Politics

In 1972, Munich was awarded the 18th Summer Olympic Games. It was the first Olympics in Germany since the propaganda-inflected Games of 1936; as is always the case, hosting the Olympic Games was a matter of some national pride. There were 7,173 athletes from 121 nations present. Mark Spitz won his seven gold medals at that games, with seven world records. Ulrike Meyfarth became the youngest person to win a gold medal in an individual event, in the high jump, at age 16. Olga Korbut became a media star and ushered in an era of gymnastics obsession. ...

Informative reading for the day: David Niewart debunks the “Bush’s family supported the Nazis” meme. He also nails the reasons why it’s important to look into the reality of the connections between Nazi Germany and American industrialism. It’s a fairly lengthy article in four parts ( 1, 2, 3, 4) but well worth the time.

Turns out the Brits agreed with those dire warnings that the collapse of Iraq might result in the spread of chemical weapons: “The JIC assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily al-Qaeda.” Mind you, since it turned out Saddam didn’t have WMD after all, they were wrong. Still, you’ve got to wonder why Blair (and Bush) denied any such possibility pre-war.

Okay, sure. “Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front.” — George Bush “Don’t you tell me not to worry about bin Laden Have you forgotten?” — Darryl Worley For the record: no, I haven’t forgotten. I remember quite distinctly where I was and what I was feeling that day. I remember thinking that we needed to find the people responsible and do something about it. I still think that. I hope that, someday, we remember that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. I hope that the White House will someday devote some time to reminding people who our enemy was and is. ...

I love my freedom so much that I am willing to accept certain risks to preserve it. I want, yes, my medical records to be inviolate. We are willing to send soldiers to die in Iraq if we think it will preserve our freedoms. I ask this: what sort of gutless people are willing to risk the lives of others to protect freedom, but are not willing to risk their own? ...

Clayton Cramer has more comments on Amazon; in fact, he posted my email to him (original) (which is fine by me). I emailed him back, and since I don’t know if he’ll post it, I’ll summarize here. I think it’s ludicrous to claim that nobody takes Mein Kampf and The Protocols of Zion seriously. (Let alone The Turner Diaries.) It’s not too complicated. Buford Furrow. Michael Ryan (original). Eric Rudolph. Cramer has a bit of a persecution complex, which is no surprise to anyone who remembers his Usenet days.

Heads up to all the neocons going on about how Australia’s proven to be a true friend, who will be with us always and us always with them, here’s to the new Anglo-American ruling faction, etc. Australia ain’t sending peacekeepers to Iraq (original). Hope this doesn’t make anyone’s head spin with the complexities. Helpful hint to said neocons: you can’t always decide what the next ten years of foreign policy are gonna be based on the last six months.

We have a new candidate for the most chilling statement on WMD (original). They’ve actually been dancing around this one for a while, but John Bolton just got around to saying it. Here’s the AP lede: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was justified in part because Saddam Hussein retained scientists capable of building nuclear weapons, Washington’s top arms control official said Thursday. In other words, it was justified because Saddam didn’t get rid of the scientists. And here I thought we were unhappy with Saddam’s tendency to kill inconvenient people. ...

As per expectations, initial reaction to the first attempt to get more international aid in Iraq was not good. Germany is being negative (original), and Russia is making it clear that they need UN involvement. From one angle, it looks like Russia is making concessions, but note that Russia is implacable about UN approval. They’re letting us know that we can get what we want… if we do it their way. Chirac, unsurprisingly, is on board with Germany and Russia (original). ...

The US is working on a new UN resolution intended to encourage foreign assistance in Iraq. Five bucks says the first version circulated turns out to be unacceptable to the Security Council. Unfortunately for Bush, he’s negotiating from a position of weakness. After having said he doesn’t need the UN and calling the Security Council irrelevant, he’s now finding that he has to go back and ask them for help. There aren’t many weaker negotiating stances than that.