending the public peace.
That was last night. This morning she went before a judge in county bond court. He released her on her own recognizance; by lunch time she had retrieved her car from the impound lot.
I don't know why we bother. Hope she doesn't kill anyone.
It wasn't even houses they were after. It was lots, ugly, sandy patches of recently domesticated swampland, each with a value that would pay my SCPD salary over the course of my career, with enough left over to buy a Taiwanese knockoff gold watch and a farewell lunch at the IHOP. Soon enough, though, the giant houses will spring up, seasonal Xanadus for absentee podiatrists from Long Island. It was the American economy at its most muscular and robustly absurd. If John Kerry had been there, his new-fangled Misery Index would be pegging the top. Or the bottom. Or however his is supposed to work, I forget. Me, I just hope they're going to spray for mosquitos.
In other news, last night one of my colleagues locked up a crazy woman who had been stalking and threatening a local Devil's Islander, whom she was convinced was trying to steal the heart of her ex-husband (don't ask). She had upped the ante by running over the victim's daughter with her car; our guy put out the APB, and cops from a neighboring jurisdiction picked her up. Nice work: Assault with Intent to Kill, and two pending warrants that only needed signing before a judge to become fully serve-able. Crazy X. Wife also had a modest prior record for offending the public peace.
That was last night. This morning she went before a judge in county bond court. He released her on her own recognizance; by lunch time she had retrieved her car from the impound lot.
I don't know why we bother. Hope she doesn't kill anyone.
Ofc. Krupke at 5:46 PM
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20 May 2004
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20 May 2004
In another war, in another time, this might have made the newspaper. But in the age of "Are we there yet?" military reporting, it's insufficiently defeatist, I guess.
So is this. I love the dry Brit spokesman: "This was an intense engagement." Uh, yeah, no kidding.
Elsewhere on the jarhead beat, another Marine writes that he doesn't know what the hell everybody is talking about.
So is this. I love the dry Brit spokesman: "This was an intense engagement." Uh, yeah, no kidding.
Elsewhere on the jarhead beat, another Marine writes that he doesn't know what the hell everybody is talking about.
Ofc. Krupke at 10:57 AM
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17 May 2004
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17 May 2004
As Congressional leaders in Washington emerge ashen from seeing more still-unreleased photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib, some are not content to take their word for it. Boston city councilman Chuck Turner recently held a press conference where he revealed horrific pictures, which subsequently ran (subtly) in the Boston Globe, of American GIs gang-raping an Iraqi woman. "The American people have a right and responsibility to see the pictures," he said.
There was only one slight hitch - the photos were fake. They were from a porn site. I could make a cheap joke here about the allegations being "sexed-up", but it looks like I just did.
What really happened at Abu Ghraib is apparently not travesty enough for some people. And there is no scandal so bad that self-styled activists won't make clumsy attempts to embellish it. A similar thing apparently happened in Britain.
The Globe has now run a somewhat defensive explanation of its coverage (The Mirror was a little more forthright, going so far as to can an editor), emphasizing the "skeptical" tone of its article, as though a sentence about the photos being "unverified" balances out the visual, and the fact that they ran the story at all while more "skeptical" media outlets did not. Anyway, they seem less concerned about rather credulously helping someone slander American servicemen, and more about running smutty photos in a "family newspaper". Said editor Martin Baron: "We are not firing anybody."
Well, that's a relief.
There was only one slight hitch - the photos were fake. They were from a porn site. I could make a cheap joke here about the allegations being "sexed-up", but it looks like I just did.
What really happened at Abu Ghraib is apparently not travesty enough for some people. And there is no scandal so bad that self-styled activists won't make clumsy attempts to embellish it. A similar thing apparently happened in Britain.
The Globe has now run a somewhat defensive explanation of its coverage (The Mirror was a little more forthright, going so far as to can an editor), emphasizing the "skeptical" tone of its article, as though a sentence about the photos being "unverified" balances out the visual, and the fact that they ran the story at all while more "skeptical" media outlets did not. Anyway, they seem less concerned about rather credulously helping someone slander American servicemen, and more about running smutty photos in a "family newspaper". Said editor Martin Baron: "We are not firing anybody."
Well, that's a relief.
Ofc. Krupke at 2:38 PM
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16 May 2004
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16 May 2004
Hi, everybody. I'm back today from a short trip into the Belly of the Beast (Massachusetts), where I attended a buddy's wedding. This is, of course, the last weekend before gay marriage becomes legal in the Bay State (in about one hour, to be precise). My friend reported that the cost for a state marriage license has suddenly and inexplicably been raised by more than thirty percent.
In this, Massachusetts may be the quintessential liberal state: institute a sweeping (though admittedly worthwhile) social change by judicial fiat, then slap a confiscatory tax on it, all without losing a shred of smug self-congratulation. Bravo.
Incidentally, when I got back, there were two messages on my answering machine; one was from the sergeant in charge of Internal Affairs. Welcome home.
In this, Massachusetts may be the quintessential liberal state: institute a sweeping (though admittedly worthwhile) social change by judicial fiat, then slap a confiscatory tax on it, all without losing a shred of smug self-congratulation. Bravo.
Incidentally, when I got back, there were two messages on my answering machine; one was from the sergeant in charge of Internal Affairs. Welcome home.
Ofc. Krupke at 9:48 PM
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13 May 2004
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13 May 2004
My counterparts sinistral and spiritual have taken issue with my post about Nicholas Berg (see it below). Both are under the impression that I'm attempting to downplay or excuse the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. I am not. Scroll down to my first post on Abu Ghraib if you believe I think it's No Big Deal. But the seriousness of Abu Ghraib is sort of beside the point I was trying to make, which is twofold:
1. Our enemies in this war are very, very bad people.
To which Saffron and Sumday (er, Monday, er, Friday I'm in love...) reply, essentially, well, duh. And it is an obvious point, but being an obvious point, it has a dismaying tendency to fade into the background. Look how fast the line on the 9-11 Commission went from "Terrorists brutally attacked us, let's find out how we can keep them from doing so again", to "Bush Killed 3,000 People". It's hard to win a war when you keep airbrushing the enemy out of your rhetoric.
Saffron says that "In terms of moral standing, Al-Qaeda can sink no lower. 9/11 made that abundantly clear." Absolutely. But when you have leftie heartthrobs like Michael Moore comparing the Iraqi insurgents (of whom Al-Qaeda is an inseparable part) to America's founders, and people in San Francisco attending an "Insurgency Solidarity March", perhaps the point could stand some reiteration. And that's not even touching the issue of Al Qaeda's much glossier image in the Arab world.
I made a point in the comments on Saffron's blog that I'll shamelessly crib here: I have no problem with America being held to a higher standard. But I would like to see our enemies held to any kind of standard, something more than boilerplate "we condemn (insert atrocity) in the strongest terms, but Bush yada yada yada". I mean, Bush would be having a good day if his criticism were as fleeting and perfunctory as what the enemy gets. I also tire of hearing, "well, of course they behave like that, what do you expect? Try to get beyond it."
Well, I won't get beyond it. Their savagery is the reason we're in this war. It's relevant. Perspective is not excuse-making.
Which brings me to my second point:
2. The Western media has been extremely hypocritical in its use and suppression of images.
Saffron states that I invoke Daniel Pearl and 9-11 to excuse Abu Ghraib. Not true. I invoke them to chide the media for its selective sensitivity about disturbing images. Remember, the networks stopped showing the footage of the 9-11 attacks within days, because they were "inflammatory". And they never showed us the more gruesome images (ironically, foreign audiences saw more of the raw brutality of 9-11 on TV than Americans). I don't say this out of a ghoulish desire to watch people immolated in burning jet fuel or falling to their deaths, but I think it's important that the public see those things, just as it is important the public see the Abu Ghraib photos. Sumday seems to think I'm mad at the media for "enabling" the terrorists by publishing the pictures. I'm not; I'm mad at them for censoring some images and relishing others, seemingly according to their ability to discredit the war effort. Witness, for instance, the whining and puling over not being allowed to photograph the caskets at Dover AFB.
Some miscellaneous points: Sumday says that "regular Iraqi citizens hate us". I think that's overstating it: the Kurds don't. Things are a bit dicey with the Shi-ites, but Al-Sadr is not popular, and is currently finding his forces under attack by other Shi-ites. Saying Iraq as a whole is iredeemably lost because of Fallujah is like looking at Brownsville/East New York and declaring that America is chaotic and ungovernable.
Sumday also attacks a lot of the assumptions about the war that didn't pan out, and he has a valid point. There were plenty of cakewalk hawks who downplayed the problems of invading Iraq, and even more realistic types didn't anticipate some of the problems. But the President has said over and over in his speeches some version of "we have difficult, dangerous work yet to do" (it's even in his so-called "Mission Accomplished" speech). And, though it gets much less attention, the opposition also had some assumptions that didn't work out: Baghdad, you'll recall, was supposed to be the new Stalingrad, with hundreds of bodybags every week, while killer sandstorms scrambled our high-tech gewgaws, millions starved, refugees flooded the borders, the Arab Street rose in fiery rage, and nominally friendly governments in the Middle East toppled. Hell, I'm still waiting on the coming of the fabled "brutal Afghan winter".
Reading my post again, I think my throwaway line at the end about Donald Rumsfeld may have been the problem. It implies an unwillingness on my part to consider any fault for Rumsfeld, which isn't what I meant. I wrote it in a mood of disgust with the sniping by partisans like Ted Kennedy, whose primary contribution to the war on terror has been to complain about it endlessly.
But I worry that in our festival of breast-beating, we will lose our focus on the enemy. Because they won't extend us the same courtesy.
1. Our enemies in this war are very, very bad people.
To which Saffron and Sumday (er, Monday, er, Friday I'm in love...) reply, essentially, well, duh. And it is an obvious point, but being an obvious point, it has a dismaying tendency to fade into the background. Look how fast the line on the 9-11 Commission went from "Terrorists brutally attacked us, let's find out how we can keep them from doing so again", to "Bush Killed 3,000 People". It's hard to win a war when you keep airbrushing the enemy out of your rhetoric.
Saffron says that "In terms of moral standing, Al-Qaeda can sink no lower. 9/11 made that abundantly clear." Absolutely. But when you have leftie heartthrobs like Michael Moore comparing the Iraqi insurgents (of whom Al-Qaeda is an inseparable part) to America's founders, and people in San Francisco attending an "Insurgency Solidarity March", perhaps the point could stand some reiteration. And that's not even touching the issue of Al Qaeda's much glossier image in the Arab world.
I made a point in the comments on Saffron's blog that I'll shamelessly crib here: I have no problem with America being held to a higher standard. But I would like to see our enemies held to any kind of standard, something more than boilerplate "we condemn (insert atrocity) in the strongest terms, but Bush yada yada yada". I mean, Bush would be having a good day if his criticism were as fleeting and perfunctory as what the enemy gets. I also tire of hearing, "well, of course they behave like that, what do you expect? Try to get beyond it."
Well, I won't get beyond it. Their savagery is the reason we're in this war. It's relevant. Perspective is not excuse-making.
Which brings me to my second point:
2. The Western media has been extremely hypocritical in its use and suppression of images.
Saffron states that I invoke Daniel Pearl and 9-11 to excuse Abu Ghraib. Not true. I invoke them to chide the media for its selective sensitivity about disturbing images. Remember, the networks stopped showing the footage of the 9-11 attacks within days, because they were "inflammatory". And they never showed us the more gruesome images (ironically, foreign audiences saw more of the raw brutality of 9-11 on TV than Americans). I don't say this out of a ghoulish desire to watch people immolated in burning jet fuel or falling to their deaths, but I think it's important that the public see those things, just as it is important the public see the Abu Ghraib photos. Sumday seems to think I'm mad at the media for "enabling" the terrorists by publishing the pictures. I'm not; I'm mad at them for censoring some images and relishing others, seemingly according to their ability to discredit the war effort. Witness, for instance, the whining and puling over not being allowed to photograph the caskets at Dover AFB.
Some miscellaneous points: Sumday says that "regular Iraqi citizens hate us". I think that's overstating it: the Kurds don't. Things are a bit dicey with the Shi-ites, but Al-Sadr is not popular, and is currently finding his forces under attack by other Shi-ites. Saying Iraq as a whole is iredeemably lost because of Fallujah is like looking at Brownsville/East New York and declaring that America is chaotic and ungovernable.
Sumday also attacks a lot of the assumptions about the war that didn't pan out, and he has a valid point. There were plenty of cakewalk hawks who downplayed the problems of invading Iraq, and even more realistic types didn't anticipate some of the problems. But the President has said over and over in his speeches some version of "we have difficult, dangerous work yet to do" (it's even in his so-called "Mission Accomplished" speech). And, though it gets much less attention, the opposition also had some assumptions that didn't work out: Baghdad, you'll recall, was supposed to be the new Stalingrad, with hundreds of bodybags every week, while killer sandstorms scrambled our high-tech gewgaws, millions starved, refugees flooded the borders, the Arab Street rose in fiery rage, and nominally friendly governments in the Middle East toppled. Hell, I'm still waiting on the coming of the fabled "brutal Afghan winter".
Reading my post again, I think my throwaway line at the end about Donald Rumsfeld may have been the problem. It implies an unwillingness on my part to consider any fault for Rumsfeld, which isn't what I meant. I wrote it in a mood of disgust with the sniping by partisans like Ted Kennedy, whose primary contribution to the war on terror has been to complain about it endlessly.
But I worry that in our festival of breast-beating, we will lose our focus on the enemy. Because they won't extend us the same courtesy.
Ofc. Krupke at 12:35 AM
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12 May 2004
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12 May 2004
Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq have released a video of 26-year-old American civilian Nicholas Berg being beheaded, Al Qaeda says, in response to American crimes at Abu Ghraib prison. In a related event, a flunky of Moqtada Al-Sadr has issued a pseudo-fatwa offering a bounty for the killing of any British soldier, and stating that any Muslim who captures a female British soldier may keep her as a slave. Presumably Allah has okayed all of this.
For all the talk about how America doesn't understand Muslim culture, it's the terrorists who are truly stone deaf. They don't seem to understand that with a little image tweaking, they could have trendy bien-pensants from Berkeley to Brussels holding "Solidarity Dinners" and cutting them fat checks. All they would have to do is quote Che now and again, issue some muddled statements about anti-imperialism, and maybe try to keep their brutality off the front page a little. Come to think of it, if you look at the Palestinian example, they wouldn't even need to do that.
Some predictions: Look for the reaction of the "Arab Street" to be as swift as it is hypocritical. Look for attempts to use Berg's surname to paint him as a "Jewish agent". I wonder whether we'll see the beheading over and over and over and over in the Western media like we have with the Abu Ghraib photos, or whether it will fall down the memory hole like the 9-11 footage and Danny Pearl. Upsetting images are okay, it seems, as long as they tend to make people oppose the war.
Just so we don't forget: there is an enemy. And it ain't Donald Rumsfeld.
For all the talk about how America doesn't understand Muslim culture, it's the terrorists who are truly stone deaf. They don't seem to understand that with a little image tweaking, they could have trendy bien-pensants from Berkeley to Brussels holding "Solidarity Dinners" and cutting them fat checks. All they would have to do is quote Che now and again, issue some muddled statements about anti-imperialism, and maybe try to keep their brutality off the front page a little. Come to think of it, if you look at the Palestinian example, they wouldn't even need to do that.
Some predictions: Look for the reaction of the "Arab Street" to be as swift as it is hypocritical. Look for attempts to use Berg's surname to paint him as a "Jewish agent". I wonder whether we'll see the beheading over and over and over and over in the Western media like we have with the Abu Ghraib photos, or whether it will fall down the memory hole like the 9-11 footage and Danny Pearl. Upsetting images are okay, it seems, as long as they tend to make people oppose the war.
Just so we don't forget: there is an enemy. And it ain't Donald Rumsfeld.
Ofc. Krupke at 10:37 AM
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09 May 2004
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09 May 2004
I've been in a pretty foul mood lately. The main reason for this is that I've recently been transferred against my will from my fast-paced downtown unit to a distant, upscale suburban precinct of Southern City that I have affectionately nicknamed "Devil's Island". It's roughly equal parts gated golf community, impossibly manicured corporate park, and swampy woodlands waiting to be turned into same. I'm convinced that the sole purpose of this unit is to provide the government with data on whether boredom can be fatal.
Granted, a couple weeks back a group of us got to hop a fence, kick in the door of a fancy house, and wrestle an abusive boyfriend onto his face, but that was kind of a fluke. I miss the hood.
I'm not sure yet how I'm going to cope with this sudden change from sixty to zero. Maybe I'll catch up on my reading, or write the Great American Right-Wing Novel. Or work on overcoming my distaste for writing traffic tickets. Or maybe I'll just buy some outdoorsy supplies and go into the undeveloped hinterlands on a journey of self-discovery. Time will tell, I guess.
On the other hand, I did make the Riot Squad, so I've got that going for me. Someday, I may even rate a cameo in a Black Bloc training video. You gotta have dreams, baby.
Granted, a couple weeks back a group of us got to hop a fence, kick in the door of a fancy house, and wrestle an abusive boyfriend onto his face, but that was kind of a fluke. I miss the hood.
I'm not sure yet how I'm going to cope with this sudden change from sixty to zero. Maybe I'll catch up on my reading, or write the Great American Right-Wing Novel. Or work on overcoming my distaste for writing traffic tickets. Or maybe I'll just buy some outdoorsy supplies and go into the undeveloped hinterlands on a journey of self-discovery. Time will tell, I guess.
On the other hand, I did make the Riot Squad, so I've got that going for me. Someday, I may even rate a cameo in a Black Bloc training video. You gotta have dreams, baby.
Ofc. Krupke at 8:54 PM
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05 May 2004
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05 May 2004
The Abu Ghraib story really has me pissed off. These sick shitheads have ground their boots in the face of every American soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who is serving in Iraq now, doing their bit, and acting with honor in the face of more danger than these idiots in the prison had to face. They've seriously undermined everything the U.S. has accomplished in Iraq, and handed our enemies a gift-wrapped propaganda victory. And, worst of all, the price for the idiocy of these REMFs will be paid in blood by the guys on the line, because it will make the enemy that much less likely to surrender. Look, also, for the "We support the troops...no, really" pretense of the antiwar left to slip a little more. To no small amount of relief, no doubt.
It's difficult to feel anything but contempt for the moral grandstanding of the Arab governments, though. Pot, kettle, you know. The fun and games at Abu Ghraib are strictly amateur hour compared with, say, Syria or Ba'athist Iraq (indeed, it would be a light weekend's work for the late, unlamented Uday Hussein). The difference is that the American troops at Abu Ghraib will likely be off to Ft. Leavenworth to turn, as the military expression has it, big rocks into little rocks. Confinement with hard labor is still part of the UCMJ (as is confinement on bread and water). In (insert your favorite Arab League member nation), they would be on the next promotion list.
At least one Iraqi blogger is reporting that the reaction of his countrymen is more, well, muted than one might expect (scroll down to entry for 4 May). The Associated Press does seem to do a lot of quote-farming amongst the Al-Mahdi Militia. No agenda there, I'm sure.
It's difficult to feel anything but contempt for the moral grandstanding of the Arab governments, though. Pot, kettle, you know. The fun and games at Abu Ghraib are strictly amateur hour compared with, say, Syria or Ba'athist Iraq (indeed, it would be a light weekend's work for the late, unlamented Uday Hussein). The difference is that the American troops at Abu Ghraib will likely be off to Ft. Leavenworth to turn, as the military expression has it, big rocks into little rocks. Confinement with hard labor is still part of the UCMJ (as is confinement on bread and water). In (insert your favorite Arab League member nation), they would be on the next promotion list.
At least one Iraqi blogger is reporting that the reaction of his countrymen is more, well, muted than one might expect (scroll down to entry for 4 May). The Associated Press does seem to do a lot of quote-farming amongst the Al-Mahdi Militia. No agenda there, I'm sure.