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Population: One

Indecision killin' me

How times change.

April 24, 2003:

The world must focus on the issue of nonproliferation, says President George Bush.

“One of our goals and objectives must be to strengthen the nonproliferation regimes and get the whole world focused on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” he told Tom Brokaw of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) during an April 24 interview aboard Air Force One on his way to Canton, Ohio.

Of the U.S.-China-North Korea meetings held in Beijing this week, Bush said the message to the North Koreans and the world is: “(W)e’re not going to be threatened.”

“On the other hand we, the world, must come together to make sure institutions like the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) are effective at stopping proliferation,” he said.

May 5, 2003:

A senior U.S. official said on Monday Washington saw no immediate role for the United Nations in its quest for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The remarks by U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton spelled further frustration for International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, who along with chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix hunted for the banned arms, at being kept out of post-war Iraq.

“I don’t think there is any role for the U.N. in the short term in searching for, or identifying, or securing weapons of mass destruction, but we do not necessarily rule out some kind of U.N. role down the road,” Bolton told reporters in Moscow.

The facilities that the IAEA wants to inspect were under IAEA seal. Nobody’s ever denied that there were potentially dangerous materials inside ‘em. However, Iraq didn’t unseal them. Had they done so, the IAEA would have reported this and provided a causus belli, which perhaps speaks to why Iraq left them the hell alone. The IAEA has good records of what was inside and is the agency most capable of determining the extent of the looting.

The IAEA acts in Iraq under the authority of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (PDF). This is one of those Security Council resolutions that we treat with such respect, even when the Security Council itself won’t. We won the war, but that doesn’t make the resolution vanish. Consider: if Iran had invaded and defeated Iraq, would that mean inspections were unnecessary? Nah. We can trust ourselves, of course, but if the IAEA wants to inspect the nuclear sites, where’s the harm?

It doesn’t create any dangerous precedents other than that the IAEA has the right to carry out actions decided upon in the Security Council. That seems pretty safe to me. What’s more, it’s precisely what Bush said they should do on April 24th — and that’s the meat of the issue. I could respect a consistent stance vis a vis international bodies, but it’s hypocritical to talk about making the IAEA effective while refusing their legitimate, Security Council-backed request.

How effective does the IAEA look when Bush is turning them down out of hand? Not very.

Got font?

The Got Milk? typeface is Phenix American. Looks like it needs a little kerning before it looks right, but that’s OK. Agfa will sell it to you for twenty-two bucks. I know I wanted this information for some reason, so I’ll just tuck it away here until I can remember why I wanted it.

Late edit: no, I will not send you the font. Someone spent a great deal of time creating the font, and if you want to use it you ought to pay for it.

Grind slow

Colin Powell’s concerned about Guantanamo Bay, it seems, or at least he’s writing Rumsfeld concerned letters about it. Man, there’s a wealth of implied information in that article. Not the least of which is anything you can glean from the fact that Powell’s writing letters rather than sitting down for a chat. He wants to be on the record? He can’t get a slot on Rumsfeld’s calendar? He wants amateur political observers like me to make random unfounded guesses?

This kind of thing, by the way, is the answer to left wing calls for Powell to resign. Particularly if you think Powell is a principled man in an unprincipled administration, it is morally correct for him to remain as Secretary of State in order to cushion the excesses of that administration.

What am I up to?

Teeny little new feature over on the right, entitled “Recent Leisure.” If your browser supports title attributes, you ought to get a nice little mini-review when you hover your mouse over the links (or whatever the remaining lynx users of the world do to view title attributes). I like PHP.

Flip a coin

Glenn Reynolds wrote about this case as an example of Homeland Security out of control. I figured I’d take a look at it and condemn it; from his description it looked pretty open and shut. In fact, from the article, it looked pretty open and shut. Sure, the guy’s a right winger, but that’s no excuse for persecuting him.

On the other hand, if he’s really taking a job at a gun store in order to collect names and home addresses of police in preparation for violent activity, that’s kind of the sort of thing you’d expect the cops to be worried about. So is Wynn telling the truth?

He claims that he’s never advocated violence. From the Militia of Georgia January 2003 newsletter, which he wrote:

“For years, I’ve given that analogy about a man who does not have a legal right to take away your money but, should he pull a gun and demand your money, he has the power to do so. For years, when I’ve made that analogy, many of you have let your testosterone and macho attitude take over and say, ‘Oh yeah, he may pull a gun but, I’m prepared and he’ll have to eat a few bullets….. blah, blah, blah…’ Well, friends, here it is, put up or shut up time…”

When Jimmy Wynn says he doesn’t advocate violence against police, he means he doesn’t advocate violence against “lawful” police. It’s a cute out. He doesn’t consider the current government to be lawful.

Also from the Patrioteer, by a different author: “If someone wants to know if the militia is ‘kind of skinhead hate group’ you will spend a great deal of time trying to prove that the bulk of the militia movement is not promoting racism.” Here’s the Forsythe Covenant, which was adopted by Wynn’s group in 1987. “The burgeoning non-white population explosion within our borders must be brought under control.” Yeah, they don’t promote racism.

So that’s Jimmy Wynn. He’s advocated violent revolution and he’s a racist. What does that mean about the news story?

Not much, actually. Either the GBI had evidence that he was collecting data illegally or they didn’t. Tipping off the store owner is way out of line. If there’s an issue, the GBI has plenty of power to investigate. Suspicion, even when it’s a guy like Jimmy Wynn, is not a very good reason to get someone fired. Do this kind of thing without due process, and all you’ve got is another martyr with another talking point that he can use to draw more people into the militia movement.

And, um, that’s exactly the position the GBI took on the matter. The agent who made the mistake was reprimanded and transferred. The GBI legal director said “more than likely contributed to, if not caused, the termination of a subject’s job because of his association with a particular group with no evidence of a crime being planned or committed…”

So in answer to Glenn’s question, “Who will speak out against this resurgence of McCarthyism?” I would have to say “The officer’s superiors are doing a pretty good job of that.” Tempest in a teapot.

Rhode Island blues

Much to my joy, Family Guy is out on DVD. The first set is season 1 and 2; season 3 is out in September. The video quality sucks, with way too much pixelation, but it’s not like the animation was the real attraction anyhow.

I wouldn’t call Family Guy great art, but it does a nice job of parodying all the tired old sitcom plots while stuffing itself on pop culture one-liners. It’s also more surreal than almost anything else on television — utterly deadpan. Plus you gotta love Stewie, and Chris is voiced by Seth Green. What’s not to love?

Round the world in links

So, what’s up in the world this fine morning? Stratfor kindly converted my US/Iraq war subscription into a general subscription, so I have a wealth of material to speak of.

India and Russia are conducting joint naval exercises, which are pretty much symbolic — they want to remind the world that they’re allies. It’s a good thing to remember, considering that India fully intends to become a world power over the next twenty years. Bruce Sterling wrote a great article about the India/China space race, which echoed this Guardian article from January. It might be somewhat disturbing to consider the fact that China, India, and Russia are all cheesed off about Gulf War II. Or not, if you think we’ve reached the end of history and no other nation will ever rise in prominence.

On a more cheerful note, India and Pakistan have resumed diplomatic relations. Breathe a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, the military just observed that the secular nature of Turkey’s government should be “carefully protected.” Erdogan is not someone the Turkish military wants to see in power, and his party is the direct descendant of the government which fell in 1997. By “fell,” I mean “was pressured to step down by the military.” We could see another coup in the relatively near future; certainly tensions are high.

Also of note: Kurds in Turkey are protesting violently in the aftermath of the recent quake. More Kurdish/Turkish friction can’t be good.