Tale of the tape: al Durah

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the old tried and true method pioneered by Richard Nixon and his trusty secretary Rose Mary Woods: if there’s incriminating evidence, erase the tape and hope for the best.

Richard Landes reports that Charles Enderlin has cut several minutes of the videotape that purports to show what happened to Mohammed al Durah on the fateful day in September of 2000 at the Netzarim junction.

In fact, only one minute of the tape as shown has any footage of al Durah at all, according to Nidra Poller, despite cameraman Talal’s original assertion that he shot a full 27 minutes of the boy and his father. Continue reading →

Politicial theater left and right

The New Neo Posted on by

Reader Chris White comments sarcastically on yesterday’s thread:

And the other big fault of Democrats in Congress is ”¦ they’re being politicians. Of course, there are no politicians on the right. On the right there are only pure patriots who would never, ever, make speeches or pass legislation they know will be vetoed to make a political point or pander to their base. Did someone mention a bridge in Brooklyn they wanted to sell to me in a previous post? I think I could buy it and make a tidy sum flipping it to anyone who believes that, oh let’s say Trent Lott or Newt Gingrich, would never stoop to political theater.

In this case I happen to agree with Chris White. I’ve referred to Gingrich’s hubris before, in a post (like yesterday’s, the one that prompted Chris White’s observation) about the current crop of Democrats and their antiwar machinations in Congress. Here’s the quote:

….[that’s] the sort of narrow thinking characteristic of political strategists in general: they often can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s the sort of attitude that sunk the supposed mandate that Newt Gingrich and company thought they had back in the mid-90s, a kind of puffed-up hubris-by-election that tends to short-circuit whatever lingering common sense those in politics might retain.

Politicians do not have fragile egos; anyone with that particular affliction either does not enter the political fray, or leaves it early. But that means that politicians are very susceptible to thinking they have a greater mandate and greater power than they actually have.

I was a Democrat in the 90s, when Gingrich and company forced the government shutdown because they lacked the requisite votes to override a Presidential veto. I disliked the tactic then, and what’s more, I dislike it now, even in retrospect, and despite the fact that I’m no longer a member of the Democratic Party.

I don’t expect politicians on either side to ignore their manifold opportunities to take the low road and use whatever tools of power they can grab and manipulate. I’m not that naive. On the other hand, I’d rather have such a fight occur over government spending in general—which was the substance of the Gingrich move—than over defunding the military in the middle of a war that is going well, and that is vital to our present security, whatever may be the controversy over its launching.

Congressional motives: let’s not forget revenge—on Bush

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve written a great many posts on the tireless efforts of Democrats in this Congress to stop the Iraq War in the face of the fact that they simply don’t have the votes necessary to override Bush’s vetoes. I’ve described their exertions variously as politically motivated wishful thinking, as theater, and as an overcalculation of their own strength, among other things.

And those efforts are continuing, despite strong evidence of improvement in Iraq and increased optimism about the prospects there for the future.

Why is Congress so stuck on pursuing a strategy that seems likely to come back and bite them? I wrote here that I see it as a combination of antiwar sentiment, placating the Democratic base in order to encourage all-important campaign contributions, and a frantic race against the clock inspired by the need to wipe the slate clean of the messiness of Iraq before what they assume will be a 2008 Democratic victory.

But I forgot another important reason. Perhaps, for some, it’s even the most important one: Bush-hatred, and the related desire to thwart him. Continue reading →

A little traveling music….

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve got a travel day today, returning from a visit with relatives in Chicago over the long weekend, reacquainting myself with a city I once lived in but haven’t seen for almost four decades. I’d heard there were various changes there—all for the better—and that seems true. Plan to write about some of them—but for now, I’m airport-bound.

Veterans Day, Armistice Day

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.

Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday, the Monday closest to November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).

I’m also old enough–and had a teacher ancient enough—to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade—although without being given any historical context for it, I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war. Continue reading →

Separated at birth?

The New Neo Posted on by

This is the fruit of seeing “Lawrence of Arabia” on TV one day recently, and “Doctor Zhivago” on another:

peteotoole.jpg

julie-christie.jpg

And I’m not the only one who sees a resemblance (see first question here).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an early photo of Peter O’Toole that shows one of the most distinctive traits he shares with Julie Christie—the pale but intense blue blue blue of their eyes, almost phosphorescent.

Yon’s iconic photo; more Congressional shenanigans

The New Neo Posted on by

It used to be that the mainstream media would seek out and publish photos like this one. Now it seems to be up to bloggers such as Michael Yon.

Actually, to be fair, the time when the MSM was publishing that sort of thing wasn’t so very long ago. One example that immediately comes to mind is the toppling of the Saddam statue at the end of the conventional Iraq War. It was covered heavily by the press, although the incident was later found to be US Marine-inspired and led.

Photographs are powerful propaganda tools for shaping public opinion, whether they represent staged, partly staged, or totally spontaneous events. Even the famous WWII Iwo Jima photo, to which the recent Yon photo has been compared, has been accused (wrongly, it seems) of having being staged. And of course there’s the ongoing controversy about the al Durah videotape and photo, which I’ve written about at great length (see the category “Paris and France2 trial” on my right sidebar; also see Richard Landes’ fine work on the subject).

What does this Yon photo represent, and why is it important? After all, it’s merely a photo of a single incident—as, of course, are all press photos. But it is also a symbol, as all press photos are, and this one illustrates the growing cooperation in Baghdad between disparate groups. Continue reading →

Shooting elephants: Musharraf, Pakistan, and Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

Pakistan faces a crisis. President Musharraf has gone a route that appears to be highly tyrannical—declaring a state of emergency, suspending human rights guarantees, and arresting his enemies (including the head of the Supreme Court). For this, he’s been roundly criticized. We who are fortunate enough to live in this country look at his actions and see violations of all we hold dear in government.

But what were his alternatives, and what are the alternatives for Pakistan? Here’s some food for thought, neither tasty nor pleasant, but probably realistic:

…the potential ruling of the Supreme Court invalidating his October reelection…would have left the country without a constitutional president, which would have only deepened the current constitutional crisis. He would not have stepped down as president of course ”” at this point the “constitution” of Pakistan is so FUBARed that nobody even knows quite what it is anymore, and purely formal questions would have made it necessary to invoke a “state of emergency” ”” which here really meant little more than “I’m going to shut the Supreme Court up before the Supreme Court rules that Pakistan has no legitimate government.” I would remind you as well that [chief supreme court justice Iftikhar] Chaudhry is a post-Musharraf-coup judge who came to be chief justice when he sworn an oath to Musharraf’s provisional constitutional order of 1999 ”” precisely the same oath he now decries.

In Spanish we have a saying, if you shoot an elephant, make sure you kill him with the first shot. Musharraf’s real mistake was to dismiss Chaudhry in March without “killing him” politically ”” now Chaudhry is on a rampage, a personal vendetta, and has the standing ”” and grass-roots prowess ”” to consider a kind of coup against Musharraf, provided he can gain army backing.

The dreadful truth is that, as I’ve written here in a slightly different context, the choice in many countries seems to be between the Scylla of dictatorship and the Charybdis of anarchy—or worse. Continue reading →