Bloggledygook

The Legacy Of Vietnam.

Thirty years ago Saigon fell and the Vietnam War ended. For those of us who grew up watching Peter Jennings et al reporting on film from the battlefield, America's Long Nightmare™ bound the nation in a decades-long pathology of self-recrimination and still stirs emotions a generation after the last Marine left the roof of the Saigon embassy. I suspect that much like the American Civil War, which still sprouts vivid disagreements from surprising sources as we approach its sesquicentennial, The War in Southeast Asia is likely to be argued over for some time, especially when American military power is to be called upon.

What specific wars are ultimately about is not always what the belligerents cite as a casus belli. It is a twist of history that Vietnam to many Americans is Mr. Nixon's war, although it was initiated by a Democratic icon. To this day, Vietnam is either described as a ill-conceived spasm of American Imperialism or a well-intentioned response to the threat of Communism broken by a proto-communist insurgency inside the country.

Some very good people are talking about what lead us into the war and what the ramifications of leaving were.

Dean Esmay:

What disturbs me is that, in retrospect, a lot of people just sort of accept as axiomatic an historical view which reads, "this was an evil racist immoral war fought because America was a bunch of bullies and/or wanted to fuel the military-industrial complex." Honestly, that's the only position I take strong exception to. That and the revisionist history that goes along with it, most of which seems to have been concocted by groups 4 and 5.

Ho Chi Minh was never, ever a "freedom fighter," nor even a home-grown hero. Nor was he ever a sincere revolutionary who wanted help from the Western powers and only turned communist because "we gave him no choice." All of that is pure commie propaganda bulls**t. He was a KGB stooge and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist radical from day one. And when he got into power, exactly what the anti-communists said would happen did happen: the bloodletting was horrendous, and the oppression incalculable. The much-maligned "domino theory" was also vindicated, as neighboring regimes quickly fell (or in some cases very nearly fell) to totalitarianism.

neo-neocon:

Of course, the suffering of the Vietnamese people was not the only concern of those of us who had turned against the war. There was self-interest involved, also. In part 4B I described the weariness and cynicism people had come to feel, over time, about the conduct of what seemed to be an endless war. One of the main goals of the movement against the war was to ensure that no more Americans would have to fight and die in what was perceived (again, rightly or wrongly, but honestly) as a hopeless cause.

As is my curse, I have evolved (some would say regressed) from a youngster set firmly against what I thought was a bungling yet sinister cabal which had highjacked the country ("Hey, hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?!") to an adult with a more, okay, balanced view. What I have come to believe--and I admit just as much prejudice and ignorance as the next person--is that Vietnam was an idealistic disaster waged from Washington by men who were in over their heads. In retrospect the US almost seems to have sleepwalked into the conflict, only to awaken in the midst of a jungle. While the war had public support, a string of administrations failed to make the case for the war an allowed groups like  the SDS to seize the spotlight and push its advantage.

Now, three decades later, capitalism has begun to win what America could not. The US is now Vietnam's largest and most important trading partner. Arthur Chrenkoff notes with considerable aplomb the irony of Vietnam today:

[A]s MasterCard would say:

Ejecting American imperialists out of the country: 2 million dead

Building communist utopia: 1 million refugees, hundreds of thousands of "reeducated" political prisoners, basic human rights suppressed, economy ruined while the rest of Asia is thriving

Admitting after three decades that your stupid communist policies have failed and the experiment is just about over: priceless.

We have come to the point where command economies are acquiescing to the reality of the human yearning for self-determination, economic success and freedom from the overarching meddling of the state. Vietnam, though still repressive, is welcoming in the exact forces that will eventually lead to its transformation. In this way the war that the right "lost" is being "won" by free market forces that the left have often decried. Still, it's really not a left-right issue. It is more so the realization of enemy factions that commerce is preferable and successful than conflict.

Vietnam is also illustrative of a larger melding of seemingly opposing viewpoints. The right like to point to growth of trading economies as a victory over the left, which they accuse of romanticizing Socialist doctrine. But the right has become "corrupted" by their enemies, also. In the latest presidential presser, Bush proposed what can be described as a progressive solution to Social Security woes when he said that there must be assurances that lower income accounts grow faster than those of people with other, better means. The Democrats jumped on the idea as instituting means testing and a cynical way around talking about private accounts, but the president did in fact incorporate progressive ideology with his own enlightened "ownership" meme.

Was this just a negotiating tactic or are we witnessing the hybridization of American politics just as we are watching a different sort of cross-pollination taking root in Vietnam and China (which has given up on Communism in all but name?) As command economies recognize the value of open trade and a light touch with regards to regulating markets, America is gradually coming to terms with its vital middle where most of the population lives. It can only do this by demanding that both the right and left give up some of the sacred cows that have sustained the parties for generations.

The transformation is already begun. The Iraq war has opened up flaws in each party's armor as those Republicans who complained during the Kosovo war that the US wasn't to be the "world's policeman" now argue for nation building. Likewise, Democrats are slowly coming to terms with the fact that they will be banished to opposition status if they do not change their rhetoric on the use of American power.

What it comes down to for most voters is that each party dislikes almost any use of the military when out of power. However, the population is both more skeptical than the party in power and less timid than the minority party. In this way, voters are regulating and manipulating party politics to meet their own ends. There may come a time when party affiliations change in a much more fluid and unpredictable manner, forcing both the right and the left to speak to an ad hoc constituency each time an election comes around.

What does this have to do with Vietnam? Not much if looked at from a purely domestic point of view. But when observed from a higher perspective, the changing dynamics of American politics and the transformation of the Vietnamese economy both illustrate a paradigm were pragmatism outweighs dogma.

If a Republican president can internalize Democratic ideals and breed it with his own brand of idealism, American politics may have the opportunity to break out of the well-worn back-and-forth pattern we have seen for years. If a wound the size of Vietnam can begin to finally heal, the potential for nations to confront, engage and solve global problems has just gotten better.

The way that America and Vietnam and the rest of the world would go then would be not to the left or right, but inevitably straight down the middle.

Sproing.

I have been working all morning on a post re: Vietnam, capitalism and global equilibrium. Then TypePad ate it. It's all gone and I have to get going. Hopefully, I'll be able to reconstruct it. If not, well, it was killer.

Deep Vein Thrombosis: The Life You Save...

Two years ago, NBC correspondent David Bloom was in Iraq reporting as an embed with the Third Infantry Division. He died in Iraq in early April 2003 but his death will not be listed among the casualties of war. His killer did not come from a sniper's bullet or a missile or a roadside bomb. He left behind his wife Melanie and three children.

Late last September I was preparing for a week-long business trip to Trinidad. I was excited to be going as this was a new client and a great new opportunity. I was to visit my new clients for a week each month for about a year--tough work, but well worth the time and effort.

I have always been active, especially as I got older and more desirous of holding onto whatever youth was still left to me. I had quit smoking, my diet was filled with all the things good for you and I was working out several times each week. I looked and felt great--better than I had felt when I was twenty years younger.

I treated my workouts with determination and commitment. I was at that point where you come to feel guilty about missing a day. Sometimes, a slight pull here or there would cause me to miss a session or two, but for the most part I remained injury free. But then just before my trip, I noticed a sharp pain in my right calf. Thinking that I had overdone the calf extensions, I laid off the workout for a few days. I rest would do the leg well and I didn't want to be hobbling through airports.

Instead of going away as usual after some rest, the pain got steadily worse to the point that I could not find comfort either with rest or pain medication. Sherry's dad suggested that I get the leg checked out by an orthopedic surgeon, just to see what was up. Visions of ACL surgery ran through my head and I thought that I might be in trouble. I was in a new job and not being able to walk or run through airports for a while was going to put a crimp in my business.

The surgeon looked at my leg, took a few x-rays and found nothing orthopedically amiss. He sent me on my way, telling me that I would just have to bear the pain for a few weeks. I made a follow-up appointment to see him upon my return.

Well. That wasn't good enough for my father-in-law. He demands better answers than that, especially from doctors, so he sent me to his physical therapist for a second opinion. Raj is the kind of soft-spoken, good humored person that all medical professionals should be. And although he is not an MD, he diagnosed my problem within five minutes of seeing my leg. "Get yourself to the emergency right now," he said. "Tell them to do a sonogram of your leg to check for DVT."

This meant exactly nothing to me, but on to the ER was I, as I called Sherry to tell her that I didn't think I was going to be able to make dinner with her family that night. She showed up in my cubicle at the ER about a minute after we got off the phone. We both were still in a bewildered state. How could a pain in my leg cause such concern?

The sonogram showed that yes, I indeed have a DVT, or Deep Vein Thrombosis. DVT is a condition where a blood clot forms in the veins deep inside the muscles, usually in the leg. I had clots running all the way from my ankle to my hip. As the technician showed me the fuzzy black-and-white screen displaying the clots in my leg, I told her that I couldn't afford a hospital stay. "Oh no, honey," she said, "you're not going anywhere."

Instantly I was given a huge dose of heparin, an anti-coagulation drug, and put on an IV. I laid on a gurney for about eight hours while the hospital found a bed at another hospital that would accept my insurance. Finally, late that night I was in a bed and both Sherry and I were exhausted. The doctor told me that my clots were very extensive and life threatening. If I had gotten on the plane to Trinidad, I would be likely be dead today. I have never been faced with my mortality before. The impact of the possibility of dying in such a bizarre, sneaky way has effected both of us.

I went home the next day with a box of premeasured syringes of another anti-coagulant Lovenox with which I was to shoot up twice a day. I lasted until two days at home when I started to have trouble breathing. I went to lay down, thinking that I just needed to stop work for a it and relax. My breathing became worse. I called my doctor and I was back in the hospital after a mylogram showed that I had Pulmonary Embolism (PE), or clots in my lungs. What often happens with DVT is that a portion of a clot breaks free and travels to the lungs where it can lead to blockage and death. I was in a hospital bed for eight days.

Saying that this whole thing has altered my life would be an understatement. Up until just recently, I was unable to fly anywhere. Prolonged car trips were possible, but painful (still are) and because of the need to stop often, terribly inefficient and expensive. Even though I have been taking warfarin--yet another anti-coagulant--since my release, my DVT was so extensive that my doctors were concerned about travel. Needless to say, my job has suffered and we have been thrown for a loop financially. If you can't travel, you can't get clients. If you can't get clients, you don't get paid.

I say this not so that I can have everybody feel sorry for me. I have not written about this at all because I wasn't about to throw my condition out into the ether just for the sake of pity. But there are other good reasons to talk about this.

I was at my hematologist last week. I had been hearing about David Bloom from friends. Somehow I had missed his story, and I am sorry that I did not only because I might have found my DVT earlier, but because this condition kills so many people. Many have little or no symptons. DVT affects upwards of 2 million people each year. More people die from DVT than AIDS and breast cancer combined--approximately 200,000 annually.

There are a set of risk factors: prolonged periods of immobility, long-distance travel, surgery, dehydration and what is called Factor V Leiden, a genetic condition that has no symptoms. Here is another article on DVT with a good rundown of risk factors and symptoms. One can be tested for Factor V, but very few people who do not have a family member with DVT ever get tested. This is truly a stealth killer.

My peculiar problem is that I have none of the above risk factors, except that I am over forty. All my blood work--and believe me, I've had a lot--show normal levels of all factors. My disease in as of yet a mystery. I owe my life to that physical therapist who was perceptive enough to allow for what to others would have been a long shot.

My story illustrates the danger of DVT and how easily one's life can change for lack of knowledge. March was DVT awareness month. So I missed that, too. But Melanie Bloom has taken up the charge in David's honor and works with the Coalition to Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis. The website is here. It is a very good resource and a must for anyone with DVT. Everyone should take sometime to visit the site and become more aware of the preventable condition.

I continue on "blood thinning" medication (Which has it's own complications) and probably will for some time. My leg complains whenever I have not moved around enough because the clotting left what is called a post-phlebitic condition, meaning that I may have significant scarring inside my veins.

I am now getting back into traveling, although I must say that my first trip in late May will be very nerve-wracking for me and for Sherry. I'm trying to get my business off the ground although I have lost a lot of time and opportunities. Obviously, I'm not working in Trinidad. But the most important thing is that I am alive. I may or may not make it with this job. If I don't, I'm sure that after some struggle I will find another. But still--I'm alive. Every time a new prospect says no, or when I look into my dry, dry checkbook and I start to feel sorry for myself I remember that today, I would not be looking forward to a nice weekend with the love of my life. I would not be planning for my daughter's return home or her graduation next year. I wouldn't be awaiting a visit from my mother, whom I haven't seen in months and months. I would not be planning for anything. I would simply not be here.

Please, everyone, take some time to visit the website and assess your risk. Show it to friends and family. And if you have, or think you might have, risk factors for DVT, ask your doctor to check for DVT. 

Netherlands Vote May Be Another Crack In The EU Wall.

I have written before about my love for the Netherlands and the Dutch people. I have also written about the social problems besetting that wonderful, beautiful, vibrant country. The murders of Pym Fortune and Theo van Gogh, along with myriad minor ethic incidents have served to piqued the legendary Dutch reputation for tolerance and classic European liberalism.

The Netherlands was a charter member of the European Common market, which was a precursor of the EU. It has been among the vanguard of European integration. Well now, the Dutch may be having second thoughts of the new Constitution:

Europe, for the Dutch, has lost its allure. Few politicians now call for an ever-closer union. Even fewer see in Brussels a model of efficiency, probity or accountability. The Dutch are to vote on the European constitution three days after the French referendum. Disillusioned with EU bureaucracy, resentful that they pay a disproportionately high share of the EU’s rising costs and fearful of losing their national identity, the Dutch may vote decisively against.

Resentment that Paris and Berlin have muscled in and expect the Hague to bear a disproportional cost is part of the Dutch retrenchment, but there are more fundamental reasons why the Netherlands might kill the referendum:

The large number of recent immigrants has strained Dutch social security budgets at time when economic retrenchment has forced painful cuts. Some immigrants have not only failed to integrate into Dutch society, but even actively oppose, as sinful and corrupt, its liberal values.

The Fortune and van Gogh murders and the continued targeting of Dutch politicians by Muslim extremists has opened many eyes.

Also, a desire to turn their gaze away from a centralized, undemocratic, autocratic government in Brussels dominated by larger countries with their hands out towards fixing their own home has crept into the Dutch psyche after decades of attempts at a continental consensus.

The Dutch, as they have historically done, may now seize the initiative and save their country from a union that will only do them more harm. With a "nee" vote, The Netherlands doesn't leave Europe, but sets its national priorities above the shadowy oligarchy forming in Brussels.

Presidential Presser.

In the FWIW category, I thought that the best point of the evening was the president's insistance that people who are not of the "investor class" be able, with respects to Social Security, to build what amounts to an estate that could be passed to family. This is the most egalitarian position of this administration and one that I suspect will get roundly denounced in the usual circles.

For once, we have a president who is willing to acknowledge that Americans in lower tax brackets are  deserving of the dignity of building wealth for themselves and their loved ones and that they are entitled to keep what they have invested.

Two quick impressions:

The prez handled the questions with much more ease than he has done in the past, although he tended towards long winded answers.

Terry Moran is still a dick.

God Is In The Details. Generally Speaking.

My oldest brother once described the Unitarian Church as a church for atheists who were hedging their bets. I don't know if he holds religion in contempt, but I doubt it. I have the feeling that if he thinks about religion at all it is with a kind of shrugging dismissal of the basic tenets of faith. He is what I imagine, or at least hope, most atheists and agnostics to be: namely, casually indifferent and tolerant of other's beliefs but vociferous in their defense of their right to believe not. His quip about the Unitarian Church always stuck me as funny because there is this assumption among religious people that atheists and agnostics don't really question the existence of God; they are actually just playing around until the last day comes. This is what we could call the "no atheists in foxholes" syndrome.

The corollary of the "naif" syndrome (like the turn of phrase here? no? uh, okay) is that atheists don't always believe that other atheists are really non-believers. This is the "my no god is better than your no god" corollary. On the other hand, agnostics like to argue amongst themselves about who is the more confused one and are fond of making statements like "I honestly wish there was a God. My life would be so much easier." Or, when talking to religious folk: "I truly envy those who have that kind of belief." Meaning: "I wish I was a gullible as you." Atheists and agnostics also like to fight it out about who's right about no god. Atheists think they're just so much better and smarter than us agnostics, dontcha know. And agnostics think that atheists are arrogant show-offs who can't even allow for the tiniest possibility that they might just be wrong.

The old spat between religious and non-religious people has revived itself in this country since the election of George Bush and is at times getting pretty nasty. The debate often comes down to questions of tolerance. Religious conservatives and liberal atheists tend ( I said tend) to be less tolerant than religious liberals and centrists and atheist conservatives and centrists. There is an inherent tension between the Religious Right and the Non-religious Left. Each views the other as wishing to impose their beliefs on them. For instance, as a centrist agnostic, I have no beef with religious symbols on public grounds. I have no problem with "God save this honorable court." But I have big problems with faith-based initiatives and I would just as soon not be proselytized to. And I think that the president has given tacit approval for many evangelical groups to push their religion a little too much. This is not always so. The right-left divide only takes us so far. Often, the conflict is between atheists and religious of all political ilk while the agnostics are trying to get everybody to calm down.

But this is an old argument and not likely to go away. What is becoming an interesting feature about the current debate is that atheists and agnostics (I'm going to use shorthand and just say A-As from here on out) are starting to bicker among themselves. Yesterday, the Commissar was having a tiff with Brent Rasmussen about California Supreme Court Janice Rogers Brown. The Commissar took issue with Rasmussen's contention that the removal of religion form "the public square" was a strawman argument.

That is not to say that government employees, judges, or politicians cannot be religious, or that all religious symbols must be eradicated from the "public square", or any other strawman argument that is made by political religious conservatives. But when they are acting in the name of our government they must remain scrupulously neutral on religious matters. Individual American citizens have the freedom of religion. Our government does not have that right. And by extension, when someone is speaking on behalf of our government, they must take pains to be completely neutral.

To which the Commissar responds:

So, removal of religious symbols, the secularization of Christmas, and all the other mandatory & obsessively atheistic rules of our public institutions are merely a "strawman." In other words, all these developments are incidental, unimportant, and irrelevant. I chose my preceding words carefully, including the phrase "mandatory & obsessively atheistic rules."

The back-and-forth in the comments is quite lively and goes to the argument of what we mean by the "public square." Rasmussen contends that Justice Brown, who indeed said that Christians are at "war" with secularists, is making bogey-man arguments where there are none. The Commissar points to an anecdote about a teacher in his child's school to make the case that yes, A-As are indeed waging a fight to remove all religion from the public eye. (By the way, Rasmussen and the Commissar are both conservatives, so there goes my left-right dictum).

For me the argument came down to Rasmussen arguing that Brown and people like her wants to turn this country into a theocracy while the Commissar is pointing to evidence that America is pushing an atheist agenda.

So far, I don't really buy either argument.

Yes, Brown's words are over the top and I would not like to see her on the Supreme Court. But we have had our share of religious nuts who self-anoint themselves with God's own seal of approval. When faced with people like Brown, level-headed religious folk will understand that the danger she represents is a danger not only to those who have no belief, but also to those who believe differently than she does.

And yes, from time to time the ACLU goes overboard, especially around Christmas when every other story seems to be how Johnny's sixth grade Christmas Pageant was turned into the Winter Solstice Holiday Singalong and Potluck all because of the big bad ACLU. But I suspect that what we are seeing is a function of organization. Or rather, the lack of organization. A-As don't go to church, no matter what my brother says. There are atheist organizations, but there is very little fervor to keep the numbers up.

Movements that are successful spring organically from a commonly perceived need. These types of movements tend to disappear just as ephemerally as they form. Religions rely on fidelity and crisis much the same way movements that have become institutionalized and co-opted must constantly remind their constituents that the fight is not yet won. So far as I can tell, there is no great secular cause but there is--rightly in my opinion--a secular movement in this country. This is not an atheist movement with its incumbent proscription of religious belief anywhere in public.This movement is not anti-religion per se but does not want government endorsing belief as being superior to non-belief. It is, by and large a measured secularization that honors both individual choice and tradition.

Measured secularization now has enemies both in the religious communities, which see it as openly hostile to any "public" display of belief, and in the much smaller A-A community (if there really is such a thing) which suspects that any tolerance of religious display and tradition is only encouraging the theocrats. For every Justice Brown, there is someone else who feels violated at having to pass a Christmas tree for a month and a half every year.  I am not so surprised at the enmity from the religious side; it's the internecine battle that concerns me.

Take Dean Esmay's post on the use of crosses in national flags. Here he was pointing out that a great many nations have on their flags crosses of one type or another. Most of the countries have established or tax-advantaged status. The countries listed range from Great Britain to Jamaica. He's poking the dog here by illustrating that government sanctioned religion is not automatically synonymous with Taliban-style theocracy. Which of course, sets off a bevy of comments including this illustration of a cross on a not-so-innocuous flag. Fine, the Confederate Flag does indeed sport a cross. And Christianity was used as a (weak) rationalization for slavery. And this group that Tim highlights is despicable, but somehow, I bring myself to can't blame their pathology on the cross. The Black Republican seems to have the right perspective.

Now to be fair, both the UK and Switzerland have a history of religious strife and have come to terms with what they see as the rightful place of religion in their countries. But Dean was just pointing out, with a nice does of tweak, that a display of a cross today does not ipso facto translate to theocracy. I believe that Dean, by the way, is an agnostic.

So are we as a nation headed straight to a theocracy or straight to hell? I would say neither. For a point of view that says we already are a theocracy--and not like you think--check this out. Here, the Queen contends that the theocracy we live under is one of Secular Humanism. I have heard the argment before but I just don't buy it.

For all of the rambling about religion encroaching on civil rights there is little evidence that there is even a seed of a movement to compel belief. The same is true for the horrors that supposedly are waiting to be unleashed by millions of heretics. Nobody's church is under siege and nobody is enforcing mandatory Sunday Morning. But that wouldn't make for a good story, would it? The battle here is much like political gamesmanship. Each side believes it has to whip up the "faithful" in order to stay in the fight. But if one stops for a minute and looks at the details of the evidence, neither side is in much danger from the other.

Don't They Know The Cover Up Is Worse Than The Crime?

Remember Dick Nixon's Bag of Dirty Tricks? Well, seems that he wasn't alone (then again, who ever said he was?). Tony Snow, back from colon cancer surgery, has a story of how three senators are angling to cover up some Clintonian shenanigans:

Senators Byron Dorgan, John Kerry and Richard Durbin pulled a fast one last week on their congressional colleagues. They tried to bury forever documents alleging that senior government officials tried to transform portions of the IRS and the Justice Department into a goon squad for attacking political enemies and aiding political friends.

Dorgan’s bill would shut down the 10-year probe conducted by Independent Counsel David Barrett’s investigation, but it would add something unprecedented in the case of special or independent counsels: it would prevent the publication of the counsel’s report on the case. A decade’s worth of investigations — sworn testimony, documentation of alleged abuses, grand-jury proceedings, etc. — would vanish without a trace.

In this instance, that would mean burying charges that key officials in the Justice Department and the IRS abused their power by going easy on [former HUD Secretary Henry] Cisneros and targeting political opponents of Bill Clinton. Those charges — not the Cisneros case — have served as the focal point of Barrett’s investigation for the last several years.

Shock of all shocks, Democrats and Republicans abusing governmental power and trying to cover it up. Who'd a thunk it?

Hat tip to Maggie. And welcome back, Tony. We missed you.

Rhodes Collar.

The Democrats got their panties in wad when Jesse Helms warned Bill Clinton  not to visit Fort Bragg, North Carolina, suggesting that maybe some of the soldiers down there might threaten his life. Threatening the president is a crime, I believe. That Helms was a raving loon didn't make it any better. I don't remember if Helms apologized for the remark.

Now, I have had my share of, uh, conversations in which somebody will go off on Bush and suggest that he should be "taken out and shot." This always bothers me because it's generally made by the same people who accuse Republicans of being mean and nasty and violent. The amount of venom that comes out of liberals these days is enough to make one question the sanity of the whole damn party.

So now Randi Rhodes goes and does a skit about shooting Bush. Nice. (Not the first time, either, says Byron York). If you follow the Drudge link you'll get to an MP3 of the Rhodes bit. If you can get on, that is.

Can we compare Helms and Rhodes? Okay--both wackos. The interesting difference is that Helms was saying that someone else might harm the president while Rhodes seems to be celebrating the possibility and has, as York indicates, advocated that the Bush family off Dubya.

I have only been able to listen to Rhodes for about ten minutes at a time because I find most of her show incomprehensible when it's not filled with bile.

If this is true, and we are talking Drudge here, I would imagine an apology and maybe a firing but I would be very surprised if the Secret Service will make for Rhodes' arrest. I know they have to take all this stuff seriously, but I don't think it will go far. But that's just me; I could be wrong.

UPDATE: They're a-whoopin' an' a-hollerin' over at Rhodes' site. Plus, for a little entertainment, follow this thread speculating on whether Rhodes thinks that September 11 was an inside job.

UPDATE II: Just listened to the first few minutes of Rhodes' show. She insists that she had nothing to do with the bit, but that she take responsibility for it because it was on her show. She also said that she does not condone violence and would like to clear the whole thing up. So there. Or somewhere.

House Republicans Scrap New Ethics Rules.

GOP members in the House have retreated on the new ethics rules and may vote to dump them by the end of the day.

The primary objection from the Dems was to a provision that would automatically dismiss a case in the event of a tie vote. Also, there was a time limit imposed, enabling one side or the other to run out the clock on ethics investigations.

This is about time, but the damage is done. The GOP knew well that the controversy surrounding Tom DeLay wasn't going to disappear. It seems that the rank-and-file finally got to the leadership and talked some sense into them. It's not clear yet if a vote of the full House will be required.

Worldwide Terror Attacks Triple In 2004.

Much is being made of a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) report that international terror attacks tripled from 2003 to 2004:

Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides who were briefed on statistics covering incidents including the bloody school seizure in Russia and violence related to the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.

Significant attacks are defined as an attack where one person is seriously injured or killed or accounts for $10,000 in physical damage. So I am assuming that "attacks" are being loosely equated with total deaths, injuries and damage.

Obviously, this is not good news, and the Bush Administration is doing the sort of tap dance that calls into question just how much they trust the American public to deal with set backs in the War on Terror.

But a slightly closer look at the numbers reveals that what looks like a global scourge that has morphed exponentially is more like a set of localized terror hot spots. The increase of approximately 480 terror attacks breaks down to these areas:

• In Iraq, an increase, from 22 to 198, of 175 attacks.
• In Gaza and the West bank, an increase, from 19 to 45, of 26 attacks.
• In Kashmir, an increase of 300 (I can't find the exact numbers).
• In Afghanistan, an increase, from 14 to 27, of 13 attacks.

So by my count, four countries in the world account for an increase of 514 terror attacks (this is incorrect--check my note below). The two countries where the US is operating in theaters of war contributed 188 more attacks. This shouldn't come as a surprise as these are the focus areas that the US has identified as major battlegrounds in the WoT. It's discouraging that the attacks had increased last year, but hardly shocking. Also significant is the Madrid attacks, which killed 191. Factoring in Madrid would actually push the count over 750, so I may be off in my methodology or the NCTC may be off in their counting. [Ed- my methodology is wrong. I counted the 300 kashmir attacks as an increase, not a total. Still, that leaves some 355 attacks in the rest of the world. Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan account for 270. Leaving Madrid out, the bulk of attacks are still coming from three areas, Iraq being the most significant. Adding Madrid pushes the number to 461, with an increase of 405. Also, it would help to know what the increase in Kashmir was.]

The vast majority of attacks--those in Kashmir and in the Occupied Territories-- constitute what can be identified as localized ethnic conflicts. I suppose that one could make an argument that US international operations have exercised the "Muslim Street." But for Kashmir, an area of historic tensions between India and Pakistan, the point is largely stretched and one in which the US couldn't rationally be implicated.

It's disconcerting that the Bush Administration is so mistrustful of its constituency that it feels it must suppress a report that would actually show the fight as it is not as we wish it to be. The report should be released to let all interested people read for themselves and see the truth.

UPDATE: What is the truth? Will we ever know? The attacks in Beslan killed 344 civilians. But many of these were killed by Russian security forces, so how many are attributed to the hostage-takers? And that, again, could hardly be attributed to the US. Much like the other instances cited, Beslan was the eruption of a localized ethnic/political conflict. The Administration seems to be hiding something it would do better to bring into the light.

I may be missing something big here, but the numbers don't add up for me. I'll keep trying to clarify.

UPDATE II: You will have to grit your teeth while reading this from Islam Online, but it sheds a little light on the count. The Kashmir numbers are deemed higher because the US is monitoring the dispute and counting more attacks than was done in the past.

Also keep in mind that this was 2004, before the Iraqi elections.