I'm not going to bother with the links to provide direct quotes of this, but I think it's pretty well documented that the mainstream media have tried to blunt the force of blogs by saying that blogs are bad because blogs deal more in opinion than fact. First of all, I think that the appeal of blogs is that blogs do this exact thing-they provide commentary and opinion on a wide variety of things, from under-reported (or unreported) stories to very well covered stories. Some blogs (and it's an increasing number) do proprietary type reporting (see, e.g., a lot of the blogging in the last few days regarding the events in Syria), but most blogs are focused on a form of op-ed journalism.
That's a great thing in my book. It may not be "journalism" to Bill Keller of the NY Times, but a lot of what goes on in the NY Times these days isn't really journalism either. More and more of that paper is opinion (and not just the editorial pages). To this point, I've had a number of exchanges with Daniel Okrent of the NY Times. Most of these exchanges had to do with corrections to editorials, stories or opinion pieces. The policy of the Times is that they do not print corrections to opinion/editorial pieces. They also are very careful to not print letters to the editor that point out such errors. So if we're going to point a finger of "what you're doing is opinion writing and you don't even have a fact check mechanism," then the NY Times is the number one culprit.
And even more to the point, let's take a look at an opinion piece that ran on today's SF Gate (the online version of the SF Chronicle), by Harley Sorenson. Sorenson is a left wing crackpot who seems to have never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like. His article today was exactly the type of writing that Keller was whining about...it was totally unsubstantiated allegation, one conspiracy theory thrown on top of another (I counted three separate conspiracies alleged, there may be more), including this whopper-that somehow, the problem with ChoicePoint's mishandling of credit information was part of the vast right wing conspiracy from the 2000 election. I'm not kidding. Sorenson isn't the only one who does this-Maureen Down and Paul Krugman of the NY Times do it with just about every opinion piece they write. If Keller thinks that there's no reason to be accountable for what is printed in his paper, who is he to attack bloggers who have far MORE accountability than the likes of Dowd or Krugman? Try to contact either of those two to point out an error in something they've written and you get a form email back and nothing more. If you have a problem with something a blogger writes, there's always the comment button or you can just counter-blog on your own blog.
Blogging is primarily opinion and it's opinion that is a hell of a lot more responsible than what is published in the Times, Chronicle and the rest of the mainstream print media.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Oscar the Grouch
Why is there so much attention focused on the Academy Awards? I like movies about as much as anyone else (maybe a bit less, but close enough) and I appreciate the amount of work that is required to create a quality film. I have no problem with the Academy Awards. I do have a problem, however, with the way that so many people (prompted by Hollywood's benefactor, the traditional media) treat these award shows as if they were actually important. Right now, CNN has something about the Academy Awards as its main story. Pushed off to the side are stories about the growing anti-Syrian public outcry in Lebanon. It's bad enough that Hollywood thinks it's the conscience of American politics, but why do so many people validate such nonsense by buying into this myth of the importance of Hollywood generally and the self involved awards shows specifically? I have a lot better things to do with a few hours on a Sunday night and I certainly don't have the patience to watch the out of touch, self important morons of film fame take up valuable network time to push an ill informed, slogan filled political agenda. Seriously, Hollywood, shut the fuck up already. And America, stop enabling these idiots. The more you watch their awards shows, the more you tacitly support their belief that we want to hear people who pretend for a living claiming that someone else lies.
Monday, February 21, 2005
The New York Janus?
Bill Keller, executive editor of the NY Times, on blogs:
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/21/4219954bc022f
Daniel Okrent, NY Times public editor, on the NY Times:
Keller, here's something to consider: while you accuse blogs of being a "view of the world through a pinhole" and claim that bloggers don't have to face opposing viewpoints, most blogs have comments sections after each entry that allow readers to provide instant and unedited feedback on the story. Your paper, on the other hand, excises criticism with a heavy hand. I'd say that the more you open your mouth, trying to bash blogs, the less credible you sound.
Keller also sees “blogging,” or online writing that blurs news and commentary,
as a mixed blessing. While he celebrated the blogger’s ability to uncover
breaking news, he noted that a blog’s inherent bias might be detrimental to the
reader. “A blog is still a view of the world through a pinhole,” he said, noting
that it can sometimes fall as low as being a “one man circle jerk.”
“There is
a pressure to feel well informed without ever confronting an opinion that
confronts your prejudices,” he said of blog readers.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/21/4219954bc022f
Daniel Okrent, NY Times public editor, on the NY Times:
Beyond that, many of the paper's readers find certain practices and
policies regarding letters either dumbfounding or objectionable. Chief among
these is the paper's general hesitance to publish letters that make accusations
against The Times, criticize writers or editors, or otherwise call into question
the newspaper's fairness, news judgment or professional practices.
As
letters editor Thomas Feyer points out, The Times does occasionally print
correspondence of this sort. But he also notes his unwillingness to publish
criticisms of individual writers, and a reluctance to publish letters that
suggest bias. "Such letters," he says, "seem to impute motives to reporters or
to The Times that the letter writers have no way to know."
Keller, here's something to consider: while you accuse blogs of being a "view of the world through a pinhole" and claim that bloggers don't have to face opposing viewpoints, most blogs have comments sections after each entry that allow readers to provide instant and unedited feedback on the story. Your paper, on the other hand, excises criticism with a heavy hand. I'd say that the more you open your mouth, trying to bash blogs, the less credible you sound.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
If only the NY Times could admit a mistake like this
Further to this post (http://vengefulzhid.blogspot.com/2005/02/and-another-thing-about-ny-times.html):
"We made a big mistake when we didn't vote," said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. "Our votes were very important."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050220/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_050220185125
So the Sunnis are admitting that they weren't marginalized; rather, they admit they made a mistake. A "big" mistake. Your turn, NY Times.
"We made a big mistake when we didn't vote," said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. "Our votes were very important."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050220/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_050220185125
So the Sunnis are admitting that they weren't marginalized; rather, they admit they made a mistake. A "big" mistake. Your turn, NY Times.
The Boy(s and girls) who cried Hitler
A number of media outlets are running a story today about private recordings of President Bush. Here's an excerpt:
All of this is certainly newsworthy and I'm not faulting the media for making a big deal of this. After I read the stories, I thought "big deal, so President Bush has been consistent in his personal opinions and has carried them through into his policies. That's good." But it got me to thinking about the demise of the Democratic party. As background, I voted for Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. I am a conservative (you may even call me right wing if you want, as long as you're willing to be called left wing if you're not conservative), but I absolutely do not vote along party lines. I vote for the best candidate and I think that in 1992 and 1996, Clinton was the best candidate. Likewise, I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Same reasoning.
In 1996, the Democrats were a far more palatable choice. For all of Clinton's fault, he didn't plunge his party into the extremist nonsense that Gore and then Kerry relied upon. The "Bush = Hitler," "BUSH LIES!" blah blah blah slogans-without-substance that became the cornerstone of the Democrats resulted in that party becoming irrelevent to me. I have a friend, someone who calls himself a "centrist" (he refuses to even admit that he's a Democrat, let alone a liberal), who has fallen into this trap. In discussing politics, rather than deal with facts and analysis of what is actually happening, he simply regurgitates lines from Michael Moore movies, MoveOn.org ads or the SF Chronicle. When faced with facts, he retreats into more slogans or, even, a dismissive "whatever" and changes the subject.
All of this bring me back to the release of the private conversations of President Bush today. When you read through these stories, you see a man who is clearly NOT Hitler. The stories show that President Bush pushed back against attempts to go after certain groups (including homosexuals) and that far from being a religous zealot, he's a religous man who has tactically used religous support to further his political career. It's clear that he's NOT interested in turning the USA into a religous state. Every slogan the left throws against Bush is disproved by the susbtance of the private conversations.
And this, dear readers, is my point. The Democrats have gone off the deep end, thinking that the lunatic left of San Francisco actually reflects the interests and sensibilities of America. Such thinking is making the Democrats irrelevent. Every time some moron in San Franciso throws out a Bush = Hitler slogan, it alienates yet another potential Democrat voter, one like me, who is absolutely opposed to putting a representative from a party that engages in hysterical and divisive propaganda into office.
These tapes, reported on today, show that President Bush is no closer to Hitler than Bill Clinton was. The sooner the Democrats start dealing with substance and stop trying to cry Hitler, the better off they'll be.
The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public
President Bush. Many of the taped comments foreshadow aspects of his presidency,
including his opposition to both anti-gay language and recognizing same-sex
marriage, his skepticism about the United Nations, his sense of moral purpose
and his focus on cultivating conservative Christian voters.
All of this is certainly newsworthy and I'm not faulting the media for making a big deal of this. After I read the stories, I thought "big deal, so President Bush has been consistent in his personal opinions and has carried them through into his policies. That's good." But it got me to thinking about the demise of the Democratic party. As background, I voted for Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. I am a conservative (you may even call me right wing if you want, as long as you're willing to be called left wing if you're not conservative), but I absolutely do not vote along party lines. I vote for the best candidate and I think that in 1992 and 1996, Clinton was the best candidate. Likewise, I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Same reasoning.
In 1996, the Democrats were a far more palatable choice. For all of Clinton's fault, he didn't plunge his party into the extremist nonsense that Gore and then Kerry relied upon. The "Bush = Hitler," "BUSH LIES!" blah blah blah slogans-without-substance that became the cornerstone of the Democrats resulted in that party becoming irrelevent to me. I have a friend, someone who calls himself a "centrist" (he refuses to even admit that he's a Democrat, let alone a liberal), who has fallen into this trap. In discussing politics, rather than deal with facts and analysis of what is actually happening, he simply regurgitates lines from Michael Moore movies, MoveOn.org ads or the SF Chronicle. When faced with facts, he retreats into more slogans or, even, a dismissive "whatever" and changes the subject.
All of this bring me back to the release of the private conversations of President Bush today. When you read through these stories, you see a man who is clearly NOT Hitler. The stories show that President Bush pushed back against attempts to go after certain groups (including homosexuals) and that far from being a religous zealot, he's a religous man who has tactically used religous support to further his political career. It's clear that he's NOT interested in turning the USA into a religous state. Every slogan the left throws against Bush is disproved by the susbtance of the private conversations.
And this, dear readers, is my point. The Democrats have gone off the deep end, thinking that the lunatic left of San Francisco actually reflects the interests and sensibilities of America. Such thinking is making the Democrats irrelevent. Every time some moron in San Franciso throws out a Bush = Hitler slogan, it alienates yet another potential Democrat voter, one like me, who is absolutely opposed to putting a representative from a party that engages in hysterical and divisive propaganda into office.
These tapes, reported on today, show that President Bush is no closer to Hitler than Bill Clinton was. The sooner the Democrats start dealing with substance and stop trying to cry Hitler, the better off they'll be.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
I want a new drug...
In today's NY Times, in the story about Vioxx and similar drugs being allowed back on the market, "A Reminder That No Drug Is Risk-Free," there's this bit of nonsense:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/business/19drug.html
So patients claim that these drugs are the only drugs that have worked to reduce pain and the patients accept the risk of heart problems that come with using the drugs. The good Dr. Angell, however, arguing that the drugs should be off the market, wants to ignore the preferences and reports of the patients. "Testimonials won't do it." Why not? If these drugs are allowed back on the market with very clear warnings about the likely risks and the patients still decide that the benefit of pain relief is worth the risk of heart problems, why shouldn't they be allowed to make that choice?
I would like to spin this as a liberal versus conservative issue, comparing the choice of drug use to the "choice" of killing an unborn baby (pointing out that the risk of death with the choice of abortion is 100% for the baby), but I don't think it's an issue that can be drawn along political lines. I just don't understand why the government is in the business of telling people that they can't decide to accept a risk in drug use in order to achieve the benefit. If I were in constant pain and the only remedy was a drug that could harm my heart, I'd want to be the one who made the decision whether the risk was worth the benefit.
Not that everything in the world can be compared to securities law, but in most stock offerings, there's a section of the prospectus titled "Risk Factors." That section is full of doom and gloom, telling prospective investors that they could lose all of their investment in a thousands different ways. If securities regulation were like drug regulation, there'd be about three publicly traded stocks. Maybe fewer.
Present the risks to patients and let them make the decision. But if they are harmed and want to sue the drug companies after they were warned, simply bar those lawsuits or have a safe harbor, like the "forward looking statements" safe harbor in securities offerings (that insulate the issuer from liability for projections and estimates if the same are identified as forward looking statements).
The recommendation that the drugs could still be sold drew scorn from critics
like Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of The New England Journal of
Medicine. She said the panel seemed to have been overly influenced by arthritis
patients who testified that the drugs were the only medicines that helped them.
Dr. Angell said that Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra had never been shown to work
any better than older pain and arthritis medicines, so their increased heart
risk make them unacceptable.
"I don't think any of these drugs should be on
the market," Dr. Angell said. "To accept a risk like that you ought to have a
powerful benefit, and I just don't see it. Anecdotes won't do it. Testimonials
won't do it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/business/19drug.html
So patients claim that these drugs are the only drugs that have worked to reduce pain and the patients accept the risk of heart problems that come with using the drugs. The good Dr. Angell, however, arguing that the drugs should be off the market, wants to ignore the preferences and reports of the patients. "Testimonials won't do it." Why not? If these drugs are allowed back on the market with very clear warnings about the likely risks and the patients still decide that the benefit of pain relief is worth the risk of heart problems, why shouldn't they be allowed to make that choice?
I would like to spin this as a liberal versus conservative issue, comparing the choice of drug use to the "choice" of killing an unborn baby (pointing out that the risk of death with the choice of abortion is 100% for the baby), but I don't think it's an issue that can be drawn along political lines. I just don't understand why the government is in the business of telling people that they can't decide to accept a risk in drug use in order to achieve the benefit. If I were in constant pain and the only remedy was a drug that could harm my heart, I'd want to be the one who made the decision whether the risk was worth the benefit.
Not that everything in the world can be compared to securities law, but in most stock offerings, there's a section of the prospectus titled "Risk Factors." That section is full of doom and gloom, telling prospective investors that they could lose all of their investment in a thousands different ways. If securities regulation were like drug regulation, there'd be about three publicly traded stocks. Maybe fewer.
Present the risks to patients and let them make the decision. But if they are harmed and want to sue the drug companies after they were warned, simply bar those lawsuits or have a safe harbor, like the "forward looking statements" safe harbor in securities offerings (that insulate the issuer from liability for projections and estimates if the same are identified as forward looking statements).
Thursday, February 17, 2005
The Dingo Ate My Choice
Pioneering surgery saves baby born 3 months early
Doctors fix flaw in Jerrick De Leon's grape-size heart
(CNN) -- The pediatric surgeon who performed open-heart surgery on a one-week-old baby with a heart the size of a grape said Thursday it was "a wonderful feeling" to be able to save his life.
Surgeons at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital believe that Jerrick De Leon, born more than 13 weeks early, is the smallest baby ever to survive an open-heart procedure called an arterial switch.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/17/preemie.surgery/index.html
CNN got the story wrong. At six months, that's not a baby, it's a CHOICE. Funny how a doctor can save the "life" of a "baby" six months after conception when the liberals scream that at six months after conception, that thing is neither a baby nor a life. Just a choice. Right?
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Do as I say...
It seems as thought the mainstream media have finally decided to admit that Blogs exist and have a huge following (and influence). Unfortunately, that media, furious that they have real competition, decided to throw a temper tantrum rather than engage in actual journalism. To wit, the NY Times, in reporting on the Eason Jordan story, printed the following as a proxy for their own thoughts on blogging:
Pretty pathetic that they can't even face competition with dignity, but not surprising. What really gets me, though, is that the mainstream media, overwhelmingly liberal as it is, can't even see their own hypocrisy. One of the hallmarks of liberalism is, allegedly, an openness to things that break the mold of tradition. Maybe the NY Times isn't so liberal after all...
But on the Eason Jordan story, the part of the story that really gets me is not what he said at Davos. I go back a year or so, when Jordan admitted that CNN had intentionally held back stories about the true nature of Saddam Hussein's regime so it could continue to report from Iraq. Jordan claimed that they had to do this, as to report the facts would put Iraqi lives in jeopardy. First, I didn't know that journalists had a responsibility to protect innocents who may be harmed as a result of a story being reported. Second, and more important, back when the Abu Grahib story was just coming out, I remember the government asking the media to wait on the story until it could be investigated properly, as if the story and pictures got out, it could put a lot of innocent people at risk. The media, of course, not only didn't hold back the story, they covered it in excessive detail. They didn't seem to care about the consequences of the story and, as a result, quite a few people were beheaded and shot by Islamic terrorists who made a point of showing that it was revenge for Abu Grahib. Hell of a double standard, ain't it?
"The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail," he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. He said that Mr. Jordan cared deeply about the reporters he had sent into battle and was "haunted by the fact that not all of them came back."
Pretty pathetic that they can't even face competition with dignity, but not surprising. What really gets me, though, is that the mainstream media, overwhelmingly liberal as it is, can't even see their own hypocrisy. One of the hallmarks of liberalism is, allegedly, an openness to things that break the mold of tradition. Maybe the NY Times isn't so liberal after all...
But on the Eason Jordan story, the part of the story that really gets me is not what he said at Davos. I go back a year or so, when Jordan admitted that CNN had intentionally held back stories about the true nature of Saddam Hussein's regime so it could continue to report from Iraq. Jordan claimed that they had to do this, as to report the facts would put Iraqi lives in jeopardy. First, I didn't know that journalists had a responsibility to protect innocents who may be harmed as a result of a story being reported. Second, and more important, back when the Abu Grahib story was just coming out, I remember the government asking the media to wait on the story until it could be investigated properly, as if the story and pictures got out, it could put a lot of innocent people at risk. The media, of course, not only didn't hold back the story, they covered it in excessive detail. They didn't seem to care about the consequences of the story and, as a result, quite a few people were beheaded and shot by Islamic terrorists who made a point of showing that it was revenge for Abu Grahib. Hell of a double standard, ain't it?
Monday, February 14, 2005
Hungry Heart
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 24-year-old gunman opened fire in a crowded store in upstate New York on Sunday, wounding one person, and was caught by store employees after he ran out of ammunition, police said.
Armed with an assault rifle, the gunman, who was not identified, opened fire at midafternoon at a Best Buy electronics store in a shopping mall near the city of Kingston, about 90 miles north of New York City, New York State Police Chief Wayne Olson told reporters.
The gunman moved through the store, firing shots. He was quickly caught, however, after he left the store and entered the mall. When he ran out of bullets, store workers overpowered him and turned him over to police, Olson said.
Doesn't this say it all about the "assault weapons" ban? If his AK47 is anything like mine, he had at least 30 rounds to go through before he ran out of ammo. 30 rounds in this rifle that, if your believe the liberal media, is a weapon of mass destruction. 30 rounds and not a single person killed. And I'm sure that it'll be the "reason to renew the ban" du jour.
I'd say that this shows why there should not only not be an "assault weapons" ban, every soccer mom driving a hulking SUV should be forced to swap the SUV for the AK. Drive an SUV through a mall and you'll be sure to do a lot more damage than that AK did. Shit, give a Polak a Mauser and you'd get more casualties.
Extra points for the first person to connect the title to the story.
Affepundit, you magnificent bastard, I read your blog!
Since I'm getting thousands of new visitors a day and have no blogroll yet, I command my loyal readers to visit:
www.affepundit.blogspot.com
The best simianblogging east of the East River but west of Stonybrook.
www.affepundit.blogspot.com
The best simianblogging east of the East River but west of Stonybrook.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Sarah Brady Sez...
Police: Nine-months pregnant woman kills attacker
Knife-wielding woman may have been trying to steal fetus
FORT MITCHELL, Kentucky (AP) -- A woman stabbed to death while possibly trying to steal a pregnant woman's fetus had been carrying an ultrasound picture of someone else's twins and was wearing maternity clothing filled with padding.
Police said 26-year-old Sarah Brady, who was nine months pregnant, acted in self-defense Thursday when she killed Katherine Smith.
The OTHER Sarah Brady condemned the use of a weapon, stated that her lawyers will be demanding an end to the use of the trademarked named Sarah Brady and pledged to start a new organization to keep pregnant women from using knives in the presence of children (unborn or otherwise). California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is rumored to be on his way to Kentucky at this moment to meet with the woman he referred to as "Sarah Connor". Developing....
And another thing about the NY Times...
This headline was just posted on the Times' website:
Yes, I know it's a Reuters story, but as I understand it, the Times creates the headlines for these stories. How the hell were the Sunnis marginalized? Were they not allowed to vote? They CHOSE to not participate in the elections, so they were NOT "marginalized." They marginalized themselves. FURTHERMORE, they are a minority group in Iraq, a minority that used to be in charge. Even if they had voted, they would have not had much power in the new government. That's what happens to minority groups, by definition. The great Affepundit made the best point on this topic-to complain about the lack of representation for Sunnis in the new government is akin to complaining about the lack of representation for white South Africans in the post-Apartheid government. As I recall, white South Africans were simply allowed to vote and that was all they were given in the transition from minority to majority rule. If the Sunnis chose to not vote, that's not cause for criticizing the election as not being representative.
I know that the liberal media have this wish that minority groups achieve disproportionate powers in all things, but it's utter nonsense. The Shi'ites have the bulk of the power in Iraq, and will set the course for the nation's future, because they represent the majority. It's really not that hard of a concept to understand and accept.
Shi'ite Bloc Wins Iraq Polls, Sunnis Marginalized
By REUTERS
Published: February 13, 2005
Filed at 2:08 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Shi'ite Islamist bloc won Iraq's first election since Saddam Hussein's overthrow, sealing the political resurgence of the long-oppressed majority but leaving the restive Sunni Arab minority in the cold.
Yes, I know it's a Reuters story, but as I understand it, the Times creates the headlines for these stories. How the hell were the Sunnis marginalized? Were they not allowed to vote? They CHOSE to not participate in the elections, so they were NOT "marginalized." They marginalized themselves. FURTHERMORE, they are a minority group in Iraq, a minority that used to be in charge. Even if they had voted, they would have not had much power in the new government. That's what happens to minority groups, by definition. The great Affepundit made the best point on this topic-to complain about the lack of representation for Sunnis in the new government is akin to complaining about the lack of representation for white South Africans in the post-Apartheid government. As I recall, white South Africans were simply allowed to vote and that was all they were given in the transition from minority to majority rule. If the Sunnis chose to not vote, that's not cause for criticizing the election as not being representative.
I know that the liberal media have this wish that minority groups achieve disproportionate powers in all things, but it's utter nonsense. The Shi'ites have the bulk of the power in Iraq, and will set the course for the nation's future, because they represent the majority. It's really not that hard of a concept to understand and accept.
Mea Culpa, liberals...
In today's (2/13/05) NY Times, the following appears in a story about Israel and the plight of the Palestinian Arabs:
The entire story can be found here:
(I'll also paste it below, as the Times has a nasty habit of charging for access to stories after a period of time).
What I found most interesting about this story is that it never says a word about the underlying lesson. From the early/mid 90s on (i.e., the Bill Clinton years), Israel, either willingly or after succumbing to US pressure, took a soft approach to dealing with the Palestinian Arabs. Clinton and his fellow liberals pushed Israel into treating Arafat like a legitimate world leader and they got Israel to turn the other cheek (not entirely, just in context of the conflict and region) to Palestinian terror. This was the Clinton policy generally-ignore reality, pretend that if you treat an animal like a human, the animal will learn how to be civilized, and treat everything with the infamous "it's not a black and white issue" moral hedging, which led to things like comparing a defensive military response to the instigating offensive terror attack, condemning both as part of a "cycle of violence." We all know that this policy emboldened terror and led to, among other things, 9/11.
Specifically, under Clinton, Israel was pressured to not respond militarily to terror attacks, to not take the offense against the mounting terror threat, to not pre-emptively seek out and destroy the infrastructure and leadership of terror. The result? By the end of Clinton's time in office, the Palestinians had launched a second and far more deadly intifada. In the first intifada, the Palestinians were isolated in discrete areas and they had a very hard time bringing the violence into Israeli population centers. After Clinton, however, the Palestinians had far more territory, closer to Israeli population centers, and an entire military infrastructure (pretending to be a limited, internal police force).
It's difficult to say whether President Bush would have dismantled the failed Clinton policies without 9/11. What we do know is that after 9/11, President Bush gave Ariel Sharon the green light to reverse the Clinton policies-i.e., treat Arafat as the terrorist leader he was, take out the Palestinian terror infrastructure and actively hunt down the leaders of Palestinian terror and eliminate them. American liberals (and much of the rest of the world) screamed that the foregoing would simply "worsen the cycle of violence." The NY Times, in the editorial pages and through spin in stories, condemned Israel's new offensive policy and called for a return to the policies of Clinton. They all predicted that the new tactics would harm Israel and destroy any chances for peace. They demanded that Israel stop the targeted elimination of terror leaders, that Israel begin negotiations again with Arafat, that Israel take the pressure off the Palestinian Arabs as a whole.
And, as the story excerpted above clearly illustrates, they were wrong.
What is clear is that the Clinton/liberal policy of coddling terror, of trying to "end the cycle of violence," of equating legitimate defense with terrorist offense, perpetuated the problem. This is not to say that Palestinian terrorism is dead or that the Bush/Sharon policy was perfect, but it is to point out that even the Palestinian Arabs admit that they lost and that it was the Bush/Sharon policy that forced them into realizing that they weren't going to win with terror.
Even though the NY Times (and the rest of liberal America) would never admit that they and Clinton were wrong, there's a lesson that shouldn't be overlooked here. Terror is fertilized by appeasement and civility. The only way to mitigate and contain terror is to have the courage and patience to methodically destroy its infrastructure and leadership and force its supporters to pay such a heavy price that they realize that anything they gain is not worth what they've lost.
(apologies for any spelling errors...this is more a stream of thought than an essay).
And now, the full NY Times story:
February 13, 2005
For Arabs, Uneasy Calm, Little Hope for Lasting Peace
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BU HOULEH, Gaza, Feb. 12 - In the days after a declaration of truce between Israel and the Palestinians at a summit meeting in Sharm el Sheik, Palestinians are more than ready for quiet, but hardly optimistic about peace.
In interviews at two major Israeli checkpoints - this one, dividing southern and central Gaza, and Hawara, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus - Palestinians said that the Israeli grip on travel had eased somewhat in the last week or so, and that they had hopes the trend toward calm would continue, at least for a little while.
They acknowledged that their collective fatigue with violence and the difficulties of everyday existence had produced wide support for Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian president, but also raised expectations that he can deliver on promises of a more normal life.
But at the same time, the Palestinians interviewed recognized with bitterness that their own political perspectives have narrowed, and that they had lost ground, despite so many deaths over the last four and half years. They expressed nostalgia for the relative prosperity and freedom of travel they had before the outbreak of this last intifada, in September 2000 - even though those conditions were onerous enough to fuel the intifada itself.
"Before the intifada we used to go to Israel to work or to shop, and people had some money," said Nasir al-Bayouk, 41, sitting in a taxi in a long line at Abu Houleh, as cold rain and hail hammered down. He used to own a restaurant, but it failed. "We've lost a lot in this intifada," he said. "Before, we were negotiating for a state. Now we're negotiating over Abu Houleh, and that's it."
Belal Sarraj, a student of 21, said similarly: "In the past we were negotiating over the 1967 borders. Now we're negotiating over the 2000 borders. People want peace, but they don't want to be cheated. When we establish a state it has to be real."
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, holds the power and needs to give Mr. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, a chance, Mr. Bayouk said. "In Sharm they signed various things but we haven't seen anything yet," he said. "We hear Israel wants peace, and we want it, we want this cease-fire. But at the same time, all the sacrifices we made during this intifada can't be for free. People lost their loved ones, and we need a price for this."
What about Mr. Sharon's intention to pull the Israeli settlers out of Gaza and hand it back to the Palestinians? Mr. Bayouk snorted. "We always had Gaza," he said. "The Israelis aren't handing us a gift."
From a distant loudspeaker at the checkpoint, which cuts off Rafah, Khan Yunis and their big refugee camps from the rest of Gaza, an Israeli soldier speaking Arabic shouted for the traffic to go, and the long line of taxis surged ahead. Israelis were not allowing private cars to cross on Saturday, but Abu Houleh is now open 24 hours a day - at least until this period of relative calm is broken. At many times during this intifada, the checkpoint has been closed for days.
The checkpoint itself feels haphazard. The Israeli Army took over a house on the road, bulldozed agricultural land around it and built two military guard towers, in part to protect the nearby Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom and the settlers traveling from Gaza to Israel. Ammar Abu Motlek, 25, studied computers but found a job with the preventive security forces of the Palestinian Authority. "People are tired of the rockets; they're tired of everything," he said. "Abu Mazen has no alternative but to negotiate. But he has to listen to the people and not give too much away. People are tired, but they will always react. Palestinians are being shot and killed on the border for no reason, and it has to stop."
Even on security, which Mr. Abbas promises to simplify and improve, Mr. Motlek urged caution. "I hope the people he puts in will be responsible and strong," Mr. Motlek said. "But he has to take it slowly, he can't just fire everyone at once. People are under a lot of pressure."
Mr. Abbas has a serious problem with corruption and disorganization in the Palestinian Authority, which fuels the political challenge his mainstream Fatah movement faces from the Islamic radicals of Hamas.
"Many people, even not Hamas, will vote for Hamas because it is clean," Mr. Motlek said. "They go to every house. People are fully aware of corruption. We hear about so much money coming here in aid, but we don't see it."
Could Mr. Abbas pull Hamas further into mainstream Palestinian politics and thereby help control over the movement? "He has no other choice but to bring them into the tent," Mr. Motlek said.
Jafar Filfil, 39, works for an international aid organization in Gaza. He also says he believes Hamas must be drawn into the national discourse through negotiation. "Everyone agrees that violence will not solve our problem, but worsen it," he said. "We'll never achieve stability unless we negotiate, and that's true with Israel and also with Hamas."
People's desires are simple, Mr. Filfil said - live, work, travel freely and raise their children. "Most people don't want to die," he said. "But people don't want to be cheated or sold short. They don't want to forget the national issues - a Palestinian state with open borders, with its capital in Jerusalem."
Last week, Mr. Abbas ordered the ruins of Yasir Arafat's Gaza headquarters cleared away. The Israelis had destroyed the building in 2002, and Mr. Arafat had kept the ruins as a kind of memorial. Suddenly, in a day, it was gone.
Mr. Filfil once had a restaurant on that road, which many Gazans used to get to the beach. When Mr. Arafat's headquarters was built, the road was closed, and the restaurant failed. Mr. Abbas has reopened the sea road; Mr. Filfil sees it all as a way of moving beyond the past and responding to popular will.
"People thought of Arafat as a symbol and a fact, which could never be changed," he said. "But Abu Mazen is an ordinary Palestinian. What he does or not on the ground will define his support."
The Hawara checkpoint is on the West Bank, near the teeming city of Nablus. The checkpoint is huge, feels permanent, has channels for vehicles as well as pedestrians, and many hundreds of Palestinians move through it daily. Last week, a 15-year-old Palestinian was caught there carrying ammunition and an explosive belt of the kind used by suicide bombers. He said he was supposed to deliver it to someone on the other side of the checkpoint.
The lines here on Friday, for cars and pedestrians, were also long, and a hard winter rain was pounding down here, too, on one of the most sophisticated of the network of the 680 or so Israeli checkpoints, gates, obstacles, trenches and roadblocks that hobble movement in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Israelis issue the permits that allow Palestinians to travel into Israel. The United Nations says that since this period of calm, Israel has been issuing more of them to merchants and workers.
Ammar Abu Issa sells spare parts that he imports from Israel and crosses the checkpoint every day. "I support the resistance to the Israeli occupation, and it is our right to resist," Mr. Issa said. "But this situation now demands us to calm things down. We shouldn't give Sharon any chance to escape from what was agreed on at Sharm."
The checkpoints are humiliating, Mr. Issa said. "We want an end to violence and to live in dignity," he said.
The Israelis have eased the checkpoint here a little and issued more travel permits, he said, adding: "I hope we can achieve even more. But we're not negotiating with Israel, we're begging Israel. Power is in their hands."
The Khabbas family waited in the rain, halted on its way from Nablus to a wedding in a village near Ramallah. A relative widowed a year ago had found a new wife. The Israelis let most of the family through, but held back two young men, 22 and 20, students and cousins. Murad Khabbas, 22, who studies systems information management at the American University in Jenin, said, "People live on the hope for change." After a time, he went to the soldiers to say, "Please decide, let me go or keep me here; I'm freezing."
A little later, his sister, Samira, went to the soldiers and said, "Please let them go; it's a wedding." The soldiers said they had to check. "There is peace between us now," she said. "Let them pass."
After about 20 minutes, the soldiers told the young men to return to Nablus.
Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting from Nablus for this article.
For Arabs, Uneasy Calm, Little Hope for Lasting Peace
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BU HOULEH, Gaza, Feb. 12 - In the days after a declaration of truce between Israel and the Palestinians at a summit meeting in Sharm el Sheik, Palestinians are more than ready for quiet, but hardly optimistic about peace.
In interviews at two major Israeli checkpoints - this one, dividing southern and central Gaza, and Hawara, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus - Palestinians said that the Israeli grip on travel had eased somewhat in the last week or so, and that they had hopes the trend toward calm would continue, at least for a little while.
They acknowledged that their collective fatigue with violence and the difficulties of everyday existence had produced wide support for Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian president, but also raised expectations that he can deliver on promises of a more normal life.
But at the same time, the Palestinians interviewed recognized with bitterness that their own political perspectives have narrowed, and that they had lost ground, despite so many deaths over the last four and half years. They expressed nostalgia for the relative prosperity and freedom of travel they had before the outbreak of this last intifada, in September 2000 - even though those conditions were onerous enough to fuel the intifada itself.
"Before the intifada we used to go to Israel to work or to shop, and people had some money," said Nasir al-Bayouk, 41, sitting in a taxi in a long line at Abu Houleh, as cold rain and hail hammered down. He used to own a restaurant, but it failed. "We've lost a lot in this intifada," he said. "Before, we were negotiating for a state. Now we're negotiating over Abu Houleh, and that's it."
Belal Sarraj, a student of 21, said similarly: "In the past we were negotiating over the 1967 borders. Now we're negotiating over the 2000 borders. People want peace, but they don't want to be cheated. When we establish a state it has to be real."
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, holds the power and needs to give Mr. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, a chance, Mr. Bayouk said. "In Sharm they signed various things but we haven't seen anything yet," he said. "We hear Israel wants peace, and we want it, we want this cease-fire. But at the same time, all the sacrifices we made during this intifada can't be for free. People lost their loved ones, and we need a price for this."
The entire story can be found here:
(I'll also paste it below, as the Times has a nasty habit of charging for access to stories after a period of time).
What I found most interesting about this story is that it never says a word about the underlying lesson. From the early/mid 90s on (i.e., the Bill Clinton years), Israel, either willingly or after succumbing to US pressure, took a soft approach to dealing with the Palestinian Arabs. Clinton and his fellow liberals pushed Israel into treating Arafat like a legitimate world leader and they got Israel to turn the other cheek (not entirely, just in context of the conflict and region) to Palestinian terror. This was the Clinton policy generally-ignore reality, pretend that if you treat an animal like a human, the animal will learn how to be civilized, and treat everything with the infamous "it's not a black and white issue" moral hedging, which led to things like comparing a defensive military response to the instigating offensive terror attack, condemning both as part of a "cycle of violence." We all know that this policy emboldened terror and led to, among other things, 9/11.
Specifically, under Clinton, Israel was pressured to not respond militarily to terror attacks, to not take the offense against the mounting terror threat, to not pre-emptively seek out and destroy the infrastructure and leadership of terror. The result? By the end of Clinton's time in office, the Palestinians had launched a second and far more deadly intifada. In the first intifada, the Palestinians were isolated in discrete areas and they had a very hard time bringing the violence into Israeli population centers. After Clinton, however, the Palestinians had far more territory, closer to Israeli population centers, and an entire military infrastructure (pretending to be a limited, internal police force).
It's difficult to say whether President Bush would have dismantled the failed Clinton policies without 9/11. What we do know is that after 9/11, President Bush gave Ariel Sharon the green light to reverse the Clinton policies-i.e., treat Arafat as the terrorist leader he was, take out the Palestinian terror infrastructure and actively hunt down the leaders of Palestinian terror and eliminate them. American liberals (and much of the rest of the world) screamed that the foregoing would simply "worsen the cycle of violence." The NY Times, in the editorial pages and through spin in stories, condemned Israel's new offensive policy and called for a return to the policies of Clinton. They all predicted that the new tactics would harm Israel and destroy any chances for peace. They demanded that Israel stop the targeted elimination of terror leaders, that Israel begin negotiations again with Arafat, that Israel take the pressure off the Palestinian Arabs as a whole.
And, as the story excerpted above clearly illustrates, they were wrong.
What is clear is that the Clinton/liberal policy of coddling terror, of trying to "end the cycle of violence," of equating legitimate defense with terrorist offense, perpetuated the problem. This is not to say that Palestinian terrorism is dead or that the Bush/Sharon policy was perfect, but it is to point out that even the Palestinian Arabs admit that they lost and that it was the Bush/Sharon policy that forced them into realizing that they weren't going to win with terror.
Even though the NY Times (and the rest of liberal America) would never admit that they and Clinton were wrong, there's a lesson that shouldn't be overlooked here. Terror is fertilized by appeasement and civility. The only way to mitigate and contain terror is to have the courage and patience to methodically destroy its infrastructure and leadership and force its supporters to pay such a heavy price that they realize that anything they gain is not worth what they've lost.
(apologies for any spelling errors...this is more a stream of thought than an essay).
And now, the full NY Times story:
February 13, 2005
For Arabs, Uneasy Calm, Little Hope for Lasting Peace
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BU HOULEH, Gaza, Feb. 12 - In the days after a declaration of truce between Israel and the Palestinians at a summit meeting in Sharm el Sheik, Palestinians are more than ready for quiet, but hardly optimistic about peace.
In interviews at two major Israeli checkpoints - this one, dividing southern and central Gaza, and Hawara, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus - Palestinians said that the Israeli grip on travel had eased somewhat in the last week or so, and that they had hopes the trend toward calm would continue, at least for a little while.
They acknowledged that their collective fatigue with violence and the difficulties of everyday existence had produced wide support for Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian president, but also raised expectations that he can deliver on promises of a more normal life.
But at the same time, the Palestinians interviewed recognized with bitterness that their own political perspectives have narrowed, and that they had lost ground, despite so many deaths over the last four and half years. They expressed nostalgia for the relative prosperity and freedom of travel they had before the outbreak of this last intifada, in September 2000 - even though those conditions were onerous enough to fuel the intifada itself.
"Before the intifada we used to go to Israel to work or to shop, and people had some money," said Nasir al-Bayouk, 41, sitting in a taxi in a long line at Abu Houleh, as cold rain and hail hammered down. He used to own a restaurant, but it failed. "We've lost a lot in this intifada," he said. "Before, we were negotiating for a state. Now we're negotiating over Abu Houleh, and that's it."
Belal Sarraj, a student of 21, said similarly: "In the past we were negotiating over the 1967 borders. Now we're negotiating over the 2000 borders. People want peace, but they don't want to be cheated. When we establish a state it has to be real."
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, holds the power and needs to give Mr. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, a chance, Mr. Bayouk said. "In Sharm they signed various things but we haven't seen anything yet," he said. "We hear Israel wants peace, and we want it, we want this cease-fire. But at the same time, all the sacrifices we made during this intifada can't be for free. People lost their loved ones, and we need a price for this."
What about Mr. Sharon's intention to pull the Israeli settlers out of Gaza and hand it back to the Palestinians? Mr. Bayouk snorted. "We always had Gaza," he said. "The Israelis aren't handing us a gift."
From a distant loudspeaker at the checkpoint, which cuts off Rafah, Khan Yunis and their big refugee camps from the rest of Gaza, an Israeli soldier speaking Arabic shouted for the traffic to go, and the long line of taxis surged ahead. Israelis were not allowing private cars to cross on Saturday, but Abu Houleh is now open 24 hours a day - at least until this period of relative calm is broken. At many times during this intifada, the checkpoint has been closed for days.
The checkpoint itself feels haphazard. The Israeli Army took over a house on the road, bulldozed agricultural land around it and built two military guard towers, in part to protect the nearby Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom and the settlers traveling from Gaza to Israel. Ammar Abu Motlek, 25, studied computers but found a job with the preventive security forces of the Palestinian Authority. "People are tired of the rockets; they're tired of everything," he said. "Abu Mazen has no alternative but to negotiate. But he has to listen to the people and not give too much away. People are tired, but they will always react. Palestinians are being shot and killed on the border for no reason, and it has to stop."
Even on security, which Mr. Abbas promises to simplify and improve, Mr. Motlek urged caution. "I hope the people he puts in will be responsible and strong," Mr. Motlek said. "But he has to take it slowly, he can't just fire everyone at once. People are under a lot of pressure."
Mr. Abbas has a serious problem with corruption and disorganization in the Palestinian Authority, which fuels the political challenge his mainstream Fatah movement faces from the Islamic radicals of Hamas.
"Many people, even not Hamas, will vote for Hamas because it is clean," Mr. Motlek said. "They go to every house. People are fully aware of corruption. We hear about so much money coming here in aid, but we don't see it."
Could Mr. Abbas pull Hamas further into mainstream Palestinian politics and thereby help control over the movement? "He has no other choice but to bring them into the tent," Mr. Motlek said.
Jafar Filfil, 39, works for an international aid organization in Gaza. He also says he believes Hamas must be drawn into the national discourse through negotiation. "Everyone agrees that violence will not solve our problem, but worsen it," he said. "We'll never achieve stability unless we negotiate, and that's true with Israel and also with Hamas."
People's desires are simple, Mr. Filfil said - live, work, travel freely and raise their children. "Most people don't want to die," he said. "But people don't want to be cheated or sold short. They don't want to forget the national issues - a Palestinian state with open borders, with its capital in Jerusalem."
Last week, Mr. Abbas ordered the ruins of Yasir Arafat's Gaza headquarters cleared away. The Israelis had destroyed the building in 2002, and Mr. Arafat had kept the ruins as a kind of memorial. Suddenly, in a day, it was gone.
Mr. Filfil once had a restaurant on that road, which many Gazans used to get to the beach. When Mr. Arafat's headquarters was built, the road was closed, and the restaurant failed. Mr. Abbas has reopened the sea road; Mr. Filfil sees it all as a way of moving beyond the past and responding to popular will.
"People thought of Arafat as a symbol and a fact, which could never be changed," he said. "But Abu Mazen is an ordinary Palestinian. What he does or not on the ground will define his support."
The Hawara checkpoint is on the West Bank, near the teeming city of Nablus. The checkpoint is huge, feels permanent, has channels for vehicles as well as pedestrians, and many hundreds of Palestinians move through it daily. Last week, a 15-year-old Palestinian was caught there carrying ammunition and an explosive belt of the kind used by suicide bombers. He said he was supposed to deliver it to someone on the other side of the checkpoint.
The lines here on Friday, for cars and pedestrians, were also long, and a hard winter rain was pounding down here, too, on one of the most sophisticated of the network of the 680 or so Israeli checkpoints, gates, obstacles, trenches and roadblocks that hobble movement in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Israelis issue the permits that allow Palestinians to travel into Israel. The United Nations says that since this period of calm, Israel has been issuing more of them to merchants and workers.
Ammar Abu Issa sells spare parts that he imports from Israel and crosses the checkpoint every day. "I support the resistance to the Israeli occupation, and it is our right to resist," Mr. Issa said. "But this situation now demands us to calm things down. We shouldn't give Sharon any chance to escape from what was agreed on at Sharm."
The checkpoints are humiliating, Mr. Issa said. "We want an end to violence and to live in dignity," he said.
The Israelis have eased the checkpoint here a little and issued more travel permits, he said, adding: "I hope we can achieve even more. But we're not negotiating with Israel, we're begging Israel. Power is in their hands."
The Khabbas family waited in the rain, halted on its way from Nablus to a wedding in a village near Ramallah. A relative widowed a year ago had found a new wife. The Israelis let most of the family through, but held back two young men, 22 and 20, students and cousins. Murad Khabbas, 22, who studies systems information management at the American University in Jenin, said, "People live on the hope for change." After a time, he went to the soldiers to say, "Please decide, let me go or keep me here; I'm freezing."
A little later, his sister, Samira, went to the soldiers and said, "Please let them go; it's a wedding." The soldiers said they had to check. "There is peace between us now," she said. "Let them pass."
After about 20 minutes, the soldiers told the young men to return to Nablus.
Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting from Nablus for this article.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
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