Friday, October 15, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-marycheney15oct15,1,318880.story?coll=la-news-politics-national
THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
Kerry's Reference to Mary Cheney Hits a NerveBy James Rainey and Susannah RosenblattTimes Staff WritersOctober 15, 2004Long before John F. Kerry said as much in Wednesday night's presidential debate, Mary Cheney had been open about the fact that she is a lesbian.But by invoking the sexual orientation of the vice president's daughter, the Democratic candidate unleashed a rhetorical tempest on issues as diverse as the morality of gay marriage, the place of family members in political discourse and the roots of human sexuality.Anger among Bush campaign officials and supporters mounted Thursday as Cheney called himself "a pretty angry father" and Kerry "a man who will do and say anything to get elected." Lynne Cheney, his wife, said Kerry was "not a good man" and accused him of a "cheap and tawdry political trick."But Kerry and his supporters responded that Cheney had been first to discuss his daughter in relation to the issue of gay marriage, at a town hall in August. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, said the vehemence of Lynne Cheney's response "indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences."A number of gay rights activists said they thought many Republicans were betraying their discomfort with the issue. They pointed out that Mary Cheney had been open in political and business endeavors about her sexual identity for years."It's as if John Kerry had said Mary Cheney was an ax murderer or something," said Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights organization. "The response belies the fact that the extreme right thinks that it is a bad thing that Mary Cheney is gay."But Michele Ammons of the Christian Coalition of America, said the real outrage was Kerry's "infringement into a personal family matter.""I think this is going to snowball, and he's going to have to apologize."The controversy grew out of Kerry's response to a question by debate moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News. Schieffer told Kerry and President Bush that he understood they both opposed gay marriage but wondered how they arrived at that position. He asked: "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?"Bush responded, "I just don't know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America, and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity." He added that he had proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and woman because he was concerned that activist judges were defining marriage.Asked for his response, Kerry said: "We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was; she's being who she was born as. I think if you talked to anybody, it's not choice."Following the debate, television commentators across the political spectrum chastised Kerry as "out of bounds."Fox News analyst Morton Kondracke noted Wednesday that Edwards had a week earlier raised Mary Cheney's sexual orientation in his debate with Cheney. "Kerry repeated it tonight, which I think is totally underhanded," Kondracke said, calling the Democrat's statement "the outing of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter."Rich Bond, chairman of the Republican National Committee when Bush's father ran for reelection in 1992, said Kerry was "an utter lowlife for going after Mary Cheney like that.""I was watching the debate last night with 10 Republicans, and they were just stunned," Bond said.If Democrats wanted to drive conservatives away from the Republican ticket, Bond said, they instead had "the absolute opposite effect of pissing off Republicans like myself beyond belief."Campaign officials said that Mary Cheney had no intention of commenting on the matter.Campaigning in Las Vegas on Thursday, Kerry released a statement saying of the episode: "I love my daughters. They [the Cheneys] love their daughter. I was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue."Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball With Chris Matthews," Edwards said he and Kerry had tried to put "a personal face on an issue that has been used to divide this country."Several Democrats noted that it was Cheney who first spoke about his daughter, when he was asked in August about gay marriage at a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa. "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with," Cheney said, explaining that he opposed Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.Cheney also made no objection last week in the vice presidential debate when Edwards complimented his "wonderful" willingness to talk about his daughter's sexual orientation.Before joining her father's vice presidential campaign in 2000, Mary Cheney was the Coors beer company's liaison to gays and lesbians. She helped the company improve its image, getting Coors to provide financial support to a number of gay organizations and traveling to gay bars, where the brewery sponsored an "International Mr. Leather" competition.After her father was elected vice president, she joined the advisory board of the Republican Unity Coalition, a group that sought to make the party more tolerant toward gays and lesbians. "We can make sexual orientation a nonissue for the Republican Party, and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans," she said in a 2002 statement. She later left the organization.In the current campaign, the younger of the Cheneys' two daughters has served as director of vice presidential operations. She has been described as one of her father's closest political confidants.Still, the Denver-area resident and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, have tried to maintain a low public profile. The older Cheney daughter, Elizabeth, took to the stage along with her four children after the vice president's speech at the Republican National Convention. Mary Cheney, 35, and Poe applauded from their seats.White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said Kerry should have known his remark was "out of bounds." He added: "I think the public expects to have a vigorous debate on the issues, but leave the families out of it."Relatives of national candidates, in the past, have not been immune from the political debate. Nancy Reagan's extravagant White House style, including her taste for fine china and clothes, became an issue. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, has been taunted by some as a rich, out-of-touch patrician — although Bush and Cheney have kept their distance from such critiques."Normally your family's safe — they're protected. Every once in a while, [criticism] will extend to a first lady or a spouse," said Craig Smith, director of the Center for First Amendment Studies at Cal State Long Beach and a former GOP speechwriter. "That's where they draw the line. Going after kids is a totally different thing."Ellen Andersen, an assistant professor of political science at Indiana University-Purdue University, agreed that family members were generally off-limits."In this case, though, we're talking about someone who's a full-grown adult who is active in the campaign and is openly gay," said Andersen."This [controversy] is predicated on the fact that there are a number of Americans that think homosexuality is shameful."Leaders of several gay rights organizations commended Kerry for his comments."We saw John Kerry put a human face on what it means for someone to be gay," said Jacques of the 600,000-member Human Rights Campaign. "I believe he did so with great sensitivity and humanity in talking about gay Americans having the same rights, responsibilities and protections as every other American."The dissent over Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney obscured what ultimately might be a more provocative statement: his position that sexual orientation is a given at birth.While that contention is a matter of considerable research and remains unsettled, the near consensus in the scientific community is that sexuality "is not a matter of voluntary choice," said Fred Berlin, associate professor of clinical psychiatry and an expert on human sexuality at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine."You don't decide that; you … discover that," he said.Berlin said the vast weight of evidence pointed away from sexual identity being based on conscious choice."Even if it is early life experience, which is nurture," Berlin said, "it's still not a matter of a little child weighing their options and then deciding."*Times staff writers Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.
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ballot boxTruth Standard
The most amazing quote of the 2004 campaign.By William SaletanPosted Friday, Oct. 15, 2004, at 6:52 AM PT
Two weeks ago, when President Bush accused John Kerry of subjecting American national security decisions to a "global test," I reviewed Kerry's words and found that Bush had misunderstood them. The test, as Kerry defined it, had two parts. First, it was a test of evidence, not moral opinion. Second, since evidence is a universal standard, Americans were among the people administering the test. In other words, the test was simply the measurement of the president's and vice president's assertions—about weapons of mass destruction, for example, or about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida—against reality.
Bush rejected this test. "The president's job is not to take an international poll," he said at the time. "Our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals." By reserving all decisions for the Oval Office—not for the American public—and by dismissing demands for evidence as an "international poll," Bush was refusing to measure his claims and decisions against the truth. Or so I argued.
I don't have to argue the point anymore, because last night, Bush confirmed it. Here's what he said at a rally in Oregon, according to a White House transcript:
Once again, last night, with a straight face, the senator said—well, shall we say, refined his answer on his proposed global test. That's the test he would administer before defending America. After trying to say it really wasn't a test at all, last night he once again defended his approach, saying, I think it makes sense. (Laughter.) The senator now says we'd have to pass some international truth standard. The truth is we should never turn America's national security decisions over to international bodies or leaders of other countries. (Applause.)
You heard that right. The president explicitly refuses "to pass some international truth standard." Because evidence is the fundamental test applied in France as well as in the United States, Bush thinks he shouldn't have to back up his claims or decisions with evidence.
He couldn't really be saying that, could he?
Again, let's look at the words to which Bush was responding. In Wednesday's debate, when Bush ridiculed the "global test," Kerry repeated his definition of the test. "I will never turn the security of the United States over to any nation. No nation will ever have a veto over us," said Kerry. "But I think it makes sense—I think most Americans in their guts know—that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard. That's how you gain legitimacy with your own countrypeople, and that's how you gain legitimacy in the world."
This is the second time Kerry has defined the test. Each time, he has made clear that it's a test of evidence, not opinion, and that Americans, "your own countrypeople," are the first people to whom the evidence must be shown.
When Bush replied last night that he refuses to pass this "truth standard," there's really no other way to interpret his position. He's saying that he doesn't have to show you any evidence, because evidence is the sort of thing a Frenchman would ask for.
I know I've been hard on the president lately. I'd like to say something nice about him. I'd like to be "fair and balanced." But my first responsibility as a reporter is to the truth. When one candidate tells half the truth, and the other says the truth doesn't matter, it becomes irresponsible for me or any other journalist not to report that by that standard—the standard of respecting the truth standard—one candidate is head and shoulders above the other.William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108251/
The most amazing quote of the 2004 campaign.By William SaletanPosted Friday, Oct. 15, 2004, at 6:52 AM PT
Two weeks ago, when President Bush accused John Kerry of subjecting American national security decisions to a "global test," I reviewed Kerry's words and found that Bush had misunderstood them. The test, as Kerry defined it, had two parts. First, it was a test of evidence, not moral opinion. Second, since evidence is a universal standard, Americans were among the people administering the test. In other words, the test was simply the measurement of the president's and vice president's assertions—about weapons of mass destruction, for example, or about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida—against reality.
Bush rejected this test. "The president's job is not to take an international poll," he said at the time. "Our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals." By reserving all decisions for the Oval Office—not for the American public—and by dismissing demands for evidence as an "international poll," Bush was refusing to measure his claims and decisions against the truth. Or so I argued.
I don't have to argue the point anymore, because last night, Bush confirmed it. Here's what he said at a rally in Oregon, according to a White House transcript:
Once again, last night, with a straight face, the senator said—well, shall we say, refined his answer on his proposed global test. That's the test he would administer before defending America. After trying to say it really wasn't a test at all, last night he once again defended his approach, saying, I think it makes sense. (Laughter.) The senator now says we'd have to pass some international truth standard. The truth is we should never turn America's national security decisions over to international bodies or leaders of other countries. (Applause.)
You heard that right. The president explicitly refuses "to pass some international truth standard." Because evidence is the fundamental test applied in France as well as in the United States, Bush thinks he shouldn't have to back up his claims or decisions with evidence.
He couldn't really be saying that, could he?
Again, let's look at the words to which Bush was responding. In Wednesday's debate, when Bush ridiculed the "global test," Kerry repeated his definition of the test. "I will never turn the security of the United States over to any nation. No nation will ever have a veto over us," said Kerry. "But I think it makes sense—I think most Americans in their guts know—that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard. That's how you gain legitimacy with your own countrypeople, and that's how you gain legitimacy in the world."
This is the second time Kerry has defined the test. Each time, he has made clear that it's a test of evidence, not opinion, and that Americans, "your own countrypeople," are the first people to whom the evidence must be shown.
When Bush replied last night that he refuses to pass this "truth standard," there's really no other way to interpret his position. He's saying that he doesn't have to show you any evidence, because evidence is the sort of thing a Frenchman would ask for.
I know I've been hard on the president lately. I'd like to say something nice about him. I'd like to be "fair and balanced." But my first responsibility as a reporter is to the truth. When one candidate tells half the truth, and the other says the truth doesn't matter, it becomes irresponsible for me or any other journalist not to report that by that standard—the standard of respecting the truth standard—one candidate is head and shoulders above the other.William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108251/
net electionGoogle for PresidentWhy the campaigns should advertise in your search results.By Steven JohnsonPosted Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004, at 3:43 PM PT
Over the past two years, Internet fund raising has changed the way campaigns raise cash. But when it comes to how George W. Bush and John Kerry have been spending that money online, it might as well be 1996. A report issued by the Pew Internet and American Life project a few weeks ago revealed, unsurprisingly, that the campaigns have spent 100 times more money on TV commercials than Web ads. The more startling news was the kind of online ads they'd been purchasing: banners on media sites like Newsweek, SFGate.com, and, yes, Slate. The great bulk of these ads have all the nuance of a garish bumper sticker: a picture of the candidate; a little red, white, and blue; and the usual banal slogan about building a better America.
If there are any campaign advisers reading this, I've got an insider tip: There's this hot new company called Google. The search engine has made quite a bit of money by selling little text ads that are targeted to specific search requests. If you're selling wool underwear, for instance, you can tell Google to limit your ad exclusively to people who have typed "wool underwear" as their search query. Instead of casting a huge net and hoping against hope that you catch a few people who might be interested in wool underwear, you can filter out all the cotton-underwear shoppers out there, not to mention all the people who aren't interested in underwear at all.
For at least a year now, this targeted keyword model (called AdWords, in Google's parlance) is all anybody has been talking about in the online ad world. So, why are the campaigns running banners that look like they should be on the Netscape "What's Cool" page? Perhaps consultants have ignored AdWords because a search for John Kerry or George Bush already delivers you to the campaign Web sites via Google's traditional non-advertising search results. Why pay when you're already getting the promotion for free? But the campaigns shouldn't just be trying to lure people who want to learn more about their candidate. They should be using Google to attract people who are searching for information about themselves.
Politicians must be driven by two big-picture concerns: finding out what voters want and tailoring their message to respond to those needs. The old-fashioned approach to political advertising is to interrupt someone who's doing what they want in the hope that this interruption makes some kind of positive impression. Someone watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns in Cleveland probably isn't doing so to make a more informed decision in November, even if the commercial breaks are full of campaign ads.
On the other hand, a Web surfer who types "stem-cell research" into Google is, by definition, interested in learning more about stem-cell research. The Kerry campaign already has a page devoted exclusively to the candidate's embrace of stem-cell research—why not put that page in front of anyone and everyone who queries Google on the topic? Right now, someone who types in "stem-cell research" has to wade through 23 results (and three pages) to get to Kerry's site. Because the AdWords program uses a cost-per-click model, the campaign would even be getting a secondary audience filter: not just people interested in stem-cell research, but people interested in Kerry's position on the issue. (The cost of an AdWords term varies dramatically based on the popularity of the word or phrase, but let's assume, for a back-of-the-envelope calculation, that each click costs a dollar. An extended ad buy, delivering a million interested voters to information that they themselves have sought out, would cost less than 1 percent of a campaign's overall media budget.)
The possibilities for this kind of targeted advertising are endless. Want to refine your search by class and region? Buy "employment Ohio" and "hurricane relief." Want to go after swing voters? How about buying, say, "swing voters"? A bit of research suggests that both "soccer mom" and "security mom" are wide open, as is "global test." Google apparently has a policy that bans ads that include "language that advocates against an individual, group or organization"—so attack ads won't fly. But the Google advertising department assured me that the kind of issue ads we're talking about here wouldn't violate their standard guidelines.
One final word of advice for the consultants: Whatever you do, don't direct people to the front door of your campaign Web sites. Someone looking for information on global warming wants to go straight to a page on global warming. If they wanted to hear about building a safer world and a more hopeful America, they could just stick with Everybody Loves Raymond.Steven Johnson is the author of Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108170/
Over the past two years, Internet fund raising has changed the way campaigns raise cash. But when it comes to how George W. Bush and John Kerry have been spending that money online, it might as well be 1996. A report issued by the Pew Internet and American Life project a few weeks ago revealed, unsurprisingly, that the campaigns have spent 100 times more money on TV commercials than Web ads. The more startling news was the kind of online ads they'd been purchasing: banners on media sites like Newsweek, SFGate.com, and, yes, Slate. The great bulk of these ads have all the nuance of a garish bumper sticker: a picture of the candidate; a little red, white, and blue; and the usual banal slogan about building a better America.
If there are any campaign advisers reading this, I've got an insider tip: There's this hot new company called Google. The search engine has made quite a bit of money by selling little text ads that are targeted to specific search requests. If you're selling wool underwear, for instance, you can tell Google to limit your ad exclusively to people who have typed "wool underwear" as their search query. Instead of casting a huge net and hoping against hope that you catch a few people who might be interested in wool underwear, you can filter out all the cotton-underwear shoppers out there, not to mention all the people who aren't interested in underwear at all.
For at least a year now, this targeted keyword model (called AdWords, in Google's parlance) is all anybody has been talking about in the online ad world. So, why are the campaigns running banners that look like they should be on the Netscape "What's Cool" page? Perhaps consultants have ignored AdWords because a search for John Kerry or George Bush already delivers you to the campaign Web sites via Google's traditional non-advertising search results. Why pay when you're already getting the promotion for free? But the campaigns shouldn't just be trying to lure people who want to learn more about their candidate. They should be using Google to attract people who are searching for information about themselves.
Politicians must be driven by two big-picture concerns: finding out what voters want and tailoring their message to respond to those needs. The old-fashioned approach to political advertising is to interrupt someone who's doing what they want in the hope that this interruption makes some kind of positive impression. Someone watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns in Cleveland probably isn't doing so to make a more informed decision in November, even if the commercial breaks are full of campaign ads.
On the other hand, a Web surfer who types "stem-cell research" into Google is, by definition, interested in learning more about stem-cell research. The Kerry campaign already has a page devoted exclusively to the candidate's embrace of stem-cell research—why not put that page in front of anyone and everyone who queries Google on the topic? Right now, someone who types in "stem-cell research" has to wade through 23 results (and three pages) to get to Kerry's site. Because the AdWords program uses a cost-per-click model, the campaign would even be getting a secondary audience filter: not just people interested in stem-cell research, but people interested in Kerry's position on the issue. (The cost of an AdWords term varies dramatically based on the popularity of the word or phrase, but let's assume, for a back-of-the-envelope calculation, that each click costs a dollar. An extended ad buy, delivering a million interested voters to information that they themselves have sought out, would cost less than 1 percent of a campaign's overall media budget.)
The possibilities for this kind of targeted advertising are endless. Want to refine your search by class and region? Buy "employment Ohio" and "hurricane relief." Want to go after swing voters? How about buying, say, "swing voters"? A bit of research suggests that both "soccer mom" and "security mom" are wide open, as is "global test." Google apparently has a policy that bans ads that include "language that advocates against an individual, group or organization"—so attack ads won't fly. But the Google advertising department assured me that the kind of issue ads we're talking about here wouldn't violate their standard guidelines.
One final word of advice for the consultants: Whatever you do, don't direct people to the front door of your campaign Web sites. Someone looking for information on global warming wants to go straight to a page on global warming. If they wanted to hear about building a safer world and a more hopeful America, they could just stick with Everybody Loves Raymond.Steven Johnson is the author of Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108170/
In the ZoneBy Eric UmanskyPosted Friday, Oct. 15, 2004, at 12:55 AM PT
The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox, and New York Times lead with yesterday's two bombings inside the Green Zone, which killed six people, including four American security contractors, and wounded about 20. It was the first major attack inside the guarded area apart from rockets and mortars. Two GIs were also killed in separate attacks. USA Today fronts the bombings and leads with complaints in some key states about voter fraud and intimidation. In Nevada, employees of one firm hired by the GOP to register voters said they were told to toss out forms filled out by Democrats. The Washington Post, which goes inside with a GAO report saying the Justice Dept. is unprepared for the potential flood of election-day complaints, leads with a campaign catch-all: "RIVALS GEAR UP FOR FINAL PUSH."
One Iraqi witness sat next to the two apparent suicide bombers and heard them speaking with Jordanian accents. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, which originated in Jordan, as usual claimed responsibility for the attacks.
There have been signs for weeks of deteriorating security in the Green Zone. A bomb was found last week in the same restaurant where one exploded yesterday. One Iraqi told the papers (in what seems to have been a group interview) that security has gone down ever since Iraqi guards took over some responsibility at checkpoints. Friday was the first day of Ramadan, and officials said they say they expect a surge in attacks during the holiday.
Continue Article
Most of the papers mention there were increased airstrikes and artillery strikes on targets in Fallujah, including what the military says was a "key planning center" for Zarqawi. The so-called insurgents' council in town has suspended peace negotiations, saying they won't or can't comply with the demand to turn over Zarqawi and other foreign fighters. "Zarqawi does not exist in Fallujah," said a council spokesman.
The NYT's James Glanz went on raids with Marines south of Baghdad and notices a new trend: Again and again whole villages were empty, with signs people left right before the Marines arrived. "Something happened," said one sergeant. "They knew we were coming."
The LAT says the Pentagon is planning to promote the former top commander in Iraq who was in charge while the abuses were happening at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Two unnamed defense officials told the paper that SecDef Rumsfeld and other top officials have been talking about the promotion. An independent panel concluded that Gen. Ricardo Sanchez wasn't directly "culpable" but is "responsible" for doing a poor job overseeing the prison system and not laying down clear interrogation rules.
The Post mentions inside that the top intel officer in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib abuses, who was also criticized by the panel (though not blamed in other reports), has just been praised by her superior. He said she should be put in charge of the Army's intel school as planned.
The NYT off-leads and LAT fronts New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer filing suit against the country's largest insurance broker, Marsh Inc., accusing it of fixing prices and accepting kickbacks. Spitzer said he's going to go after more than Marsh. "Virtually every line of insurance is implicated,'' he said. "There will be numerous criminal and civil cases."
The LAT and NYT front researchers saying they've found a vaccine for malaria, though it's only moderately effective and more studies need to be done. About one million people die from malaria annually.
A Page One piece in the NYT reminds that Ralph Nader is still getting enough support to potentially swing some key states. The Times doesn't mention another candidate who is actually on more ballots and is drawing similar numbers in some states: Libertarian Michael Badnarik.
The NYT fronts a federal panel concluding that contrary to previous studies, neurological problems suffered by Gulf War I vets have probably been caused by exposure to chemicals during the war.
Another bad plan ... From a letter to the NYT by Steven Lubet:
In the final presidential debate, President Bush announced that he is not going to get a flu shot. That was an egalitarian gesture, but it showed astonishingly poor judgment.
Influenza can be debilitating, and the president's health—as our chief executive and commander in chief—is a national priority.
As an active campaigner, Mr. Bush must shake hundreds of hands each day, which puts him at even higher than usual risk. Both Republicans and Democrats will benefit from a president who is vigorous and clear-headed rather than one who is bedridden with the flu.
Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at
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The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox, and New York Times lead with yesterday's two bombings inside the Green Zone, which killed six people, including four American security contractors, and wounded about 20. It was the first major attack inside the guarded area apart from rockets and mortars. Two GIs were also killed in separate attacks. USA Today fronts the bombings and leads with complaints in some key states about voter fraud and intimidation. In Nevada, employees of one firm hired by the GOP to register voters said they were told to toss out forms filled out by Democrats. The Washington Post, which goes inside with a GAO report saying the Justice Dept. is unprepared for the potential flood of election-day complaints, leads with a campaign catch-all: "RIVALS GEAR UP FOR FINAL PUSH."
One Iraqi witness sat next to the two apparent suicide bombers and heard them speaking with Jordanian accents. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, which originated in Jordan, as usual claimed responsibility for the attacks.
There have been signs for weeks of deteriorating security in the Green Zone. A bomb was found last week in the same restaurant where one exploded yesterday. One Iraqi told the papers (in what seems to have been a group interview) that security has gone down ever since Iraqi guards took over some responsibility at checkpoints. Friday was the first day of Ramadan, and officials said they say they expect a surge in attacks during the holiday.
Continue Article
Most of the papers mention there were increased airstrikes and artillery strikes on targets in Fallujah, including what the military says was a "key planning center" for Zarqawi. The so-called insurgents' council in town has suspended peace negotiations, saying they won't or can't comply with the demand to turn over Zarqawi and other foreign fighters. "Zarqawi does not exist in Fallujah," said a council spokesman.
The NYT's James Glanz went on raids with Marines south of Baghdad and notices a new trend: Again and again whole villages were empty, with signs people left right before the Marines arrived. "Something happened," said one sergeant. "They knew we were coming."
The LAT says the Pentagon is planning to promote the former top commander in Iraq who was in charge while the abuses were happening at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Two unnamed defense officials told the paper that SecDef Rumsfeld and other top officials have been talking about the promotion. An independent panel concluded that Gen. Ricardo Sanchez wasn't directly "culpable" but is "responsible" for doing a poor job overseeing the prison system and not laying down clear interrogation rules.
The Post mentions inside that the top intel officer in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib abuses, who was also criticized by the panel (though not blamed in other reports), has just been praised by her superior. He said she should be put in charge of the Army's intel school as planned.
The NYT off-leads and LAT fronts New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer filing suit against the country's largest insurance broker, Marsh Inc., accusing it of fixing prices and accepting kickbacks. Spitzer said he's going to go after more than Marsh. "Virtually every line of insurance is implicated,'' he said. "There will be numerous criminal and civil cases."
The LAT and NYT front researchers saying they've found a vaccine for malaria, though it's only moderately effective and more studies need to be done. About one million people die from malaria annually.
A Page One piece in the NYT reminds that Ralph Nader is still getting enough support to potentially swing some key states. The Times doesn't mention another candidate who is actually on more ballots and is drawing similar numbers in some states: Libertarian Michael Badnarik.
The NYT fronts a federal panel concluding that contrary to previous studies, neurological problems suffered by Gulf War I vets have probably been caused by exposure to chemicals during the war.
Another bad plan ... From a letter to the NYT by Steven Lubet:
In the final presidential debate, President Bush announced that he is not going to get a flu shot. That was an egalitarian gesture, but it showed astonishingly poor judgment.
Influenza can be debilitating, and the president's health—as our chief executive and commander in chief—is a national priority.
As an active campaigner, Mr. Bush must shake hundreds of hands each day, which puts him at even higher than usual risk. Both Republicans and Democrats will benefit from a president who is vigorous and clear-headed rather than one who is bedridden with the flu.
Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at
document.write("")
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todayspapers@hotmail.com
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Oil Hits Record $55 on Winter Fuel Fears
Fri Oct 15, 4:01 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil hit $55 a barrel on Friday as traders worried over thin heating oil inventories ahead of winter and Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) predicted the soaring costs would not crimp economic growth as they did in the 1970s.
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U.S. light crude settled up 17 cents to $54.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after setting a new all-time high of $55 during the regular session. London Brent eased 16 cents to $49.93 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
"So long as supply-demand fundamentals remain tight and inventories remain low, prices will stay strong or strengthen," said London energy consultant Geoff Pyne. "High prices have had little effect on demand so far."
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, while warning of more serious risks if oil prices were to move "materially higher," said he did not see current levels inflicting the kind of pain on economic growth seen in the 1970s.
"The impact of the current surge in oil prices, though noticeable, is likely to prove less consequential to economic growth and inflation than in the 1970s," Greenspan told a conference in Washington, adding that over the long haul technology and the transition to alternative energy sources will ensure the world's oil supply met demand.
"In one sense, comments of this nature are just begging the market to spike even higher. If $40 and $45 and $50 didn't hurt, well gee, how about $60? Let's go see," said Tim Evans, senior oil analyst at IFR-Pegasus.
Oil has risen $20 in less than four months, lately spurred on by a U.S. production outage in the Gulf of Mexico that has exacerbated a global shortage of light, low-sulfur crude, which is easy to refine for transport and heating fuels.
About 462,000 barrels per day of crude production, or 27 percent, remains shut more than a month after Hurricane Ivan disrupted oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Some fields are expected to remain shut beyond the end of the year, the U.S. government's resource agency said this week.
The shortfall has impeded refiners' ability to build up U.S. heating oil stocks, which at 50 million barrels are 10 percent below last year, weekly government data showed on Thursday.
U.S. heating oil futures set a record of $1.5520 a gallon on Friday, before settling at $1.5491 a gallon.
Heating oil supplies in the U.S. Central Atlantic region, a major distribution point for the heavy consuming U.S. Northeast, are running well below average.
"If, indeed, heating oil inventories have peaked for this key region, then there is little likelihood that heating oil prices will ease significantly this winter," the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.
The shortage is also evident in other major regions, with consumers in Germany, Europe's biggest market, keeping supplies of heating oil well below last year due to high prices.
German end-user tanks were only 60 percent full at the start of this month versus 68 percent last year, traders said, while in Japan, the world's third-biggest energy user, kerosene supplies are more than 15 percent below last year.
As fears of a winter fuel squeeze dominate traders' near-term perspective, some see signs emerging that China's massive oil thirst -- a major factor in this year's price spike -- could slacken as the government moves to prevent the booming economy from overheating.
Double-digit oil demand growth from China, now the world's second-biggest importer, took the world by surprise this year, stretching OPEC (news - web sites) supplies to the limit.
The International Energy Agency said this week that increased costs were encouraging conservation measures in China and fuel switching away from oil.
But high prices appear to have done little so far to deter demand from the fast-growing Indian economy.
State Indian Oil Corp. said on Friday its crude imports in the fiscal year 2005-2006 were likely to rise 12 percent to 37 million tonnes. India's crude imports so far in the fiscal year from April to end-September are up 7 percent at 16 million tonnes.
Fri Oct 15, 4:01 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil hit $55 a barrel on Friday as traders worried over thin heating oil inventories ahead of winter and Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) predicted the soaring costs would not crimp economic growth as they did in the 1970s.
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U.S. light crude settled up 17 cents to $54.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after setting a new all-time high of $55 during the regular session. London Brent eased 16 cents to $49.93 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
"So long as supply-demand fundamentals remain tight and inventories remain low, prices will stay strong or strengthen," said London energy consultant Geoff Pyne. "High prices have had little effect on demand so far."
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, while warning of more serious risks if oil prices were to move "materially higher," said he did not see current levels inflicting the kind of pain on economic growth seen in the 1970s.
"The impact of the current surge in oil prices, though noticeable, is likely to prove less consequential to economic growth and inflation than in the 1970s," Greenspan told a conference in Washington, adding that over the long haul technology and the transition to alternative energy sources will ensure the world's oil supply met demand.
"In one sense, comments of this nature are just begging the market to spike even higher. If $40 and $45 and $50 didn't hurt, well gee, how about $60? Let's go see," said Tim Evans, senior oil analyst at IFR-Pegasus.
Oil has risen $20 in less than four months, lately spurred on by a U.S. production outage in the Gulf of Mexico that has exacerbated a global shortage of light, low-sulfur crude, which is easy to refine for transport and heating fuels.
About 462,000 barrels per day of crude production, or 27 percent, remains shut more than a month after Hurricane Ivan disrupted oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Some fields are expected to remain shut beyond the end of the year, the U.S. government's resource agency said this week.
The shortfall has impeded refiners' ability to build up U.S. heating oil stocks, which at 50 million barrels are 10 percent below last year, weekly government data showed on Thursday.
U.S. heating oil futures set a record of $1.5520 a gallon on Friday, before settling at $1.5491 a gallon.
Heating oil supplies in the U.S. Central Atlantic region, a major distribution point for the heavy consuming U.S. Northeast, are running well below average.
"If, indeed, heating oil inventories have peaked for this key region, then there is little likelihood that heating oil prices will ease significantly this winter," the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.
The shortage is also evident in other major regions, with consumers in Germany, Europe's biggest market, keeping supplies of heating oil well below last year due to high prices.
German end-user tanks were only 60 percent full at the start of this month versus 68 percent last year, traders said, while in Japan, the world's third-biggest energy user, kerosene supplies are more than 15 percent below last year.
As fears of a winter fuel squeeze dominate traders' near-term perspective, some see signs emerging that China's massive oil thirst -- a major factor in this year's price spike -- could slacken as the government moves to prevent the booming economy from overheating.
Double-digit oil demand growth from China, now the world's second-biggest importer, took the world by surprise this year, stretching OPEC (news - web sites) supplies to the limit.
The International Energy Agency said this week that increased costs were encouraging conservation measures in China and fuel switching away from oil.
But high prices appear to have done little so far to deter demand from the fast-growing Indian economy.
State Indian Oil Corp. said on Friday its crude imports in the fiscal year 2005-2006 were likely to rise 12 percent to 37 million tonnes. India's crude imports so far in the fiscal year from April to end-September are up 7 percent at 16 million tonnes.
Friday October 15, 2004The Guardian Since the attacks on the United States in September 2001, there have been more than a thousand references in British national newspapers, working out at almost one every single day, to the phrase "dirty bomb". There have been articles about how such a device can use ordinary explosives to spread lethal radiation; about how London would be evacuated in the event of such a detonation; about the Home Secretary David Blunkett's statement on terrorism in November 2002 that specifically raised the possibility of a dirty bomb being planted in Britain; and about the arrests of several groups of people, the latest only last month, for allegedly plotting exactly that.
Starting next Wednesday, BBC2 is to broadcast a three-part documentary series that will add further to what could be called the dirty bomb genre. But, as its title suggests, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear takes a different view of the weapon's potential.
"I don't think it would kill anybody," says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. "You'll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise." The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, "and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose [of radiation], not life-threatening." And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
Adam Curtis, who wrote and produced the series, acknowledges the difficulty of saying such things now. "If a bomb goes off, the fear I have is that everyone will say, 'You're completely wrong,' even if the incident doesn't touch my argument. This shows the way we have all become trapped, the way even I have become trapped by a fear that is completely irrational."
So controversial is the tone of his series, that trailers for it were not broadcast last weekend because of the killing of Kenneth Bigley. At the BBC, Curtis freely admits, there are "anxieties". But there is also enthusiasm for the programmes, in part thanks to his reputation. Over the past dozen years, via similarly ambitious documentary series such as Pandora's Box, The Mayfair Set and The Century of the Self, Curtis has established himself as perhaps the most acclaimed maker of serious television programmes in Britain. His trademarks are long research, the revelatory use of archive footage, telling interviews, and smooth, insistent voiceovers concerned with the unnoticed deeper currents of recent history, narrated by Curtis himself in tones that combine traditional BBC authority with something more modern and sceptical: "I want to try to make people look at things they think they know about in a new way."
The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Curtis' evidence for these assertions is not easily dismissed. He tells the story of Islamism, or the desire to establish Islam as an unbreakable political framework, as half a century of mostly failed, short-lived revolutions and spectacular but politically ineffective terrorism. Curtis points out that al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001, when the American government decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence and had to use anti-Mafia laws that required the existence of a named criminal organisation.
Curtis also cites the Home Office's own statistics for arrests and convictions of suspected terrorists since September 11 2001. Of the 664 people detained up to the end of last month, only 17 have been found guilty. Of these, the majority were Irish Republicans, Sikh militants or members of other groups with no connection to Islamist terrorism. Nobody has been convicted who is a proven member of al-Qaida.
In fact, Curtis is not alone in wondering about all this. Quietly but increasingly, other observers of the war on terror have been having similar doubts. "The grand concept of the war has not succeeded," says Jonathan Eyal, director of the British military thinktank the Royal United Services Institute. "In purely military terms, it has been an inconclusive war ... a rather haphazard operation. Al-Qaida managed the most spectacular attack, but clearly it is also being sustained by the way that we rather cavalierly stick the name al-Qaida on Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines. There is a long tradition that if you divert all your resources to a threat, then you exaggerate it."
Bill Durodie, director of the international centre for security analysis at King's College London, says: "The reality [of the al-Qaida threat to the west] has been essentially a one-off. There has been one incident in the developed world since 9/11 [the Madrid bombings]. There's no real evidence that all these groups are connected." Crispin Black, a senior government intelligence analyst until 2002, is more cautious but admits the terrorist threat presented by politicians and the media is "out of date and too one-dimensional. We think there is a bit of a gulf between the terrorists' ambition and their ability to pull it off."
Terrorism, by definition, depends on an element of bluff. Yet ever since terrorists in the modern sense of the term (the word terrorism was actually coined to describe the strategy of a government, the authoritarian French revolutionary regime of the 1790s) began to assassinate politicians and then members of the public during the 19th century, states have habitually overreacted. Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford, says that governments often believe struggles with terrorists "to be of absolute cosmic significance", and that therefore "anything goes" when it comes to winning. The historian Linda Colley adds: "States and their rulers expect to monopolise violence, and that is why they react so virulently to terrorism."
Britain may also be particularly sensitive to foreign infiltrators, fifth columnists and related menaces. In spite, or perhaps because of, the absence of an actual invasion for many centuries, British history is marked by frequent panics about the arrival of Spanish raiding parties, French revolutionary agitators, anarchists, bolsheviks and Irish terrorists. "These kind of panics rarely happen without some sort of cause," says Colley. "But politicians make the most of them."
They are not the only ones who find opportunities. "Almost no one questions this myth about al-Qaida because so many people have got an interest in keeping it alive," says Curtis. He cites the suspiciously circular relationship between the security services and much of the media since September 2001: the way in which official briefings about terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become dramatic press stories which - in a jittery media-driven democracy - have prompted further briefings and further stories. Few of these ominous announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless: "There is no fact-checking about al-Qaida."
In one sense, of course, Curtis himself is part of the al-Qaida industry. The Power of Nightmares began as an investigation of something else, the rise of modern American conservatism. Curtis was interested in Leo Strauss, a political philosopher at the university of Chicago in the 50s who rejected the liberalism of postwar America as amoral and who thought that the country could be rescued by a revived belief in America's unique role to battle evil in the world. Strauss's certainty and his emphasis on the use of grand myths as a higher form of political propaganda created a group of influential disciples such as Paul Wolfowitz, now the US deputy defence secretary. They came to prominence by talking up the Russian threat during the cold war and have applied a similar strategy in the war on terror.
As Curtis traced the rise of the "Straussians", he came to a conclusion that would form the basis for The Power of Nightmares. Straussian conservatism had a previously unsuspected amount in common with Islamism: from origins in the 50s, to a formative belief that liberalism was the enemy, to an actual period of Islamist-Straussian collaboration against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan in the 80s (both movements have proved adept at finding new foes to keep them going). Although the Islamists and the Straussians have fallen out since then, as the attacks on America in 2001 graphically demonstrated, they are in another way, Curtis concludes, collaborating still: in sustaining the "fantasy" of the war on terror.
Some may find all this difficult to swallow. But Curtis insists,"There is no way that I'm trying to be controversial just for the sake of it." Neither is he trying to be an anti-conservative polemicist like Michael Moore: "[Moore's] purpose is avowedly political. My hope is that you won't be able to tell what my politics are." For all the dizzying ideas and visual jolts and black jokes in his programmes, Curtis describes his intentions in sober, civic-minded terms. "If you go back into history and plod through it, the myth falls away. You see that these aren't terrifying new monsters. It's drawing the poison of the fear."
But whatever the reception of the series, this fear could be around for a while. It took the British government decades to dismantle the draconian laws it passed against French revolutionary infiltrators; the cold war was sustained for almost half a century without Russia invading the west, or even conclusive evidence that it ever intended to. "The archives have been opened," says the cold war historian David Caute, "but they don't bring evidence to bear on this." And the danger from Islamist terrorists, whatever its scale, is concrete. A sceptical observer of the war on terror in the British security services says: "All they need is a big bomb every 18 months to keep this going."
The war on terror already has a hold on western political culture. "After a 300-year debate between freedom of the individual and protection of society, the protection of society seems to be the only priority," says Eyal. Black agrees: "We are probably moving to a point in the UK where national security becomes the electoral question."
Some critics of this situation see our striking susceptibility during the 90s to other anxieties - the millennium bug, MMR, genetically modified food - as a sort of dress rehearsal for the war on terror. The press became accustomed to publishing scare stories and not retracting them; politicians became accustomed to responding to supposed threats rather than questioning them; the public became accustomed to the idea that some sort of apocalypse might be just around the corner. "Insecurity is the key driving concept of our times," says Durodie. "Politicians have packaged themselves as risk managers. There is also a demand from below for protection." The real reason for this insecurity, he argues, is the decay of the 20th century's political belief systems and social structures: people have been left "disconnected" and "fearful".
Yet the notion that "security politics" is the perfect instrument for every ambitious politician from Blunkett to Wolfowitz also has its weaknesses. The fears of the public, in Britain at least, are actually quite erratic: when the opinion pollsters Mori asked people what they felt was the most important political issue, the figure for "defence and foreign affairs" leapt from 2% to 60% after the attacks of September 2001, yet by January 2002 had fallen back almost to its earlier level. And then there are the twin risks that the terrors politicians warn of will either not materialise or will materialise all too brutally, and in both cases the politicians will be blamed. "This is a very rickety platform from which to build up a political career," says Eyal. He sees the war on terror as a hurried improvisation rather than some grand Straussian strategy: "In democracies, in order to galvanize the public for war, you have to make the enemy bigger, uglier and more menacing."
Afterwards, I look at a website for a well-connected American foreign policy lobbying group called the Committee on the Present Danger. The committee features in The Power of Nightmares as a vehicle for alarmist Straussian propaganda during the cold war. After the Soviet collapse, as the website puts it, "The mission of the committee was considered complete." But then the website goes on: "Today radical Islamists threaten the safety of the American people. Like the cold war, securing our freedom is a long-term struggle. The road to victory begins ... "
· The Power of Nightmares starts on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday October 20.
Starting next Wednesday, BBC2 is to broadcast a three-part documentary series that will add further to what could be called the dirty bomb genre. But, as its title suggests, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear takes a different view of the weapon's potential.
"I don't think it would kill anybody," says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. "You'll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise." The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, "and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose [of radiation], not life-threatening." And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
Adam Curtis, who wrote and produced the series, acknowledges the difficulty of saying such things now. "If a bomb goes off, the fear I have is that everyone will say, 'You're completely wrong,' even if the incident doesn't touch my argument. This shows the way we have all become trapped, the way even I have become trapped by a fear that is completely irrational."
So controversial is the tone of his series, that trailers for it were not broadcast last weekend because of the killing of Kenneth Bigley. At the BBC, Curtis freely admits, there are "anxieties". But there is also enthusiasm for the programmes, in part thanks to his reputation. Over the past dozen years, via similarly ambitious documentary series such as Pandora's Box, The Mayfair Set and The Century of the Self, Curtis has established himself as perhaps the most acclaimed maker of serious television programmes in Britain. His trademarks are long research, the revelatory use of archive footage, telling interviews, and smooth, insistent voiceovers concerned with the unnoticed deeper currents of recent history, narrated by Curtis himself in tones that combine traditional BBC authority with something more modern and sceptical: "I want to try to make people look at things they think they know about in a new way."
The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Curtis' evidence for these assertions is not easily dismissed. He tells the story of Islamism, or the desire to establish Islam as an unbreakable political framework, as half a century of mostly failed, short-lived revolutions and spectacular but politically ineffective terrorism. Curtis points out that al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001, when the American government decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence and had to use anti-Mafia laws that required the existence of a named criminal organisation.
Curtis also cites the Home Office's own statistics for arrests and convictions of suspected terrorists since September 11 2001. Of the 664 people detained up to the end of last month, only 17 have been found guilty. Of these, the majority were Irish Republicans, Sikh militants or members of other groups with no connection to Islamist terrorism. Nobody has been convicted who is a proven member of al-Qaida.
In fact, Curtis is not alone in wondering about all this. Quietly but increasingly, other observers of the war on terror have been having similar doubts. "The grand concept of the war has not succeeded," says Jonathan Eyal, director of the British military thinktank the Royal United Services Institute. "In purely military terms, it has been an inconclusive war ... a rather haphazard operation. Al-Qaida managed the most spectacular attack, but clearly it is also being sustained by the way that we rather cavalierly stick the name al-Qaida on Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines. There is a long tradition that if you divert all your resources to a threat, then you exaggerate it."
Bill Durodie, director of the international centre for security analysis at King's College London, says: "The reality [of the al-Qaida threat to the west] has been essentially a one-off. There has been one incident in the developed world since 9/11 [the Madrid bombings]. There's no real evidence that all these groups are connected." Crispin Black, a senior government intelligence analyst until 2002, is more cautious but admits the terrorist threat presented by politicians and the media is "out of date and too one-dimensional. We think there is a bit of a gulf between the terrorists' ambition and their ability to pull it off."
Terrorism, by definition, depends on an element of bluff. Yet ever since terrorists in the modern sense of the term (the word terrorism was actually coined to describe the strategy of a government, the authoritarian French revolutionary regime of the 1790s) began to assassinate politicians and then members of the public during the 19th century, states have habitually overreacted. Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford, says that governments often believe struggles with terrorists "to be of absolute cosmic significance", and that therefore "anything goes" when it comes to winning. The historian Linda Colley adds: "States and their rulers expect to monopolise violence, and that is why they react so virulently to terrorism."
Britain may also be particularly sensitive to foreign infiltrators, fifth columnists and related menaces. In spite, or perhaps because of, the absence of an actual invasion for many centuries, British history is marked by frequent panics about the arrival of Spanish raiding parties, French revolutionary agitators, anarchists, bolsheviks and Irish terrorists. "These kind of panics rarely happen without some sort of cause," says Colley. "But politicians make the most of them."
They are not the only ones who find opportunities. "Almost no one questions this myth about al-Qaida because so many people have got an interest in keeping it alive," says Curtis. He cites the suspiciously circular relationship between the security services and much of the media since September 2001: the way in which official briefings about terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become dramatic press stories which - in a jittery media-driven democracy - have prompted further briefings and further stories. Few of these ominous announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless: "There is no fact-checking about al-Qaida."
In one sense, of course, Curtis himself is part of the al-Qaida industry. The Power of Nightmares began as an investigation of something else, the rise of modern American conservatism. Curtis was interested in Leo Strauss, a political philosopher at the university of Chicago in the 50s who rejected the liberalism of postwar America as amoral and who thought that the country could be rescued by a revived belief in America's unique role to battle evil in the world. Strauss's certainty and his emphasis on the use of grand myths as a higher form of political propaganda created a group of influential disciples such as Paul Wolfowitz, now the US deputy defence secretary. They came to prominence by talking up the Russian threat during the cold war and have applied a similar strategy in the war on terror.
As Curtis traced the rise of the "Straussians", he came to a conclusion that would form the basis for The Power of Nightmares. Straussian conservatism had a previously unsuspected amount in common with Islamism: from origins in the 50s, to a formative belief that liberalism was the enemy, to an actual period of Islamist-Straussian collaboration against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan in the 80s (both movements have proved adept at finding new foes to keep them going). Although the Islamists and the Straussians have fallen out since then, as the attacks on America in 2001 graphically demonstrated, they are in another way, Curtis concludes, collaborating still: in sustaining the "fantasy" of the war on terror.
Some may find all this difficult to swallow. But Curtis insists,"There is no way that I'm trying to be controversial just for the sake of it." Neither is he trying to be an anti-conservative polemicist like Michael Moore: "[Moore's] purpose is avowedly political. My hope is that you won't be able to tell what my politics are." For all the dizzying ideas and visual jolts and black jokes in his programmes, Curtis describes his intentions in sober, civic-minded terms. "If you go back into history and plod through it, the myth falls away. You see that these aren't terrifying new monsters. It's drawing the poison of the fear."
But whatever the reception of the series, this fear could be around for a while. It took the British government decades to dismantle the draconian laws it passed against French revolutionary infiltrators; the cold war was sustained for almost half a century without Russia invading the west, or even conclusive evidence that it ever intended to. "The archives have been opened," says the cold war historian David Caute, "but they don't bring evidence to bear on this." And the danger from Islamist terrorists, whatever its scale, is concrete. A sceptical observer of the war on terror in the British security services says: "All they need is a big bomb every 18 months to keep this going."
The war on terror already has a hold on western political culture. "After a 300-year debate between freedom of the individual and protection of society, the protection of society seems to be the only priority," says Eyal. Black agrees: "We are probably moving to a point in the UK where national security becomes the electoral question."
Some critics of this situation see our striking susceptibility during the 90s to other anxieties - the millennium bug, MMR, genetically modified food - as a sort of dress rehearsal for the war on terror. The press became accustomed to publishing scare stories and not retracting them; politicians became accustomed to responding to supposed threats rather than questioning them; the public became accustomed to the idea that some sort of apocalypse might be just around the corner. "Insecurity is the key driving concept of our times," says Durodie. "Politicians have packaged themselves as risk managers. There is also a demand from below for protection." The real reason for this insecurity, he argues, is the decay of the 20th century's political belief systems and social structures: people have been left "disconnected" and "fearful".
Yet the notion that "security politics" is the perfect instrument for every ambitious politician from Blunkett to Wolfowitz also has its weaknesses. The fears of the public, in Britain at least, are actually quite erratic: when the opinion pollsters Mori asked people what they felt was the most important political issue, the figure for "defence and foreign affairs" leapt from 2% to 60% after the attacks of September 2001, yet by January 2002 had fallen back almost to its earlier level. And then there are the twin risks that the terrors politicians warn of will either not materialise or will materialise all too brutally, and in both cases the politicians will be blamed. "This is a very rickety platform from which to build up a political career," says Eyal. He sees the war on terror as a hurried improvisation rather than some grand Straussian strategy: "In democracies, in order to galvanize the public for war, you have to make the enemy bigger, uglier and more menacing."
Afterwards, I look at a website for a well-connected American foreign policy lobbying group called the Committee on the Present Danger. The committee features in The Power of Nightmares as a vehicle for alarmist Straussian propaganda during the cold war. After the Soviet collapse, as the website puts it, "The mission of the committee was considered complete." But then the website goes on: "Today radical Islamists threaten the safety of the American people. Like the cold war, securing our freedom is a long-term struggle. The road to victory begins ... "
· The Power of Nightmares starts on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday October 20.
``If we're not able to overcome some adversity,'' Boston manager Terry Francona said, ``we're not a good enough team.''
Francona's club will have ample opportunity to test that theory. The Red Sox announced Thursday that Schilling, a 21-game winner, would not make a scheduled Game 5 start due to an ankle problem.
Schilling is going to try to pitch later in the series, though he was too sore to try throwing Thursday.
``He's not over. He's going to continue to try to prepare,'' Francona said. ``But as far as Sunday goes, he's not starting.''
If Arroyo can't give his team a chance to beat the Yankees on Friday, however, Schilling's health could be a moot point. No team has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series.
The Red Sox are already facing some bleak history after dropping the first two games. The last 13 teams to take a 2-0 lead in league championship series play have advanced. New York hasn't blown a 2-0 lead since the 1981 World Series, winning 14 of 16 series overall when it has taken the first two games.
The Red Sox will pin their hopes on their home park and Arroyo's decent work against the Yankees this season. The 27-year-old right-hander didn't get a decision in four starts against Boston's archrivals in 2004 and posted a 5.25 ERA, but the Red Sox won each game and he pitched at least into the sixth inning every time.
The Red Sox won Arroyo's last 10 starts, including a six-inning, two-run effort in a 3-2 win at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 17, his last outing against New York.
In Arroyo, Boston will be counting heavily on one of its lower-profile pitchers, and that's because of the Game 2 performance of two of the Yankees' most overlooked players. Jon Lieber outpitched Martinez by allowing three hits and one run in seven innings Wednesday night, and John Olerud hit a two-run homer as the Yankees won 3-1.
Lieber's outstanding performance came one night after Mike Mussina defeated Schilling, retiring the first 19 Red Sox in the Game 1 victory.
``I knew coming into this game what Pedro has done in the past in situations like this, so there was no room for error,'' said Lieber, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery but has been New York's most dependable starter since the All-Star break.
New York's fragile rotation has given the team a boost in the postseason, and the Yankees hope to get a third straight strong start as 39-year-old Kevin Brown takes the mound. Brown has battled numerous health problems this season, including a self-inflicted broken left hand and a bad back that could be an issue Friday, but his work on the road in the postseason was a likely factor in Yankees manager Joe Torre giving him the ball.
Brown is 5-0 with a 2.44 ERA in six playoff starts on the road, including last Friday night's 8-4 division series win over Minnesota, when he went six innings and gave up one run and eight hits.
Brown's fearless approach, intensity and experience also make him a logical choice to start at raucous Fenway, where the Yankees have had little success this season. New York went 3-7 in Boston this season, and the Red Sox went 55-26 at the hitter-friendly park, the second-best home record in the AL behind the Yankees.
Boston is counting on Fenway, the site of Games 3, 4 and 5, to help revive its slumbering lineup, which failed to score in the first six innings in either of the first two games. Leadoff hitter Johnny Damon, who drove in 94 runs this season, is 0-for-8 with five strikeouts in the series.
``I'm the catalyst of this team,'' he said after Game 2. ``I'm the guy on this team that gets us going, gets on base and creates some havoc, but I haven't been able to do that.''
Known for their resilience, the Red Sox aren't discouraged by the results of the first two games or Schilling's health problems.
``This team wasn't built around one player. We're fine,'' first baseman Kevin Millar said. ``This is where heroes are made.''
HOW THEY GOT HERE: Yankees - AL East champions; beat Minnesota Twins 3-1, division series. Red Sox - Wild-card winner; beat Anaheim Angels 3-0, division series.
PROJECTED LINEUPS: Yankees - SS Derek Jeter (.292, 23 HRs, 78 RBIs, 23 SBs), 3B Alex Rodriguez (.286, 36, 106, 28 SBs), RF Gary Sheffield (.290, 36, 121, 117 runs), LF Hideki Matsui (.298, 31, 108), CF Bernie Williams (.262, 22, 70), C Jorge Posada (.272, 21, 81), 1B Olerud (.259, 9, 48), 2B Miguel Cairo (.292, 6, 42), DH Kenny Lofton (.275, 3, 18). Red Sox - CF Damon (.304, 20 HRs, 94 RBIs, 123 runs, 19 SBs), 2B Mark Bellhorn (.264, 17, 82, 177 Ks), LF Manny Ramirez (.308, 43, 130), DH David Ortiz (.301, 41, 139), 1B Millar (.297, 18, 74), RF Trot Nixon (.315, 6, 23), C Jason Varitek (.296, 18, 73), SS Orlando Cabrera (.294, 6, 31), 3B Bill Mueller (.283, 12, 57).
YANKEES PROBABLE STARTING PITCHER: Brown (10-6, 4.09 ERA). The right-hander went 0-1 with a 5.93 ERA in three starts against Boston this season. He's 7-7 with a 4.35 ERA in 22 career starts against the Red Sox, and 2-5 with a 6.35 ERA in 11 starts at Fenway Park.
RED SOX PROBABLE STARTING PITCHER: Arroyo (10-9, 4.03 ERA). The right-hander has won eight of his last 10 decisions. He went 3-5 with a 5.35 ERA in 15 home games, including 13 starts, in 2004.
REGULAR SEASON SERIES: Red Sox, 11-8.
STREAKS AND NOTES: Yankees - With a second straight four-out save Wednesday, closer Mariano Rivera lowered his career ERA in the ALCS to 0.78. ... Matsui, who's hitting .444 (4-for-9) in the ALCS, is 5-for-11 with three doubles against Arroyo this season. ... SS Jeter is 1-for-11 in his career against Arroyo. Red Sox - Francona named RHP Derek Lowe to start in place of Schilling on Sunday. Lowe was dropped from the playoff rotation after posting a 6.52 ERA in September. ... Cabrera is 7-for-21 (.333) with a HR and a double against Brown. ... Mueller is 4-for-6 with two doubles against Brown this season.
POSTSEASON ROAD/HOME RECORDS: Yankees - 2-0 on the road. Red Sox - 1-0 at home.
Updated on Thursday, Oct 14, 2004 5:42 pm EDT
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Series at a Glance
NY Yankees leads series 2-0
Game 1: at NYY NYY 10, BOS 7Recap Box Score
Game 2: at NYY NYY 3, BOS 1Recap Box Score
Game 3: at BOS - PreviewFri, Oct 15 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXK. Brown vs. B. Arroyo
Game 4: at BOS Sat, Oct 16 - 7:35 pm EDT TV: FOXO. Hernández vs. T. Wakefield
*Game 5: at BOS Sun, Oct 17 - 7:35 pm EDT TV: FOXM. Mussina vs. D. Lowe
*Game 6: at NYY Tue, Oct 19 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXP. Martínez vs. J. Lieber
*Game 7: at NYY Wed, Oct 20 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXB. Arroyo vs. K. Brown
* - If necessary
Series Overview
MLB Previews
Fri Oct 15, 2004
No other games.
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Francona's club will have ample opportunity to test that theory. The Red Sox announced Thursday that Schilling, a 21-game winner, would not make a scheduled Game 5 start due to an ankle problem.
Schilling is going to try to pitch later in the series, though he was too sore to try throwing Thursday.
``He's not over. He's going to continue to try to prepare,'' Francona said. ``But as far as Sunday goes, he's not starting.''
If Arroyo can't give his team a chance to beat the Yankees on Friday, however, Schilling's health could be a moot point. No team has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series.
The Red Sox are already facing some bleak history after dropping the first two games. The last 13 teams to take a 2-0 lead in league championship series play have advanced. New York hasn't blown a 2-0 lead since the 1981 World Series, winning 14 of 16 series overall when it has taken the first two games.
The Red Sox will pin their hopes on their home park and Arroyo's decent work against the Yankees this season. The 27-year-old right-hander didn't get a decision in four starts against Boston's archrivals in 2004 and posted a 5.25 ERA, but the Red Sox won each game and he pitched at least into the sixth inning every time.
The Red Sox won Arroyo's last 10 starts, including a six-inning, two-run effort in a 3-2 win at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 17, his last outing against New York.
In Arroyo, Boston will be counting heavily on one of its lower-profile pitchers, and that's because of the Game 2 performance of two of the Yankees' most overlooked players. Jon Lieber outpitched Martinez by allowing three hits and one run in seven innings Wednesday night, and John Olerud hit a two-run homer as the Yankees won 3-1.
Lieber's outstanding performance came one night after Mike Mussina defeated Schilling, retiring the first 19 Red Sox in the Game 1 victory.
``I knew coming into this game what Pedro has done in the past in situations like this, so there was no room for error,'' said Lieber, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery but has been New York's most dependable starter since the All-Star break.
New York's fragile rotation has given the team a boost in the postseason, and the Yankees hope to get a third straight strong start as 39-year-old Kevin Brown takes the mound. Brown has battled numerous health problems this season, including a self-inflicted broken left hand and a bad back that could be an issue Friday, but his work on the road in the postseason was a likely factor in Yankees manager Joe Torre giving him the ball.
Brown is 5-0 with a 2.44 ERA in six playoff starts on the road, including last Friday night's 8-4 division series win over Minnesota, when he went six innings and gave up one run and eight hits.
Brown's fearless approach, intensity and experience also make him a logical choice to start at raucous Fenway, where the Yankees have had little success this season. New York went 3-7 in Boston this season, and the Red Sox went 55-26 at the hitter-friendly park, the second-best home record in the AL behind the Yankees.
Boston is counting on Fenway, the site of Games 3, 4 and 5, to help revive its slumbering lineup, which failed to score in the first six innings in either of the first two games. Leadoff hitter Johnny Damon, who drove in 94 runs this season, is 0-for-8 with five strikeouts in the series.
``I'm the catalyst of this team,'' he said after Game 2. ``I'm the guy on this team that gets us going, gets on base and creates some havoc, but I haven't been able to do that.''
Known for their resilience, the Red Sox aren't discouraged by the results of the first two games or Schilling's health problems.
``This team wasn't built around one player. We're fine,'' first baseman Kevin Millar said. ``This is where heroes are made.''
HOW THEY GOT HERE: Yankees - AL East champions; beat Minnesota Twins 3-1, division series. Red Sox - Wild-card winner; beat Anaheim Angels 3-0, division series.
PROJECTED LINEUPS: Yankees - SS Derek Jeter (.292, 23 HRs, 78 RBIs, 23 SBs), 3B Alex Rodriguez (.286, 36, 106, 28 SBs), RF Gary Sheffield (.290, 36, 121, 117 runs), LF Hideki Matsui (.298, 31, 108), CF Bernie Williams (.262, 22, 70), C Jorge Posada (.272, 21, 81), 1B Olerud (.259, 9, 48), 2B Miguel Cairo (.292, 6, 42), DH Kenny Lofton (.275, 3, 18). Red Sox - CF Damon (.304, 20 HRs, 94 RBIs, 123 runs, 19 SBs), 2B Mark Bellhorn (.264, 17, 82, 177 Ks), LF Manny Ramirez (.308, 43, 130), DH David Ortiz (.301, 41, 139), 1B Millar (.297, 18, 74), RF Trot Nixon (.315, 6, 23), C Jason Varitek (.296, 18, 73), SS Orlando Cabrera (.294, 6, 31), 3B Bill Mueller (.283, 12, 57).
YANKEES PROBABLE STARTING PITCHER: Brown (10-6, 4.09 ERA). The right-hander went 0-1 with a 5.93 ERA in three starts against Boston this season. He's 7-7 with a 4.35 ERA in 22 career starts against the Red Sox, and 2-5 with a 6.35 ERA in 11 starts at Fenway Park.
RED SOX PROBABLE STARTING PITCHER: Arroyo (10-9, 4.03 ERA). The right-hander has won eight of his last 10 decisions. He went 3-5 with a 5.35 ERA in 15 home games, including 13 starts, in 2004.
REGULAR SEASON SERIES: Red Sox, 11-8.
STREAKS AND NOTES: Yankees - With a second straight four-out save Wednesday, closer Mariano Rivera lowered his career ERA in the ALCS to 0.78. ... Matsui, who's hitting .444 (4-for-9) in the ALCS, is 5-for-11 with three doubles against Arroyo this season. ... SS Jeter is 1-for-11 in his career against Arroyo. Red Sox - Francona named RHP Derek Lowe to start in place of Schilling on Sunday. Lowe was dropped from the playoff rotation after posting a 6.52 ERA in September. ... Cabrera is 7-for-21 (.333) with a HR and a double against Brown. ... Mueller is 4-for-6 with two doubles against Brown this season.
POSTSEASON ROAD/HOME RECORDS: Yankees - 2-0 on the road. Red Sox - 1-0 at home.
Updated on Thursday, Oct 14, 2004 5:42 pm EDT
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2.
Premium New York Yankees Tickets - Guaranteed low prices. TicketRetriever.com is your baseball ticket destination for all Yankee games or other MLB games nationwide. Our selection is available for immediate purchase online.www.ticketretriever.com
3.
AwesomeTickets.net - Yankees Tickets - Awesome Tickets carries a wide variety of quality seats to all Yankees home and away games. Shop safely 24/7 on our secure Web site or order over the phone.awesometickets.net
Series at a Glance
NY Yankees leads series 2-0
Game 1: at NYY NYY 10, BOS 7Recap Box Score
Game 2: at NYY NYY 3, BOS 1Recap Box Score
Game 3: at BOS - PreviewFri, Oct 15 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXK. Brown vs. B. Arroyo
Game 4: at BOS Sat, Oct 16 - 7:35 pm EDT TV: FOXO. Hernández vs. T. Wakefield
*Game 5: at BOS Sun, Oct 17 - 7:35 pm EDT TV: FOXM. Mussina vs. D. Lowe
*Game 6: at NYY Tue, Oct 19 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXP. Martínez vs. J. Lieber
*Game 7: at NYY Wed, Oct 20 - 8:05 pm EDT TV: FOXB. Arroyo vs. K. Brown
* - If necessary
Series Overview
MLB Previews
Fri Oct 15, 2004
No other games.
Search: Yahoo! Sports Yahoo! News The Web for
. Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Help - Ad FeedbackCopyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
October 15, 2004
In City Numbed by Violence, the Death of a Young Boy Stirs AnguishBy CHARLIE LeDUFF
OS ANGELES, Oct. 14 - The recent murder of a 14-year-old boy, who begged on his knees before being killed, has shocked the conscience of a city inured to violence on its troubled south side.
In response to the killing, the police department has begun an intense investigation, though officials say they have few leads despite an anonymous tip line number printed in local newspapers and broadcast on television and radio stations.
Most disturbing, investigators say, is the fact that the boy, Byron Lee Jr., a ninth grader at Fremont High School, appeared to be an innocent victim. At 2:10 p.m. last Saturday, he was riding his bicycle through an alleyway near his home in the South Central section of the city when two men in a dark-colored car shot him.
As the boy fell to the ground, the two men got out of their car and unloaded their weapons into his face and torso. He was struck 19 times.
The murder appeared to be gang-related, though the boy had nothing to do with gangs, Detective Rudy Lemos, an investigator assigned to the 77th Street Division of the police department, said. The boy was "hunted" and shot down like a deer, Detective Lemos said, by two men from outside the neighborhood.
"The kid wasn't a gangster; the people who did it were," he said. "There is a turf war going on in the neighborhood. Some people decided to do what they call 'work.' Hunt someone down. Just to let their rivals know they are still around."
He said: "It's a subculture that's hard to understand in that it has an evil mindset. This was just a 14-year-old boy."
The brutality of the murder has led to more attention than the usual south side shootings receive, and highlights the fact that there are two distinct Los Angeleses existing uneasily side by side.
There is one to the north of the Santa Monica Freeway, replete with convertible sports cars and homes where old trees grow. Then there is the Los Angeles south of the freeway, the one of chronic unemployment and gangs and houses with bars over the windows.
The two cities rarely overlap and the police chief, William Bratton, has said publicly that some citizens of the north are oblivious to the murder rate and economic isolation that cripple those in the south.
Byron's murder is not the only random killing committed by gang members this year in Southern California. In April, a California highway patrolman was shot and killed in Pomona, a city east of Los Angeles, in a drive-by gang initiation rite. In July, an ex-convict who was trying to change his life was gunned down in East Los Angeles while cleaning gang graffiti from a wall.
Chief Bratton made a 20 percent drop in murder the centerpiece of his goals for this year, but instead there has been a nearly 2 percent increase. Byron was the 417th murder victim this year. There were 410 in the same period last year.
Moreover, the number of murders in the 12-square-mile 77th Street Division has shot up precipitously, to 73 from 51 last year, a 43 percent increase. Detective Lemos said that 48 of those homicides were gang-related and that more than 30 gangs operated in the area.
In the South Bureau, a 58-square-mile area south of the freeway that includes the 77th Division and is home to 640,000 residents, the problem is mammoth. Almost 200 people have been killed and 1,000 shot, much of the violence caused by rival factions of the Bloods and Crips gangs.
The Bloods represent themselves with red clothing, the Crips wear blue. As a measure of self-preservation, residents of southern Los Angeles wear neither.
"Byron was wearing black," said his uncle, Dwayne Marshall, 18. "Is it too much to ask that kids should be able to go out and play?"
When Chief Bratton accepted his job two years ago, he referred to gang members as "terrorists," and was roundly criticized by church leaders, academics and politicians as uninformed and counterproductive. But in Byron's neighborhood on Thursday, residents said Chief Bratton was nothing if not correct.
"When the night comes, I lock myself in the house," said Minnie Davis, 80, who lives across the street from the alley where Byron was slain. "I ask myself, Lord, why? Why are young people fighting each other, killing one another? The police, the mayor. They can't fix it. It's beyond that."
Byron will be buried on Saturday at the Inglewood Cemetery.
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