Infamy

From L-R and top-bottom: USS California (upper left), USS Oklahoma (capsized), USS Maryland, USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee, and USS Arizona sunk off of Ford Island, December 1941.

It's Pearl Harbor Day. Pause and reflect.

Anniversary



Sixty-two years ago today, humans detonated the first atomic bomb. It seemed like a date worth noting.

Here's a short clip from Peter Kuran's documentary film Trinity and Beyond. It's a pretty good film, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Play the Last Post

Frontal assault, Gallipoli, 1915.

It's Anzac Day.

I wrote about this day last year, and, due to my workload today, I simply refer you back to that post.

An Infamous Anniversary

The USS Shaw, 65 years ago today.

It's Pearl Harbor day. For what is probably the final time, survivors of the attack are congregating to mark the occasion.

Here's the USS Arizona prior to the attack:

Here she is after her forward magazines exploded:

Finally, here she is today:

For what is still the best account of the Pearl Harbor attack, read this book.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly thorough and accurate entry, if you don't feel like picking up a whole book. And National Geographic has a good multimedia presentation you can find here, if you're interested.

The Classiest Person Alive

Nelson Mandela

Former South African President P.W. Botha died yesterday. Botha was a hardline supporter of Apartheid, and, under Botha's rule, Mandela spent over ten of his 27 years in prison.

If I were in Mandela's place, I'd be shining up my dancin' shoes, ready to trip the light fantastic on that asshole's grave.

But I'm not classy like Mr. Mandela.

Mandela leads tributes to S.Africa's Botha

Nelson Mandela led South Africans on Wednesday in remembering former President P.W. Botha, the defiant face of apartheid who doggedly clung to white rule and refused to free Mandela from jail.

"While to many Mr. Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps he took to pave the way toward the eventual peacefully negotiated settlement in our country," Mandela said in a statement.

--snip--

"Our correspondence with Mr. Botha while we were in prison was an important part of those initial stages, as was the agreement to a personal meeting in Tuynhuys," Mandela said, referring to secret talks in the then presidential residence.

Botha's death should be a reminder of "how South Africans from all persuasions ultimately came together to save our country from self-destruction," Mandela said.

Damn.

Mandela didn't have to praise Botha. He didn't have to say anything. Yet Mandela found it in himself not only to forgive a person who unjustly kept him in prison, but to point out positive things about Botha.

I just couldn't do that.

For a few bonus points, guess who the Republican Party here in the US backed during the struggle over Apartheid.

Did you guess right?

[S]ome people were indeed in favor of keeping Mandela behind bars and keeping South African blacks in bondage. The roster of infamy begins with Ronald Reagan, who upon becoming president in 1981 immediately reversed the Carter administration's policy of pressuring the Afrikaner minority toward democracy and human rights. In an early interview with CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, Reagan called South Africa a "friendly nation" whose reliable anticommunism and wealth of strategic minerals justified stronger ties between Washington and Pretoria.

Overtly and covertly, the Reagan administration moved to strengthen the apartheid regime. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, fought every attempt to impose sanctions. The late William Casey, as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, intensified cooperation with the South African Bureau of State Security and military intelligence agencies. He went so far as to secretly visit Pretoria to confer with the racist murderers who ran those agencies.

Meanwhile, of course, the Republican leadership in Congress, including Cheney, also opposed every effort to impose economic sanctions. He voted against sanctions in various forms at least 10 times between 1983 and 1988. There is no evidence that Cheney ever spoke up for freedom and human rights in South Africa -- although in that respect he was merely a typical Republican politician of his time.

For Cheney, anticommunism excused a multitude of sins, including his own. Whenever they protected Pretoria from democratic change, conservatives like him would invoke Soviet backing for the ANC and the presence of communists in the ANC leadership. Yet it has long been obvious that the Republican tilt in favor of white supremacy was influenced as much by unsavory stateside domestic politics as by geopolitical concerns.

That sad fact was discovered by Henry Kissinger as early as 1976, when he delivered a stirring speech in Zambia calling for racial justice on the African continent as "an imperative of our own moral heritage." It was an unusually decent initiative on the part of the old reprobate, who could with some understatement be described as no friend of human rights.

Kissinger was immediately denounced by House Republican leader Robert Michel, later Cheney's mentor, because of his speech's "devastating effect" on Ford's reelection campaign in Southern primaries. According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Kissinger, Michel demanded that Ford "muzzle" his secretary of state. Apparently the "Southern strategy" adopted by the party of Lincoln meant appeasing racism, both at home and abroad.

Of course you did. Those were the easiest bonus points ever!

Update: See a South African ex-pat's view here. Thanks to Theresa for the link.

Slow-Motion Suicide

It continues in the Levant.

I get the feeling that this can only end badly for the Israeli state, and this is where a familiarity with history comes in handy.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem existed for 88 years, from the conquest of that city by the knights and footmen of the First Crusade to its reconquest by the forces under Salah al-Din. The Franks took the city in June 1099. Saladin entered in October 1187.

During most of the 88 years when the Latin Christians held the kingdom, they faced many disunited foes--the Seljuk Turks, the Fatimids in Egypt, the Sultan of Baghdad, Kerbogha of Mosul, and a host of others. The internecine squabbles of the various emirs, maliks, shahs, and sultans prevented them from inflicting any decisive victory on the Crusader states.

Then came the Light of the Faith and his successor. Nur ed-Din managed to subdue most of the Muslim principalities surrounding Palestine. However, he died before he could march on al-Quds.

Enter Salah al-Din. Of all the Muslims that westerners faced throughout the long, long history of Crusading, Salah al-Din was the only one who was celebrated by the Franks--so much so that he was given a latinized name: Saladin. Saladin completely unified the territories surrounding the Crusader states, and finally reconquered the holy city. He was as merciful to most conquered cities as the Franks had been cruel.

The Horns of Hattin

The crucial day in the entire history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was not the day Salah al-Din entered the city. It was three months earlier--3 July 1187. The battle at the Horns of Hattin was fought on that day. On that day, Salah al-Din crushed the entire Frankish army. Jerusalem was his for the taking after that, even if it required a few more months.

The lesson to take away from this is as follows: The Crusaders lost their kingdom in one day. Just one. Despite all of the humiliating defeats inflicted on the Muslims in the previous 88 years, the Kingdom of Jerusalem could not withstand one major strategic defeat.

The state of Israel is in much the same position. Despite the victories of 1948, 1967, and 1973, they only need to lose one big battle, and the viability of that state will no longer be a question.

And they will lose a big battle some day. Hell, it was a near thing in 1973. It took 88 years for the Muslims to find a unified response to the franj. Time, though, was on their side. It is again.

There can be no military solution from the Israelis that will result in complete security. And bombing the shit out of neighborhoods, airports, and electricity generating plants does nothing to advance that state's long-term security. This conclusion is as obvious as it is ignored.

If you want to learn more about the Middle East, check out Juan Cole. That guy's wicked smart.

Have a Coke and an AK-47

Coca-Cola opened a bottling company in Mogadishu, Somalia a couple of years ago. Yes, Mogadishu. The same Mogadishu where about 140 people were killed in a two-day battle that ended yesterday.

'Cause there's money to be made.

Somalia is one of those well and truly fucked places in the world. And, maddeningly, there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about it. Oddly, Somalia has one of the best and cheapest cellular phone services in all of Africa. Well, maybe not so oddly, since that's how all the various clan militias handle their comms.

Anyway, I was reading the NYT article, and one name leapt out at me: Mohammed Hassan Awale.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — When a Coca-Cola bottling plant opened here two years ago, the 400-plus investors invited to finance the project were carefully chosen by clan.

There were Abgal investors and Habar Gedir investors, and representatives of other clans around Somalia as well. All kicked in a minimum of $300 to help start the United Bottling Company, Somalia’s only Coca-Cola maker. It was a deliberate effort to create a feeling of communal ownership for the factory in a place where clan-based conflict has long been the rule.

It was a bold business venture, building a sparkling, $8.3 million facility in such a tumultuous capital. The thinking was that Somalia had huge business potential and that the anarchy that erupted after its last government collapsed in 1991 would give way to economic recovery.

But Somalia is a difficult place to read, and now, two years after the plant went up, the Coke brand faces a much changed business environment, one with both opportunity and peril. Islamic militias took over the capital in June and brought stability to the city, so much so that the Coke bottler here predicts its sky-high security costs will soon plummet.

“Before, we had gunmen accompanying our distributors,” Mohammed Hassan Awale, the sales manager and acting general manager of the plant, said in an interview. “Now, no guns are needed.”

Now, I'm not sure, but it's probable that this man is the same Mohammed Hassan Awale who was Mohammed Farah Aidid's principal adviser and "foreign minister" in 1993.

If it's the same guy, he was one of the targets of the 3 October 1993 raid in which 18 US troops were killed. The events of that day and night provided the basis for the book and movie Black Hawk Down. That Awale was a high-ranking Habr Gidr clan member, and would rate a job like general manager of a multimillion dollar investment.

Now, if it's the same guy, what the hell? Thanks, Coca-Cola, for pissing all over the graves of the 160th SOAR, Rangers, & Delta guys, and of the 500 to 1000 Somalis killed that day.

I know that Somalia needs jobs and stability. Badly. And I suppose it's inevitable that powerful Habr Gidr men will benefit, should those investments ever come. But it still makes me sad.

Oh, and if you've seen Hotel Rwanda, you can't really understand what happened in Kigali without understanding what happened in Mogadishu. Just saying.

This Might Be a Bad Idea

I suppose the pre-emption genie is out of the bottle for good now.

Japanese officials also said Monday that negotiations may not be enough, using rhetoric unprecedented in the country that adopted a pacifist constitution after its defeat in World War II.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

"It's irresponsible to do nothing when we know North Korea could riddle us with missiles," echoed Tsutomu Takebe, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. "We should consider measures, including legal changes" required for such an attack, he said.

Japan's constitution foreswears the use of war to settle international disputes, but the government has interpreted that to allow defensive forces. The question is whether such a pre-emptive strike could be defined as self-defense.

Even if Japan resolves the constitutionality issue, its military capability to launch such a strike is another issue. The Defense Agency has said Japan does not own weapons such as ballistic missiles that could reach North Korea, only defensive ground-to-air and ground-to-vessel missiles.

The Japanese were big into pre-emptive attacks, once upon a time.

For instance, in China.

And in Hawaii.

Executing a prisoner for sport.

These were Korean resistance fighters.

Yeah. This might be a very, very bad idea. The rest of Asia would be, to put it mildly, pissed.

But hey, you might finally get the two Koreas reunited. The Chinese would go absolutely batshit if Japan launched a strike on North Korea. Not just because Beijing is the closest thing Pyongyang has to an ally. No, because the Japanese did things in China in the 1930's and 1940's that you can't begin to imagine. Read Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking if you want a hint. No one in East Asia has forgotten the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese act like none of what they did ever happened. Torture, murder, rape, extortion, and experimentation on prisoners (with chemical and biological weapons, as well).

Look all that shit up if you don't believe me. It's out there.

This would be a massively destabilizing strike, to put it mildly.

Anzac Day

That's right, peoples. It's Anzac Day. ANZAC once stood for "Australia and New Zealand Army Corps," a vast aggregation of young men who were fed into the meatgrinder at Gallipoli. That operation commenced on 25 April 1915.

Like most encounters of the Great War, the Gallipoli campaign was a massive strategic failure that ended in stalemate and a truly astonishing loss of human life. Turks, Kiwis, Aussies, British, and French troops (including many colonial troops) fought and died for a few yards of harsh territory; the mud of the Western Front was replaced by sand and rock. Songwriter Eric Bogle composed a moving, fitting, beautiful tribute to the Anzac troops entitled "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda." I was lucky enough to hear this song performed live once in Australia. If it doesn't move you, then you're dead inside.

Why do I bring this up? Anzac Day is like Memorial Day and Independence Day rolled into one for our friends in the Antipodes. Ideally, we would not need special days set aside for reflection and remembrance; however, since it seems to be the doom of humans that we forget, perhaps it's for the best. Especially since you probably haven't heard a lot about this lately. It's also a reminder that, even though a mission can be completely FUBAR, the individuals tasked with it can acquit themselves heroically. Put more simply, supporting the troops doesn't necessarily carry over to supporting the war.

Also, a dear, dear friend in Sydney took the occasion of Anzac Day to write me a letter. As I hadn't heard from her in a while, I was reminded of King Solomon's Proverbs; specifically, one from Chapter 25: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."

Yes, it is.

King George's Folly

I've liked Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam ever since I first read it. It's more approachable than, say, her examination of the start of the First World War (The Guns of August) or her in-depth exploration of The Zimmermann Telegram. Of course, one can marvel at the folly of the European heads of state in 1914 and 1916, but the first book contains the better overall account, I think.

Naturally, that look at folly has never been far from my mind when considering the current misadventure in Iraq--or the looming debacle over Iran. It would seem that I have some company in this respect. Digby at Hullabaloo points us to Arthur Silber's Once Upon a Time..., where Mr. Silber is kind enough to illustrate clearly the folly of our current foreign policy honchos.

It's well worth your time, as is Dr. Tuchman's book. I can loan it to you, if you'd like.

Commit It then to the Flames

For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

So wrote David Hume, the brilliant and eloquent Scottish philospher. I always liked reading Hume. His eighteenth-century writing style can occasionally be pretty dense, but I can't expect to be completely intellectually lazy all the time, so I forced myself to read and reread his works until they made sense. I think. Anyway, the guy had some really, really impressive insights. Among him, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Hobbes, it's hard for me to pick my favorite. Suffice it to say that some of Hume's works grace my personal collection, and I doubt that I will ever commit them to the flames.

Anyway, speaking of intellectual laziness, I'll let you look at Leon Wieseltier, who recently reviewed Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell for the New York Times. Via Brad DeLong, we are directed to Brian Leiter's complete dismantling of Wieseltier. It's worth the time it takes to read, and you'll understand where Hume comes in. I wouldn't begin to claim mastery of Hume's work, but Wieseltier's grasp of the essentials is shameful--that doesn't stop him from writing a crappy review, though! Also, cheers to DeLong for his title for the post: "History of Philosophy Cage Match."

That's pretty damn funny.

Finally, apologies to all for the many times I wrote that "the Vice President of the United States of American blasting a 78-year-old man in the face with a shotgun." I included an unforgivable typo. What I meant to say, of course, is that "the Vice President of the United States of America blasting a 78-year-old man in the face with a shotgun." I offer my sincerest apologies to you all.

Veterans' Day

I'd like to remind all of you that it's Veterans' Day, known as Armistice Day on the other side of the pond. Eighty-six years ago today, the Great War finally, after just over four awful, bloody years, came to an end. Some eight-and-a-half million soldiers died in that war, plus about seven million civilians. The War to End All Wars, they called it.

How's that for a cruel historical joke?

Anyway, like I said, it's Veterans' Day, made an official holiday by a series of acts in June 1926, May 1938, and June 1954.

Take a look at what this day once meant (as opposed to it being an excuse for department store sales and empty bromides):

WHEREAS the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
WHEREAS it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
WHEREAS the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Oh, yeah--about our ultra-macho President and his buddies in Congress, who never miss an opportunity to talk about how much they looooooove the military, are (naturally) responsible for slashing veterans' benefits. Of course.

David Brooks Is An Idiotic, Lying, Disingenuous Asshole

That's right. And, although I don't have any direct evidence of it, I'd be willing to bet that he beats up cute little fuzzy puppies, too.

In an absolutely stunning display of mendacity and intellectual dishonesty, Brooks today compares the upcoming elections in Iraq and Afghanistan to Salvadoran elections in the 1980's. Brooks plays us all for fools--he doesn't expect any of us to know anything about Salvadoran history (and, indeed, it is doubtful that he knows anything about it, either).

Here's some of his atrocious piece:

Conditions were horrible when Salvadorans went to the polls on March 28, 1982. The country was in the midst of a civil war that would take 75,000 lives. An insurgent army controlled about a third of the nation's territory. Just before election day, the insurgents stepped up their terror campaign. They attacked the National Palace, staged highway assaults that cut the nation in two and blew up schools that were to be polling places.

Yet voters came out in the hundreds of thousands. In some towns, they had to duck beneath sniper fire to get to the polls. In San Salvador, a bomb went off near a line of people waiting outside a polling station. The people scattered, then the line reformed. "This nation may be falling apart," one voter told The Christian Science Monitor, "but by voting we may help to hold it together."

Conditions were scarcely better in 1984, when Salvadorans got to vote again. Nearly a fifth of the municipalities were not able to participate in the elections because they were under guerrilla control. The insurgents mined the roads to cut off bus service to 40 percent of the country. Twenty bombs were planted around the town of San Miguel. Once again, people voted with the sound of howitzers in the background.

Yet these elections proved how resilient democracy is, how even in the most chaotic circumstances, meaningful elections can be held.

They produced a National Assembly, and a president, José Napoleón Duarte. They gave the decent majority a chance to display their own courage and dignity. War, tyranny and occupation sap dignity, but voting restores it.

The elections achieved something else: They undermined the insurgency. El Salvador wasn't transformed overnight. But with each succeeding election into the early 90's, the rebels on the left and the death squads on the right grew weaker, and finally peace was achieved, and the entire hemisphere felt the effects.

How big of an asshole is Brooks?

A gigantic one.

To begin with, he notes that el Salvador faced and "insurgent army" conducting a "terror campaign." In truth, el Salvador was beset by a bloody, awful, twelve-year-long civil war. There was, to be sure, an "insurgent army," but Brooks doesn't expect you to know that the insurgency (a fancy word for "rebellion" that doesn't have any positive connotations) existed in response to a right-wing military government that lived and breathed oppression. He also doesn't mention that, this being Central America, the right-wing military government was aided and supported by--you guessed it--the United States. As for the "terror campaign," well, as noted, the country was wracked by a civil war, the kind of conflict least known for civility. However, if one is going to count the sins of each side, the "terror campaign" conducted by the military government was one for the record books. Simply look at, say, the el Mozote massacre, the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero (who was killed while celebrating mass in the chapel of a cancer hospital, for chrissakes), the rape and murder of four American nuns, or the tortures at the Mariona prison. All of these atrocities and terrorist actions are the responsibility of the right-wing government and its notorious death squads, financed, armed, and trained by the United States.

Well, that pretty much takes care of the terror. There is, however, more to say about the insurgency. For example, what about those 1982 and 1984 elections, which Brooks seems to think brought peace to a troubled country (I mention now that Brooks, lying asshole that he is, provides no context of why the country was troubled--it's all about the politics of feudal Central America, coffee, and the Monroe Doctrine, and that's something that you need to look at yourself sometime) and took the fight out of the left-wing rebels. Well, his assertion is bullshit. He tries to paint Duarte as some sort of latter-day Bolivar, but that's just not the case. Duarte was actually part of the ruling junta for two years, from March 1980 until the elections of March 1982. He joined after a coup overthrew the right-wing military government in 1979. That revolutionary group formed a provisional government for three years, until the country was stable enough to hold elections. The situation in 1979/1980 was just too damned chaotic to allow for democratic elections. So, in the time of the provisional government, some of the right-wing military types were actually part of the "insurgent army" (Naturally, there wasn't just one--many of the left-wing guerrillas were not happy with the provisional government, and did not lay down their arms--the Duarte junta then used right-wing paramilitary groups to wage war on the recalcitrant guerrillas. Confusing, ain't it?), since the actual authorities were somewhat friendly, at least nominally, to a number of left-wing causes. He didn't just sweep into office in two waves of democracy and then miraculously end the civil war. Duarte joined the successful coup faction once they were in power. A great deal of the bombing and mining and shooting done during the 1982 and 1984 elections was done by the goddamn right-wing death squads that the Reagan Administration supported at every turn. Think about that shit for a minute.

Brooks also doesn't mention that Duarte was forced into exile in the 1970's because of his agitation for democracy. Who was resistant to the will of the people? That's right. The US-backed dictatorship. For the record, Duarte's faction was known as the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). For those of you who, like me, went to public schools, that means that the United States was officially opposed to both Christianity and democracy in el Salvador. USA! USA!

Also, Duarte's elections did not end the war. The war lasted from 1979 to 1992. Duarte's government turned out to be just as godawfully repressive as the previous military rule had been--he could not control the military (his government was, after all, kept in place by the military, with the assent of the large landholders). The guerrillas finally got the upper hand when international and domestic pressure forced the administration of Bush the Smarter to suspend all aid to the right-wing government (that had "won" elections in 1989), after which the rebel armies stepped up their attacks. Forced to deal with the rebels without US aid, the right-wing government of Alfredo Cristiani invited them to the bargaining table (it was either that or be overthrown). They were eventually recognized as legitimate political actors in el Salvador, and the country has been at peace since 1992. Brooks, the colossal shithead, does not mention the suspension of US aid at all. He says that "with each succeeding election into the early 90's, the rebels on the left and the death squads on the right grew weaker, and finally peace was achieved." Nonsense.

I'll bet that Brooks believes in magic, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy, too. What the fuck? Somehow, elections magically made warring factions weaker? What an asshole. Though he did finally get around to mentioning the death squads (naturally, he leaves out the little fact that they received over a decade of US support).

Anyway, the situation in el Salvador cannot be compared to the one in Afghanistan or Iraq. Afghanistan is a loose association of often-warring fiefdoms. Hamid Karzai is little more than the mayor of Kabul, and he probably will never be more than that. Speaking of elections there, Bush goes around the country bragging about how over ten million "Afghanis" have registered to vote, but he fails to mention that there are only about 9.5 million eligible voters in the whole country. Oops!

As for Iraq, well, the insurgency there isn't so much directed at an oppressive, right-wing, US-supported government as it is the US army. As we set up our puppet state fully, however, it will absorb more of the attacks. And, when we leave, it will fall. There may be elections in Iraq this winter, but you can guarantee that a US-friendly government will be in power following them.

One more thing--South Vietnam had elections, too. Somehow, our buddies there never lost, even though they were about as popular as an Andre the Giant-administered prostate exam.

David Brooks is an asshole of the highest order. I'll bet he has an eighth-degree black belt in assholery.

In case you want something good to read from today's NYT op-ed page, check out Paul Krugman. His piece will make you angry, but for different reasons.

Hack Speaks

You should listen (Sorry, Max).

Retired Colonel David H. Hackworth, who we've talked about before on this page, has what should be the definitive word about John Kerry's service in Vietnam (which is damn near unimpeachable, but that never stopped the Bush people or the rabid RNC types before--just ask John McCain and Max Cleland).

[S]ure, Kerry’s campaign push on how he Ramboed his way through the war – for four months – rubs a lot of vets the wrong way. And it does take its toll on those of us who prefer our heroes to be modest, unassuming types like Alvin York – who stayed the course until it was “Over, over there.”

But politics and style aside, Kerry did serve with distinction in Vietnam when he easily could have avoided that killing field. His service to his country shouldn’t be diminished by the same despicable, politically motivated tactics visited upon Sens. John McCain in South Carolina and Max Cleland in Georgia, also Viet vets. This kind of gutter-bashing doesn’t belong in American politics, and vets shouldn’t allow themselves to be used as ammo for cheap shots at one of their own.

The stalwart Brown Water Navy warriors who fought at Kerry’s side say he was A-OK, which is good enough for me. The muckrakers such as John O’Neill and his Swiftboat snipers – who didn’t sail on his boat but served anywhere from 100 meters to 300 miles away – are now coming off like eyewitnesses when in fact not one of their testimonies would hold up in a court of law. A judge would call these men liars and disallow their biased statements.

I’ve been in a fair number of battles in my lifetime, first fighting for my country in several hot wars, then covering a dozen conflicts as a correspondent. And I’ve learned that if you can’t see the fight right up close, smell it, hear it and touch it, you can’t possibly bear witness.

This isn’t the first time Kerry’s been sniped at. Joe Klein wrote in The New Yorker that Nixon aide Charles Colson formed the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace in 1971 solely to attack John Kerry.

Colson told Klein that Kerry “was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He forced us to create a counterfoil. We found a vet named John O’Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O’Neill meet the president, and we did everything we could do to boost his group.”

O’Neill and his chorus of haters are still in their get-Kerry mode. I suspect the decades-long fury is still fueled by Kerry’s high-profile anti-war stance when he returned home. That was a position that was taken by hundreds of thousands of other Viet vets, including myself in 1971 – which, according to Joe Califono's recent book, Inside: A Public Life, almost cost me my life.

McCain has already asked President Bush to distance himself from this “dishonest and dishonorable” attack. Advice that Bush should take one step further by ordering Vietnam draft-dodger Karl Rove and the rest of the character-assassination squad who zapped McCain and Cleland to back off. And then publicly stand tall and say that this type of behavior insults every vet who’s served America in peace and war.

As our commander in chief, Bush also needs to bear in mind that the U.S. Navy and its high standards for handling awards are now on trial as well. Hopefully, the president’s righteous actions will expedite that institution’s exoneration along with Lt. John Kerry’s heroism.

Hopefully, too, these angry, troubled vets still haunted by the Vietnam War will eventually find closure. But one thing I know for sure – it won’t come from fratricide.

Hooah.

Damn, that's good stuff. I have disagreed with Hackworth many times in the past, but that guy loves soldiers and veterans (which, I suppose, means that he loves me). As such, he does not stand for any attack on an honorable soldier's/sailor's/Marine's record.

Hackworth has a lot of influence with the guys who wear the blue and the green suits--and he has a nose for bullshit. In this election cycle, those attributes will help Kerry--a lot.

I'm a "Veteran for Kerry," for what that's worth. I'm not officially affiliated with that group, but I am a veteran of the US Navy, and I am for Kerry, so I guess that's enough.

All I know is that if I ever went AWOL, I would have gotten a trip to Kansas, not a trip to Washington.

But that's just me.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas Gonna Stomp Some Rump

Since I mentioned the Tchoupitoulas in a previous post, I figured I should let people who aren't from an area that embraces Mardi Gras know exactly what that is all about.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas, a musical group from New Orleans, is one of the groups of Mardi Gras Indians that get involved with the Carnival celebrations prior to Lent. The Mardi Gras Indians were groups of African-Americans from New Orleans who knew that they'd never be invited to the hoity-toity Mardi Gras balls that the white folks in town threw.

So they organized their own parades, directed by the Big Chief of each tribe. "Organized" may be the wrong word to use, since these events weren't organized like the rest of the festivities. The parade time, participants, and route weren't decided until the last minute, and all of those decisions were at the whim of each tribe's Big Chief.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Mardi Gras wasn't always the tourist-friendly activity that it is today.

Anyway, the story of the Mardi Gras Indians is fascinating, and the Wild Tchoupitoulas are the funkiest of the bunch.

If you don't believe me, check out "Meet de Boys on de Battlefront."

That'll make you a believer.

Chachapoyas

Not to be confused with the Tchoupitoulas, the Chachapoyas, unbeknownst to many in the US, lived in the Andes prior to the much better known Inca civilization (conquered by world-class turd and illiterate SOB Francisco Pizarro). At any rate, an American/Peruvian team has just found another Chachapoyan city deep in the Amazonian jungles of Peru.

U.S. and Peruvian explorers uncovered the city, which may have been home to up to 10,000 people, after a month trekking in Peru's northern rain forest and following up on years of investigation about a possible lost metropolis in the region.

The stone city, made up of five citadels at 9,186 feet above sea level, stretches over around 39 square miles and contains walls covered in carvings and figure paintings, exploration leader Sean Savoy told Reuters.

"It is a tremendous city ... containing areas with stone etchings and 10-meter (33-foot) high walls," said Savoy, who had to hack through trees and thick foliage to finally reach the site on Aug. 15.

Covered in matted tree branches and interspersed with lakes and waterfalls, the settlement sites also contain well-preserved graveyards with mummies with teeth "in almost perfect condition," Savoy said.

Replete with stone agricultural terraces and water canals, the city complex is thought to have been home to the little-known Chachapoyas culture.

According to early accounts by Spanish conquistadors who arrived in Peru in the early 1500s, the Chachapoyas were a fair-skinned warrior tribe famous for their tall stature. Today they are known for the giant burial coffins sculpted into human figures found in the northern jungle region.

I find this sort of thing incredibly cool. However, I'm a nerd. I suppose, then, that this item could have qualified for a late edition of "Nerd Alert," but that feature didn't seem to catch on. So screw you guys for not feeling the Nerd Alerts.

Speaking of nerdish items, why haven't we heard more from the Cassini-Huygens mission? Shouldn't there be some absolutely fantastic images coming back from the ringed planet? I mean, the probe did just discover a couple of new moons. Where's the press?

For those of you who are old enough to remember the Pioneer and Voyager missions, the images and data from those endeavors made the evening news. Well, the Jupiter and Saturn parts, anyway. The Voyager 2 visits to Uranus and Neptune were far less hyped.

Still, where's all of that nerdy goodness? Huh? NASA? Why are you letting us down, punks?

Oh, yeah--the neatest thing about Saturn, I think, isn't the rings, isn't the gaggle of moons, isn't the beautiful butterscotch color--it's the fact that the planet has a density less than that of water. That is, if you could find an ocean big enough, you could float the entire freakin' planet. Ain't that some interesting shit?

Damn, this is a nerdy-ass post.