Six years ago, on a trip to sell syndicated American and European columnists to Saudi media, my colleague and I were a bit taken aback when our Jiddah taxi driver asked if we wanted to see a prostitute beheaded.
We weren’t shocked because of ignorance. We knew that beheadings are public spectacles in the kingdom. And while some Americans are shocked by the method – a sword slash – we had no illusions that lethal injection is any less barbaric because it leaves no blood on the pavement. What made us squirm was the confounded casualness of our driver’s request. In spite of our anthropological curiosity, we chose not to view what passes for Saudi justice.
Paul Johnson’s beheading yesterday, of course, was purely murder, though the vermin who took his life tried to dignify themselves as deputies of Allah.
I’ve personally known a few extremists, from seething Weather Undergrounders to klux in the Klan to neoconservative imperialists. Although their reprehensible ideologies are easy enough to comprehend, I’m no psychologist, and for me their bloodthirsty mind-set is impenetrable. Likewise al-Qaeda and its cousins.
Unlike the Maoists of post-democratic SDS, the racists in sheets and the post-Mission Accomplished neocons, al-Qaeda seems to be succeeding quite well in their strategy even though we’ve knocked off two-thirds of their top leadership and supposedly have them on the run. They seem to understand the power of images far beyond the capabilities of the perception management team of Karl Rove & Crew. The video and stills of Paul Johnson surely will achieve their key objective, terrorizing the Americans and other Westerners who handle the day-to-day management of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.
I suppose some civilians will accept Colin Powell’s suggestion that they should not give al-Qaeda a victory by leaving the country even though he not-so-long-ago urged the families of most State Department officials to get the hell out.
Given that terrorism thrives on chaos, what surprises me is that al-Qaeda has not taken what would seem to be an obvious move: attacking the Saudi infrastructure directly. Of course, that would be the old approach in guerrilla warfare and these guys are amazingly adaptable. But what if their efforts to scare out Westerners fails?
In 1982, physicist and alternative energy guru Hunter Lovins published a book called Brittle Power. Its thesis is simple and undeniable: America's energy infrastructure of power plants and pipelines is extremely fragile, a perfect target for even mildly sophisticated terrorist attacks.
As this recent article in The Economist notes, the Saudi oil infrastructure is highly vulnerable to similar attacks, with potentially devastating results:
Kevin Rosser of Control Risks Group, a business-risk consultancy ... observes that there is plenty of redundancy built into the Saudi network—through multiple ports, pipelines and excess capacity—that should ease the blow from any attack. Besides, he insists, to do any real damage terrorists would have to hit bottlenecks, not just blow up random bits of pipeline. Mr Rosser quips that, “the golden goose is not a sitting duck.”
Maybe so, but other security experts think that goose may yet be cooked. James Woolsey, a former head of America's Central Intelligence Agency, is unimpressed by talk of improved security: “Guards and fences are easy to put up, but they don't defend against the real threats.” Trucks have to come in and out of facilities, he observes, and Aramco employees and security guards have to move about. He thinks that several attacks, if co-ordinated by terrorists who have infiltrated Aramco, could cripple the Saudi system.
How, exactly? Robert Baer, an intelligence expert, offers some suggestions in his disturbing recent book, “Sleeping with the Devil”. He reckons that Ras Tanura, a port on the Gulf, is a vulnerable terrorist target. With an output of perhaps 4.5m bpd, this is the biggest oil-exporting port in the world. Mr Baer thinks a small submarine or a boat laden with explosives (as happened in October 2000 with the attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen) could knock out much of Ras Tanura's output for weeks, or even longer.
An even scarier possibility raised by Mr Baer is the crashing of a hijacked aeroplane into Abqaiq, the world's largest oil-processing complex. If done with the help of insiders, he speculates that the facility's throughput (nearly 7m bpd, on his estimate) would be choked off to as little as 1m bpd for two months—and might remain as low as 3m bpd for seven months.
Is the reason al-Qaeda hasn't struck hard at the oil infrastructure a tactical move, or something else altogether? Do they have far-fetched hopes that they'll soon be running Saudi Arabia and using that wealth for their own ends? Despite their touted hatred of the royal family, do they have some kind of secret deal - financial or otherwise - with the Saudi powers-that-be not to strike the oil facilities?
Or are they merely awaiting "the right moment," whatever that might be? An October surprise, a la Madrid, perhaps, just in time for the U.S. election? And, if that is their target date, do they seek to decapitate Dubyanocchio’s administration, or to keep it intact because it is - as Juan Cole makes clear in the thread below - the most successful recruiter of terrorists on the planet?
Alright, due to popular demand, I'm looking into doing the apparel thing. I've got an account created at Zazzle, where you can see my first shirt design (a very simple logo/url effort). You can choose from a bunch of shirt and color designs. You can also customize the shirts yourself adding cool messages and whatever.
I get 10 percent of every purchase, which won't amount to much. But whatever I make from this will get donated to progressive causes.
What I need from you guys is ideas for some killer slogans I can put on these shirts. I tried to come up with some but came up blank. I'm just not that creative.
I will also set up an account with Cafe Press to do coffee mugs and other such merchandise. But for shirts, my research indicated that Zazzle was the best option, the best quality.
Can there be any doubt that Bush is the best thing to ever happen to Osama Bin Laden?
A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.
In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.
He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan [...]
Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals." [...]
Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.
"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said.
"One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president."
The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick.
I'd be bitter too if I saw the noble and righteous hunt for the butcher of 3,000 Americans in New York and D.C. get off easy because the administration was too busy pursuing it's irrelevant war against Iraq. And then seeing that irrelevant and optional war mishandled to such a degree that 1) Al Qaida got an opportunity to catch a breather post-Afghanistan and reorganize, and 2) filled terrorism recruitment offices with a flood of new and willing recruits.
Osama Bin Laden's greatest fear has to be an America that will pursue a more enlightened approach toward fighting his minions -- a lethal mix of law enforcement, judicious use of military force, and the addressing of the root causes of terrorism. Things like poverty, the Palestinian issue, and our immoral support for repressive (but "friendly") regimes in places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt.
A key scene in Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, involves an uninterrupted, seven-minute segment of videotape of Bush's response in that Sarasota schoolroom after he learns of the attacks. Joel Achenbach wrote this article in today's WashPost about Bush's reaction.
While Atrios takes exception with Achenbach's reference to Bush as the "nation's spiritual leader," what I find more troubling is the suggestion -- as much from those quoted by Achenbach, though also in the way Achenbach frames the piece -- that Bush had but two options at that Sarasota school:
Remain calmly in his seat, to steady the nation and the world; or
Depart in some hair-on-fire panic (see Fred Greenstein's comments in the article) to manage the crisis, thereby frightening the nation...no less those few dozen Florida schoolchildren!
This is a false dichotomy.
Indeed, whatever else one might think of Rudy Giuliani or his service as NYC mayor, what Giuliani showed on 9/11 was that a leader can do both, i.e., calmly manage a crisis. And Rudy was literally at the center of the chaos itself. Besides, the nation was already watching on TV what Bush couldn't see as he sat there. How could Americans been any more worried had Bush excused himself and went to the phones immediately? And none of the children would have suffered permanent psychological damage had the president politely excused himself.
Here's Achenbach on what the president did once he left his seat, based on 9/11 Commission's final report:
Eventually, at the suggestion of an aide, Bush got up and went to a holding room. He spoke briefly to the vice president, his national security adviser, the governor of New York and the head of the FBI, according to the commission report. Then, the report states, Bush spent roughly 15 minutes working on what he'd say to the cameras at the elementary school. He was acting as Communicator in Chief, in a sense. With his senior aides, he worked on his lines. (emphasis added)
Yeah, in a sense.
This whole Bush-maintained-calm-to-prevent-national-panic explanation is pure bunk; it's myth-making at its best (or rather, worst). Says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley in Achenbach's piece:
"I don't understand how one sits there. I just don't. Minutes are an eternity in that sort of situation. . . . A quick presidential decision may save lives."
I think that's Moore's point. The only difference is that the filmmaker takes seven, long minutes to make it.
As a military strategery, it did more collateral damage than it won the war. As a political strategery, it's the topic of several mainstream media stories today (the Spring Offensive is over, because by Monday it'll be summer).
President Bush has spent seven of every $10 he has raised for his re-election campaign, more than half of it on television ads, and is asking supporters for more money.
Bush has collected at least $218 million since he began fund raising in May 2003, easily outpacing Democratic rival John Kerry. But Kerry raised about $25 million to Bush's $13 million in May as the president scaled back his record-setting drive to hold fund-raisers for other Republicans.
President Bush's re-election team drove up negative impressions of John Kerry during a relentless $80 million advertising campaign the last three months, but the Republicans failed to undercut the Democrat's standing as a viable alternative to Bush.
We know the Bushies are pausing to reload. And with the most recent Harris poll showing a Reagan bounce for Bush (undetected by Rasmussen beyond a tiny two day tracking poll blip on 6-11 and 6-12), and the general tone of the media at the end of the week more positive for Bush (McCain's endorsement, Putin weighing in on Iraq's threat to the US), give the week to Junior and move on to next week, with Farenheight 9/11 premiering, and the rest of the scandals including L'Affair Wilson continuing to percolate.
What seems clear is that when the media refuses to cover John Kerry for whatever reason (the mournathon, Clinton's book) he does worse, and the more coverage he gets, the better he does. That's one reason why the conventions become so important when running against the incumbent, and why Kerry's decision not to accept federal funds and spend his zorkmids on bio ads may have won him the election. It's an 'automatic' coverage situation, much like the Kerry VP choice will be. And that's coming soon as well.
Three months and $85 million after Mr. Bush began, pollsters and independent analysts said that while Mr. Bush had raised doubts about Mr. Kerry, he had not scored as much damage as some Democrats had feared — or some Republicans had anticipated — with this unusually expensive and early assault, particularly given the size of the investment and the use of Mr. Bush.
Our Alaskan warrior is basking in the love. 108 contributions and $4,299 as of five minutes ago. Quite the jump from the $1,603 total tallied yesterday.
Now I'm off to San Francisco to attend the SF opening of Margaret Cho's Revolution at the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. I love Margaret!
What you have to understand is this: Paul Johnson was a dead man when they took him. The Saudi version of Al Qaeda is especially hard core and vicious. They are not into concessions and general humanity. They are the outgrowth of a fundamentalist society riven with hypocrisy. Think about this, in a country where the religious police forced girls to burn alive rather than escape a fire in their school, these guys think that they have to make the country more fundamentalist.
But religion is only the mask for a change from the Saud family to the Bin Laden family. Al Qaeda may talk about some kind of Islamic revivalism, but their real goal is forced political change. Whereever democracy or even civility fails, AQ sprouts up as an answer.
And this is where the Bush Administration has failed. Instead of undermining AQ by forcing political change, they bolster these corrupt oligarchies and foster the growth of AQ as the solution to their political problems. Setting bombs is a lot more glamorous than canvassing for votes. And since the elections are rigged anyway it doesn't matter much. AQ is only an answer because the question is if you can accept more of the same.
It's horrible that people think they can solve their problems by murdering the innocent. Paul Johnson wasn't the problem. He wasn't going to make Saudi life better or worse. But his murder sends two messages, one, the Saudi version of AQ is a bunch of ruthless fucks who kill the innocent, and two, no one is safe in Saudi. As oil historian Daniel Yergin said "imagine if America was called Rockefeller America". Well, that's our ally of 70 years.
Our problematic relationship with the House of Saud has come under increasing fire from all sides of the ideological divide. This isn't a partisan issue. It's a common sensical one.
MoveOn's PAC is seeking House and Senate candidates to endorse. Head on over and nominate your favorite candidate. I'm guessing the endorsement is worth $5,000 up front (the PAC donation limit), plus promotion on the MoveOn list and website.
And while you're in a participatory mood, help draft Bruce Springsteen. A concert promoter has reserved Giants Stadium during the RNC convention, and hopes to stage "VoteAID: Concert for Change" to steal some of the GOP's thunder. If the promoters have their way, Bruce would take the stage the moment Bush was accepting his party's nomination.
Liberal bloggers are facing a snark shortage that may have serious implications in the coming months, experts say. Blog readers are being warned to expect rationing and long lines at their favorite liberal blogs -- and that some blogs may not make it through the current crisis.
Remember, these last two weeks are the most important for candidates on the bubble -- those that could be competitive, but need to show good numbers and strong support before the end of the quarter.
Those candidates that show unexpectedly strong numbers will be more likely to pick up additional support from the kind of people that can dump real money into a congressional race (hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars).
We have two more candidates to announce. The first of the two will be announced Monday, and the last (but not least) endorsement will be announced on Wednesday.
As for the last two, they are both in swing states. One is in the ultimate swing district -- the kind of seat many of you want, being targeted by everyone and their cousin, the other is more of a longshot (the type of seats I prefer). So we'll have something for everyone.
As for Knowles, let's send him some love. He's lagging a bit. They've even set up a nice landing page for us so that our contributions can be more accurately tracked.
This is otherwise an open thread. Feel free to complain about how annoying these fundraising drives have gotten.
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