Marc Cooper: "Now comes one of those great Hitler-Stalin Pact moments that make partisan politics so damn entertaining. In the late 1930’s the Communist Left had to leap through acrobatic hoops, wildly flip-flopping on appeasing or opposing the Nazis in order to stay in perfect lockstep with Soviet foreign policy. Now Conservative Republicans who only yesterday were justifying torture in perfect lockstep with GW Bush are going to be doing some back flipping of their own. Or are they?"

Nah, I don't think so. Bush always opposed torture; so do his supporters. The issue is about "abuse" and "humiliation" -- which are NOT torture, but also not defined. Bush caves, not fighting; no big deal for Bush supporters.

The anti-(Viet)War protesters, who supported N. Viet commie victory, also never did big back flipping.

David Corn: Always fast to speculate on bad things that might happen, especially after Bush-led good things do happen, David writes of the Iraqi elections:

"But hope is no substitute for analysis. These elections might be considered a sign of short-term political progress (despite the reported problems with voting in certain areas and the mob-violence that preceded the vote). But they are not likely to ameliorate the factors fueling the rising sectarian violence in Iraq. And it is not beyond imagination to see the elections as the start of a long-term problem, if a theocratic-minded Shiite government aligned with Iran (and looking to form a super-state in the south and screw the Sunnis) emerges from this election."

He talks a lot about "civil war" -- but never defines it. How many have to be killed, or have to be fighting, for it to be called civil war?

As long as the US troops are there, it is NOT a civil war. And as Sunnis start turning in more local terrorists, it's more likely to have the death toll reduced.

The Shia dominated gov't is almost certain to be opening new secret torture prisons -- at the usual Arab standard. And yes, a majority of Iraqis will support torture of suspected Sunni murderers, especially former Saddamites. Unfair, but not totally.

The Anchoress: "Immediately after that I met the anasthesiologist (and liked him), but then the surgeon came in and started marking my breast, and asking me to confirm everything he felt. He used a purple marker to do so and when I used my finger to confirm his marking, I ended up with a purple fingertip! I laughed to myself and felt very consoled, and maybe no one else would find a co-incidentally-Iraqi sympathetic marking to be meaningful, but I did."

Personal, political; vulnerable, indomitable. The Anchoress. A great blog. I like her much better than Ace of Spades. But that's a fine blog, too.

neo-neocon: "Exactly how does one train soldiers to be effective and yet principled killers? Operant conditioning is part of it. The goal of this process of accustoming military members to killing in wartime is to reduce their psychological and physical stress/fear, in order to avoid panic. And why is this so important? Because it's this stress/panic reaction (as well as a number of other factors, to be discussed in a moment) that can lead to the commission of atrocities in war"

Neo says it's good to train soldiers to be more effective killing machines -- AND more effective NON-killing machines (act by reflex, correctly). With much less stress.

neo-neocon: "Some time after the first post-invasion Iraqi election, I wrote a piece in which I reflected as follows:

When the authors of the Declaration of Independence wrote 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...' it was more an article of faith than anything else, because the right of liberty (and the desire for it) was not all that self-evident to most of the world. But the framers turned out to be prescient, because here is evidence that is so strong that I think it amounts to proof: human beings want and value liberty and self-determination. Even though these things are abstractions compared to basic needs such as food and water, they seem to represent another basic need, one of the human spirit.

It seems just as true today."

Neo does it again -- by reposting what she did again the first time after the first post-invasion Iraqi election. She was also happy about the happy faces on TV.

Michael J. Totten: "How far the mighty do fall. Fifty years ago Cairo was a relatively wealthy, liberal, cosmopolitan jewel of North Africa and the Middle East. Don’t even think of blaming Islam for its present wretched condition. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his secular Free Officer regime demolished this place with intellectual, political, and economic bulldozers. Hosni Mubarak’s ridiculously named National Democratic Party, which is really just a euphemism for the calcified military regime from the 1950s, has done absolutely nothing to improve things in the meantime. Wall Street Journal reporter Stephen Glain aptly described Egypt as a “towering dwarf.” I don’t think the description can be improved on."

Michael writes much more of his time in Cairo. Nailing the secular failure of Mubarak, and especially Nasser, is important.

Egypt -- the Towering Dwarf

Grim's Hall: "As the joyous display of purple fingers in Iraq again attests, the national struggle for democracy is a moral good and, if it succeeds, a human triumph. But it is not by itself a victory for American national security. We need a policy based on the recognition that democracy in the Middle East and beyond is definitely desirable, maybe necessary but hardly sufficient to secure our future."

Grim quotes the Wapo above, noting the logic of requirement -- if it's necessary, we simply have to do it.

And I have to ask -- how does she know it's "hardly sufficient"? I claim it's 99% sufficient.

The Anchoress » Holocaust a myth? Time to unify!: "I have no doubt that many, many liberals, many Democrats and many on the left deplore the words coming from Iran. I hope they will speak up, ready to unite - suggesting that while there is much about which right and left disagree, on this there can be only unity - The holocaust was no myth. Think about it. This cannot be a left/right issue."

I'm sorry, I doubt that those Leftists will call an outrage an outrage.

Look at the genocide in Darfur, the slo-mo, 18 months after Powell called it genocide ... and the Sudanese Arabs are STILL MURDERING.
And the UN action is ... words; ICC "indictments" with no enforcement.

Plus, action might mean an American soldier dies -- and nothing is worth the death of a single soldier, is it? (say the Leftists)

baldilocks: To A Young One Who Is An Apologist For A Terrorist: "Know that you’ve been deceived by a particular type of rhetoric; that type in which no black person is responsible for his/her actions, that type in which the white man is always the culprit. In its insidious and ingenious way, it’s the rhetoric of black inferiority.

You, Jeremy, believe that this heinous mass murderer—born Stanley Williams—isn’t as responsible as any white man who committed the same type of acts."

Baldilocks tells a racist white Leftist why he's racist and bad -- from the heart. Read it.

neo-neocon: Journalism: fact-checking and full disclosure: "Of course, Bisharat is entitled to his position about Palestine, the SSI report--or for that matter, anything else. He's also entitled to state it, and the LA Times is entitled to print it, if they so choose. But, before publishing it, shouldn't the Times check to see whether he's presenting the report fairly? And doesn't the LA Times also have a duty to inform us about Bisharat's extremist agenda, rather than to present him as a neutral and disinterested party? Of course, if the first were true (we could rely on the Times to make sure his article was fair before they printed it) the second (identifying his agenda) would not be necessary--it would be irrelevant."

Neo-neocon slams the LA Times' bias in printing an op-ed by a Palestinian extremist as if he is "disinterested," when he has a clearly stated public position. Which his op-ed is totally biased towards.

David Corn The Best Secret TELLERS in DC: "when it comes to consistently forcing important secrets out of the US government no journalist or investigator rivals the National Security Archive, a nonprofit outfit based at George Washington University.

Why gush about it now? Today the Archive is celebrating its 20th anniversary."

Fine positive piece about the National Archives, with lots of juicy bits of anti-gov't pieces. Oh, anti-Rep gov't pieces; seems David thinks Clinton never had a secret worth telling.

David Corn on the Second Novak tale in the Plame Kerfuffle: "In a bid to prevent Fitzgerald from indicting his client, Luskin was attempting to explain away Rove's grand jury turnaround. First, Rove had said nothing to FBI agents and Fitzgerald's grand jury about a July 2003 conversation in which he told Time's Matt Cooper that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Later Rove acknowledged that he had informed Cooper of Valerie Wilson's CIA status. Now, hoping to fend off Fitzgerald, Luskin was claiming that one of his conversations with Viveca Novak set off a chain of events that had caused Rove to remember that conversation with Cooper."

I think that Rove saying "That's what I heard, too," is a LOT LESS than telling "Cooper that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA." Of course, David Corn is a confirmed Bush-basher, one of the best.

I would respect David's honesty better if he would quote Rove, or what Rove is actually supposed to have said.

Michael J. Totten in Cairo: on politeness "The nice thing about it, though, was that it politely concealed Egypt’s rampant anti-Americanism. Europeans who hate America often want you to know it, and some aren’t bashful about making it personal. Egyptians, like Arabs generally, are way too polite and hospitable to get nasty about it. I believe, although I could be mistaken, that anti-Americanism is stronger in Egypt than in any of the other Arab countries I’ve been to. Among other things we can blame our client-state “pal” Hosni Mubarak, our corrosive relationship with his military dictatorship, and his deranged state-run media machine for that. Hostility to the United States is definitely stronger in Egypt than it is in Lebanon. Yet Egyptians are kinder, gentler, and sweeter somehow. Lebanese, though I love them, are French by comparison."

Grim's Hall Shifting Sands: "The last tool AQI has is money. They are paying for support and sanctuary. It is not being freely given anymore in Ramadi. The elections are going to be pivotal. My opinions, if the Sunnis vote en masse then AQI is done but if AQI is successful in intimidating the populace then they bought themselves some more time."

I don't the military war is completely won yet; or else it was already won when sovereignty was transfered 18 months ago.

It's still good news when politics is seen as the way to exert influence -- the Sunnis will soon be wishing the US to stay and protect "their human rights" from the Shia dominated Iraqi gov't. I hope the US pushes for more intel about terrorists, and prior terrorist supporters.

normblog: Workers' and other rights: "The statement goes on to name some of the countries in which the rights of workers aren't adequately observed: Burma, China, Zimbabwe - and the US."

AFL-CIO News: From White House to California, Workers Call For Freedom to Form Unions

"A delegation then presented to White House guards a petition signed by 100,000 workers calling on the Bush administration to honor federal workers’ freedom to form a union and back off proposals that would take collective bargaining rights from 650,000 civilian Defense Department workers and 160,000 Homeland Security employees."

The fact that it's not always easy to form a union is not quite the same as not having them, or fobidding them. Unions are OK, when voluntary, and usually not that terrible when involuntary when they start. If they stay involuntary, they get worse over time.

Union leaders need to have term limits; job creation should also be a specific goal of all unions.

Dean's World - And the "Understatement of the Year" award goes to?
(by Scott Kirwin)

Amnesty International, for it's 'condemnation' of Chinese authorities opening fire on villagers protesting construction of a wind turbine on their land. At least 2 - possibly 10 - have been killed, and Chinese authorities have sealed off the village.

No condemnation by Catherine Baber.

This is the country whose veto on the Security Council means no UN SC resolution against Darfur -- this is the country which the international community thinks is morally superior to the US.

It's sickening.

Michael J. Totten Arriving in Egypt: "More people live in Cairo than live in Lebanon and Syria combined. I know Beirut very well. I cannot get lost there. Standing on my balcony, though, I felt like I would always be one wrong turn away from being lost forever in Cairo."

Description of fairly big wealth amidst a lot of poverty, too.