Month: November 2006

complicity or realpolitik

In any American court, the fellow shown below shaking hands with the condemned would have been deposed, even called as a witness. I wonder how much Saddam’s murderous regime was enabled or strengthened by his erstwhile allies.
Some Call it Justice:

Saddam Hussein will hang within 30 days for his crimes against the people of Iraq. He has been found guilty, and rightly so.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the adage goes. So Saddam the tyrant — he was no different in 1983 than in 1993 or 2003 — was courted as a bulwark against Iran. How the mullahs in Iran have enjoyed the efforts of the Great Satan to remove Saddam from their path, to strengthen the hand of Shi’ites in what’s left of Iraq, and inflame the jihadis.

Heckuva job, guys.

links for 2006-11-05

question of the day

Dan Savage draws the best commenters.

The Stranger | Seattle | Slog: The Stranger’s Blog | When a Conservative Christian Pastor Gets Caught Messing Around With Gay Hookers, Buying Crystal Meth, and Accepting Same-Sex Massages… Who’s to Blame?:

I don’t care if his wife looked like a maimed walrus, smelled like a sewage treatment plant, and had oozing sores. If he was truly an unhappy hetero, wouldn’t he hire a FEMALE hooker?

At least Jim Bakker worked the straight side of the street: what’s with Pastor Ted?

links for 2006-11-05

not their fault, no sir

Endgame:

Vanity Fair recently interviewed several of the Iraq war’s neoconservative architects to see if they had any regrets about the last four years. The short answer is, “Yes.”

The boys at S,N! do it so much better than I could but I couldn’t help thinking of those old motheaten lefties clinging to the belief that Marxism was still valid, even after the excesses of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. After all, they had failed to do it properly, nothing to do with Uncle Karl.

Seriously, the old gangster method — a bucket, some cement, and a river — is what these bastards deserve, if they should be so fortunate.

Now playing: Golden Years by David Bowie from the album “Station To Station” | Get it

links for 2006-11-04