That being said, this still qualifies as somewhat of a positive bit of news:

Thousands of Iranian students demanding political reform have clashed with hardline militia groups in the capital, Tehran.
Witnesses said about 5,000 students gathered at the Sharif Technical University campus to protest against the death sentence passed down to pro-reform academic Hashem Aghajari earlier this month.

Ok, but check this out:

Hashem Aghajari belongs to a left-wing reformist political group, the Islamic Revolutionary Mujahidin Organisation.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not about to make the whole "these guys are obviously all the same" argument based on the name of his movement. Far from it... it seems to be an indication that relying too much on labels and generalizations is quite dangerous. It's also a worthy reminder that despite the claims of some, Islam (like any other religion) has reformists to go with its fundamentalists, even ones with names that don't resonate well in western ears.

More importantly, the protests show that young Muslims aren't necessarily the murderous thugs that they're often portrayed as. Important thing to remember nowadays. After all, it was Al Qaeda, not the Muslim world as a whole, that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and is perhaps planning for more. Al Qaeda does not represent Islam, as much as they'd no doubt like to. Perhaps these kinds of protests are proof that the Muslim world doesn't think Al Qaeda represents them, either.

Damn.It looks like Osama made it out of Tora Bora after all.

American intelligence analysts said today that they had concluded that the voice on an audiotape that emerged last week was indeed Osama bin Laden's, and that the tape was made quite recently.

The authentication of the tape, while not unexpected, is quite significant in that it represents an official determination after almost a year of doubt that the terrorist leader is still alive.

Like most, I was under the impression that if Osama hadn't popped up by this point, he was probably a smear of organic matter somewhere in a cave in Afghanistan. Hell, when and if they actually catch the guy, I'd be rather grateful if they kept him alive long enough to ask him how the hell he got out in the first place... best guess I have is that he was gone before the Americans even moved in, but maybe he sneaked past.

Odds are he's somewhere in Pakistan, but if he were as much the supervillian as claimed, wouldn't he know that we were expecting him to be there and hang out, oh, at the French riviera recovering from his extensive cosmetic surgery? Disturbing thoughts.

More disturbing, actually, because it means that since the tape is genuine, and since it claims that there will be repercussions not just in the U.S. but around a good part of the western world as well, and since the credibility of his threats are pretty much hanging by a thread at this point, all signs would seem to point to some sort of coordinated attack on economic centers in about six different countries. Which would be hell to organize, but most of the countries in question don't have security as tight as the U.S. does at this point. I also wonder about those other two incidents in Moscow and Bali, although trying to boil down the Chechan conflict to radical Islam is a simplification that I don't support (nationalism has never exactly gone away, 9/11 notwithstanding) and it's dangerous to try to boil down every incident to one organization.

Looks like the United States military's famous ability to fight two simultaneous wars might well be tested after all.

Ok, I think I'll get back into the swing of things with a topic that I've been dealing with a lot recently: Iraq and weapons inspectors.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 — Iraq said very reluctantly today that it would "deal with" a Security Council resolution obliging it to disarm and allow United Nations weapons inspectors to begin work, but it also denied that it possessed any prohibited weapons.

Most Security Council nations welcomed Baghdad's statement, which came two days before a deadline set in the resolution that the council unanimously approved last week. Iraq's response came in a nine-page letter that its United Nations ambassador, Muhammad al-Douri, delivered today to the office of Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Not overly surprising; Iraq knows that if they don't agree, they'll be giving carte blanche to the Americans to come in with guns blazing. I had thought that perhaps the parliament rejecting the resolution would mean something, but apparently not. Not surprising, if the NY Times is correct in calling it "vintage Hussein stagecraft".

The only trick here is, of course, their denial that they have any weapons. I think that if there is going to be a dealbreaker (or, more cynically, an opening for the U.S. to get their war), it's going to be this. The Iraqis probably aren't going to say that they have weapons, because it'd go against their line for the past few years and possibly have negative reprecussions within Iraq itself. They'll allow the inspectors in, and they probably won't block them from doing their work, but I doubt that they'll give an itemized list of what weapons they might have, either.

Oh, and one cute comment in the latter story:

In Washington, President Bush dismissed the Parliament's action, saying the only opinion that counts in Iraq is Mr. Hussein's. "The Iraqi Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp for Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush said. "This guy's a dictator, so we'll have to wait and see what he says."

Considering the cohesion of the Republican party and their newfound control of Congress (and their obligation to Bush for leveraging his popularity in getting it for them), that "rubber stamp" remark pretty accurately describes what the U.S. is in for, too.

Unless, of course, the Bush administration is dumb enough to set one Republican faction against another. Therein lies the question, doesn't it?

Well, I'm back. I finally got the computer fixed. Had a new motherboard and CPU put in, and it's now up and running. I'm not quite sure if I'm happy with the particular motherboard and CPU combination in question, but it was inexpensive and will serve my purposes for now. (For the record, it was an ECS K7SEM with what the startup identifies as an Athlon XP 1200 but which I have been led to understand is actually a Duron of some sort.)

So, in other words, I'm back. I'm still busy so updating might still be infrequent compared to, say, August... but at least I have access at this point.

I've got one word to describe everything that's gone on recently....

Yeep.

Personal yeep: it wasn't just the power supply. Actually, what the other problem was was in doubt for a while... originally it was supposedly a problem with the head on the hard drive, and then the installation of a new hard drive and replication of the same problem on the new drive showed that it was actually a problem with the motherboard, specifically the drive controller. Best guess is that the power supply decided to take the motherboard with it. Thanks to the age of the motherboard, it's almost impossible to find, which means that I'm kind of upgrading against my will. Ah well, mobos and CPUs aren't actually that expensive nowadays compared to how it was, say, five years ago. Not as much drive to upgrade nowadays, either, but when you need to replace it anyway...

As for the election: Yeep. No, I wasn't expecting that... I don't think anyone was, not really. I personally lean towards the "the Bush campaigning drive pushed them over the top" and "the DLC tactics were dismal failures" schools of thought on this one, as well as the theory that the Democratic base stayed home because the Dems hadn't adequately distinguished themselves. In some respects, though, I think this will be a good thing for the party in the long run, because (just like the Republicans when Gingrich took the reigns) they'll have to take a long, hard look at themselves, their party, how they're seen by the public and the media, and what distinguishes them from the Republicans. Does this mean that they have to move hard left? Not necessarily... what they might need to do is redefine exactly what "left" is, and find a common issue to coalesce around, just like the right did with the tax issue.

Also, I'm expecting the divisions in the Republican party to start showing more than they had before. The Republicans were united around two ideas: to gain power, and to lower taxes. Outside of those two issues, though, there are divisions in the party same as always, and there's definitely going to be conflict over exactly whose agenda is going to be prioritized and how conflicts between agendas will be resolved. The social conservatives are going to look at this as their opportunity to push through their agenda, and the fiscal conservatives/quasi-libertarians may go along with that for a while, but will eventually balk when the religious conservatives start hemming in their cherished freedoms. The neo-conservatives will likely have a reckoning to deal with as well, because their single-minded focus on fighting the left and gaining power isn't going to mean anything when the left is out in the wilderness and the power is theirs. Especially if things start going wrong and they have nobody to blame but themselves.

And, yes, I expect that to be the case.

So, I should be up and running on tuesday. I'll start updating more then. Oh, and before I forget, in case I didn't mention it before: I've noticed by my tracking page that Tapped has linked to me and that a fair number of people are following that link. So I'll just thank Tapped for looking past their loathing of the template and seeing fit to linking to my site, and assure these new readers that this is not the normal update schedule. (Plus, I've been getting weird errors with Blogger, but I won't worry about those right now.)

Well, I'm back... for another quick post, at least. The computer problems that have been plaguing me should be solved pretty soon, and that'll be quite welcome... although it looks like it'll be after the election, which means that any plans I might have had for commenting on the election on this site are scuttled. Ah well.

Well, except maybe for commenting on the whole Wellstone funereal fiasco. Personally, I wasn't overly surprised by it, nor was I especially shocked or appalled by it either, although I can see why some people might (and don't really blame the fiercely independent Ventura for not being happy about it, either). Thing is, it's pretty damned obvious that all the manufactured outrage over this issue had precious little to do with the actual event and everything to do with which party the progeny in question were stumping for, so it can be reasonably put aside, I think. My personal take on that race is that Mondale will take it, BTW... the media reports I've read about it seem to imply that the Democrats are doing a good job of managing the switchover, and although I do question whether the debate on Monday will really be that useful for the Mondale campaign it's honestly running too late in the election to make a big difference.

Personally, the race I'm watching is McBride/Bush, with an eye on how the Haitian refugee issue is going to affect Haitian expatriate turnout. That could be a big boost for McBride, and the timing for that boost is huge. If McBride gets this seat, it'll be a big black mark on the Bush administration itself, and open up a lot of possibilities for the Democrats in Florida, which will likely be as important in 2004 as it was in 2000.

Anyway, thanks again to all of those who have sent their support. When I get things back to normal, rest assured the posting volume will go up to match. I might even take a crack at SDB's "mistakes don't matter" bit from around a month back, considering that I (to my very great surprise) found my personal correspondence ending up on his site. Yeah, it's an older piece, but it's an important point, one I want to address.

So until then, get out and vote on Tuesday, dammit.

Another quick note from the note:

Two more key graphs from the Journal: "Other Democrats say any such benefit will be marginal, and in any case Republicans quickly signaled a willingness to fight back, the tragedy notwithstanding. On NBC's 'Meet the Press' Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasted the undeclared candidate Mondale as a politician 'with a long history of raising taxes' and warned that Democrats will run 'an emotional campaign' that tries 'to ensure that nobody thinks about who Walter Mondale is or what he stands for.'"

I actually watched that piece. I don't know what the Journal saw, but I saw a house speaker that was parroting Republican talking points ad nauseum, and having all the blasting effect of one of those medical nitroglycerine pills. I realize they have to talk up their boy, but I think Carville (who was also on) was just sorta bored by the lightweight opposition. Don't blame him. I know that if I were in that position, I'd start missing Tucker Carlson real fast.

Ok, hopefully this one will work. For some reason I've been having an enormous amount of difficulties actually getting blogger to, well, blog. Don't know why, but there you go. Probably tied into the continuous "503 couldn't load template" problems I've been having that are resisting the usual fixes.

Anyway, just one quick note about this tidbit on the Note:

Let's see how much national coverage Tuesday night's memorial service gets. There are no indications that it is being planned for maximum political effect, but if the tributes to Senator Wellstone, which have flowed since Friday, are any indication, we'd imagine that there will be at least a 24-hour Democratic high.

Anybody else getting a Transmetropolitan-spawned chill down their back? For those that don't, ask someone that has read it about Vita Severen and "the Year of the Bastard".

Let's just hope that none of the rest of that scenario turns out to be Ripped From Today's Headlines.

Thanks to those who have given me information and advice about the computer thing. It still isn't up yet, but probably will be next week.

In the meantime, rather a lot has happened.

First, they got the sniper. I'm glad that it's finally over, and that people can actually walk around in the open in Maryland again.
That being said, I'm not exactly as glad that some people appear to be fixating on one aspect of the guy's identity as a determinate factor in all of this. Yes, he was a member of the Nation of Islam, but that doesn't exactly make him a Wahhabi fundamentalist, and it certainly doesn't imply that this was some sort of organized action, despite the silly little gotchas (like the date of the registration of his van) that the Anti-Islamic Blogger Front are pulling out. You can be both a member of the NOI and a lone nut; the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Actually, the identity of the actual sniper isn't really quite what I think anyone had in mind. He isn't middle eastern, isn't white, doesn't appear to be an Islamic fundamentalist (although he is a member of the Nation of Islam), and although a former military man and trained in marksmanship in the military:

"...defence officials at the Pentagon said Muhammad earned an M-16 expert marksman badge during his service in the U.S. Army, the highest level of expertise given by the military"

he wasn't really immersed in right-wing gunnuttery. He probably wasn't driven to it by playing Doom, either. I think Oliver Willis made a good point:

InstaPundit and its attendant readers/bloggers seem to be getting into a lather over the media's failure to link Muhammad's muslim background with his shootings. This seems to be an issue in search of a problem. So far, he fits the pattern of your ex-military wacko who has gone off the deep end. It so happens that he's Muslim rather than Christian, but it doesn't seem to be the motivation in his killings. You know, even after 9/11 psychos are just crazy sometimes.

Actually, the most disturbing theory that I've read about (but unfortunately don't have a link for) is that this sort of reaction is a psychological manifestation of Gulf War Syndrome. If true, that's scary as hell.

Last (but not least) is the news that Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash.

There's really only one proper response to that:

Goddamit.

Blogging has been light lately, I know. As I've said before, it's because I've been busy. Blogging will likely remain light, however, for a much more overriding reason:

My computer went "blooie".

Well, not actually "blooie". There was no black smoke or explosions or anything like that. What there is is a computer that rebooted randomly for no particular reason, kept on rebooting every time it booted up into windows, and now will only turn on for a few seconds before it turns off again and refuses to turn back on.

It got to the desktop those first few times, so I don't think my data is dead, but I'm rather anxious to find out exactly what is. Suggestions would be appreciated. In the meantime, however, I'll only be able to blog when I'm on a different computer somewhere else. That may be infrequently, as I'm usually doing something else when I'm at a computer somewhere else.

In any case, I'll try to keep at least an entry a day going.

Yet more proof, courtesy of David Ehrenstein, that "fisking" is hardly the property of warbloggers. His takedown of Dan Savage is, well, worthy of the target's family name.

It does raise one issue, though... did not a single gay man read David Brock's book and think "gee, maybe I should rethink neoconservatism"?

Oh, and for those who are wondering, the paypal account was taken down because paypal, while nicely efficient and speedy, isn't remotely concerned with those who value their privacy. Any suggestions for alternate solutions would be appreciated. (Perhaps, a business account?)

And no, Amazon ain't an option.

As some (or most) of you have noticed, I've added one of those little paypal donation gizmos to the side of the page.

As to why, that's a somewhat more difficult question. As everybody who has read this site for any length of time has probably figured out, I'm not much for autobiographical details, and actually spent rather a lot of time and effort defending that stance. I still believe in the concept and necessity of pseudonymity. That being said, it probably isn't an enormous admission to say that I'm not exactly wealthy, and that I have other activities that (by necessity) drain away both time and energy that I could be using on the site. Like most bloggers, this is fundamentally a hobby. Unlike most bloggers, I tend to spend rather a lot of time writing lengthy posts (cue the groans of agreement), so it's not really something I can do "on the sly" in between or during other activities.

(Yes, this is part of the reason why I don't futz around with my template much.)

Plus, I'm a liberal, not a socialist. I have no problem at all with the prospect of "selling out", nor any beef with those that do. I rather like the idea of people having patrons; that's one of the reasons I make a point of saying that the problem with Scaife et al isn't that they exist, but that nobody has stepped up on the other side of the field and said "if he can do it, I can do it". I've always considered the online donation idea a brilliant one, so am not particular averse to benefiting from it.

Hence the button. Feel free to donate, or not, but rest assured that it would be appreciated and noted. Those who are actually generous enough to donate a significant amount (Significant amount being defined as one that will provoke a whistle and perhaps some surprised profanity; not as much as you'd think) and leave their names will be recognized on the site (I'll put a "Donors" thing below the Bloglist).

And yes, I'll consider changing the template if enough paying customers ask me for it.

Edit: Nevermind. I'll have to change account types first. Should be back up in a day or two.

Ok, perhaps I spoke too soon... This piece by Josh Marshall might warrant an asterisk or two in some future history textbook. As Atrios said, go read it NOW.

(The sad part isn't that it's a story about outright journalistic fraud. The sad part is that it's totally unsurprising.)

You know, when people look back at this administration and this time in history... at what's happening, what has happened and what's going to happen, the name "Paul Krugman" is going to be absolutely ubiquitous. And this column is one of the reasons why.

It's kind of sad, though, that the journalistic profession seems to have sunk so low that it takes an economist (of all things) to do it for them.

Despite the headline, France and Russia Considering U.S. Offer on Iraq, it would appear that it was the U.S. that came around to the French position on Iraq:

In an effort to end a five-week impasse among the permanent members of the council, the United States, supported by Britain, dropped a demand that a resolution explicitly authorize military force against Iraq.

The new offer was designed to win support from the other three permanent members of the council -- France, Russia and China -- which want to give Iraq a chance to cooperate with weapons inspectors without the threat of force...

...Despite the U.S. offer, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said Thursday that France was sticking to its demand for a first resolution to empower inspectors -- and a second to authorize action if Iraq obstructs their work.

Other parts of the article highlight that Russia appears to be a little warmer to the U.S. position than it was before, and this is true, but it would still seem to be the case that we're much more likely to end up with the French two-resolution solution than the American single-resolution one.

And why not?

Honestly, outside of those who say "inspections can't work" (a position really grounded only in the belief that this is somehow 1994 and that Iraq hasn't the faintest idea that the U.S. is poised to invade and panting at the opportunity), this should be a logical way of approaching this issue. We're not sure if disarmament through inspections is going to work or not, but most of free world agrees that, if successful, it's infinitely preferable to an invasion. The French solution allows for the possibility that Iraq might be as good as its word out of sheer self-preservation. If it isn't, then the Security Council can give the go-ahead and the U.S. can let loose the dogs of war; secure that the questions of multilateral legitimacy and the U.N. Charter that a unilateral American invasion posed are answered.

(To a point... I still don't buy that enforcement of resolutions can allow a government to violate the Charter and would prefer that the U.S. focus on enforcement rather than the disturbing doctrine of "regime change", but it's better than nothing).

And from the looks of it, the resolution won't be a WWI-style ultimatum, either:

In addition, the United States was prepared to drop some demands on a new weapons inspections regime, including armed escorts, an idea inspectors oppose. Inspectors also believe a U.S. idea to fly Iraqi scientists outside of the country for interviews is unworkable.

Again, inspectors aren't stupid, and probably understand the situation on the ground better than most U.S. administration officials... certainly more than any blogger. If they don't think something can work, and if they think that they can do the job without it, then that belief should be respected. A lot of the demands and rhetoric that was bundled into the proposed resolution were clearly set up in order to ensure that the U.S. could find an excuse to invade no matter what Iraq did, and it's encouraging that saner heads are prevailing.

Still, the question remains: if Iraq does happen to be as good as its word (again, not out of benevolence but because of self-preservation) and the inspectors get to work in earnest, will the U.S. be willing to stand down from an invasion that it believes is all but certain? Is it politically viable, especially for an administration that has hung so many of its foreign policy goals and so much of its political capital and reputation on the prospect of the invasion, occupation, and pacification of Iraq?

I'm not sure... but then again, I didn't think the U.S. would go along with the French, either. Maybe now they're hoping that they can give Iraq enough rope to hang itself. Heck, they might even be right.

On the National tonight, a U of T analyst called the news that North Korea is either in possession of nuclear weapons or soon will be a "nightmare for the Bush administration". I'm inclined to agree, although I'm not quite sure whether that "Bush administration" rider is really necessary... it's just scary through and through. (The link is to the NY Times, BTW, not said analyst.)

But another official said, "We're not certain that it's been weaponized yet," noting that North Korea has conducted no nuclear testing, which the United States could easily detect.

The idea of a North Korean arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula...

At a meeting today of the National Security Council, President Bush and his aides, who have been seeking to rid Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction it is believed to possess — by United Nations mandate if possible, and by force if necessary — decided to handle the North Korean matter through diplomatic channels.

This is a curious decision in some respects, especially for those who have been tracking the relative portrayals of Iraq and North Korea in the popular and elite media for a while. While the notion that Saddam Hussein is irrational is a fairly new one, largely developed as a response to those (like myself) that believe that Saddam is no more or less rational than any other dictator, the idea that the North Korean leadership is irrational or just plain nuts has been pretty consistent throughout the past two decades at the very least, and there's considerable doubt that diplomatic solutions would work for the erratic North Korean government.

They have dispatched two senior officials to China and other nations in the region in hopes of defusing the situation. One senior official said today that North Korea was "belligerent," rather than apologetic, in its declaration and that it would not end its program.

Not surprising; North Korea has precious little to gain from cooperation and contrition on this issue, and belligerence isn't exactly a new thing for Kim Jong Il. The real question is how a nuclear arsenal in the North will affect the relations of the two Koreas and, of course, whether the North will attempt to use its newfound abilities to try to take over the South by force. I don't think that it will, at least not yet; I remember Stratfor clearly laying out the case for North Korea's random behavior being a sophisticated bluff in order to keep its opponents off guard, off balance, and guessing at what the "mad Koreans" will do next, and I'm inclined to agree.

Then again, there's a simpler problem of what to do with the damned things. Any government, whether Korean, Iraqi, or whatever that tried to use nuclear weapons in order to bolster a conventional campaign would runs up against the simple fact that to use a nuclear weapon invites a nuclear response that would make the conventional campaign pointless- the leadership (and decent chunks of the military) would soon find themselves dead. There's little doubt of this; the response would be required for nuclear actors with an interest in the region to retain their credibility, and there's little doubt that world opinion would turn so heavily against any government that dared to perpetrate a "first strike" that any appropriate response would be seen as legitimate and the definition of "appropriate" would be enormously broad. Even tactical theatre weapons would probably provoke a response, although it would more likely consist of massive retaliation by America and its allies as opposed to the eradication of Pyongyang. (Or, say, Baghdad.) If there was a nuclear attack on that retaliation, of course, then we'd get to see what radioactive glass really looked like.

See, that's always been the problem with nuclear weapons: all they can really do is prevent others from either attacking with said weapons or conventionally effecting some sort of "regime change". As long as a government isn't faced with extinction, it's not going to use them, because to use them is to face extinction. They're simply too powerful, too dirty, and too dangerous for any other role and pretty much always have been.

(While it's possible that a government might consider some other goal more valuable than its own continued existence, there are precious few examples of that, if any, and it's safe to say that even if individual leaders wouldn't mind martyring themselves they would want their governments and states to continue on after they were gone. After all, without a people, how can you be a legend?)

The analyst wasn't just talking about the danger of a nuclear North when she mentioned that "nightmare", though, as the article goes on to make clear:

The administration's decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons. Mr. Bush and his aides have clearly decided to avoid describing the situation as a crisis that requires a military response at a time when dealing with Iraq is the No. 1 priority.

"Imagine if Saddam had done this, that he had admitted — or bluffed — that he has the bomb or is about to have one," one senior official said. "But there's been a decision made that the system can take only so much at one time."

The response also has much to do with the vulnerability of America's allies. Every American administration that has considered military action against North Korea has come to the same conclusion: it is virtually impossible without risking a second Korean war, and the destruction of Seoul in South Korea. North Korea maintains a vast arsenal of conventional weapons and hundreds of thousands of troops.

But dealing with the problem diplomatically will be a tremendous challenge, at a time when the administration is already at odds with many of its closest allies over how to deal with Saddam Hussein.

This is a huge problem for the Bush administration: the rationale for attacking Iraq has just been significantly undermined. Considered in isolation, the case for or against attacking Iraq hasn't really changed, but that matters little in how people are going to see the issue of these two governments, and it presents a powerful dillema for the Bush administration. The fact that the U.S. has to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea leaves Bush doubly screwed: not only does he have to figure out a diplomatic solution to the situation, but any diplomatic solution he does come up with will be thrown back in his face as a challenge to his assertions that an nuclear-armed Iraq will be impossible to deal with diplomatically. If it were any other government then he might be able to argue that Iraq is worse and Saddam is nuttier and therefore somehow different, but this is North Korea we're talking about. The American people wouldn't buy it, let alone the U.N., world opinion, or the world's other democratic governments.

For the sake of South Korea and Southeast Asia, I hope that this situation gets resolved. The resolution, though, is going to damage the credibility of Bush's arguments no matter how hard he tries, and this whole crisis will only further weaken his case for war in front of both the American people and the United Nations Security Council. Politically, this truly is a nightmare scenario.

Being permalinked on Michel Vuijlsteke's Weblog would be a heck of a lot more exciting were I to, um, actually understand a word being said.

Oh, well, I never have complained about a permalink before, and I'm not about to start now.

It would appear that France may not be so ready to deal after all.

Really, it comes down to a conflict of economics (or political economy) and of national pride and the concept of multilateralism. Most of the arguments I've heard about France, Russia, and China bending are really economic. France and Russia just want their oil money, and China doesn't want trade with the U.S. to be hurt, so they'll deal. That's legitimate, but I've never been one to believe or argue that economics is the root of all human activity, just one of the aspects and manifestations of it. People and governments don't just think like "homo economicus"... they value other things as well, and are willing to sacrifice financial strength for those other valued things. In France's case, it'd probably be multilateralism, because the French government probably believes that France's strategic situation is far better off in a multilateral world of collective security than in a unipolar American world.

In Russia, on the other hand, the situation is a little more complex. There's a great desire in Russia to be a "player"; one of the most important issues to Russians right now is the incredible loss of power and prestige that came with the end of the Cold War, and the fall from superpower to mere regional power. While this means that the Russian government tends towards cooperation with the U.S. in order to enjoy alliance with the sole remaining superpower, there is still a fundamental conflict between a Russia that wants to be a player and a United States that wants to make sure that there are absolutely no threats to its military and strategic predominance. The question is where Iraq fits in there; as Iraq is the first manifestation of the Bush Doctrine it's possible that the Russians will say no so as to check that declaration of U.S. supremacy, but they might see that "the fix is in" and go with it.

Some argue that they might agree after some horsetrading over Georgia, but that might be counterproductive for the Russians. Not only do they have a border with Georgia and probably a much better case for "imminent threat" than Bush does, but Iraq has become a symbol of something much bigger than either Saddam or Dubya, and the Russians know that. To trade away that larger symbolic loss for the small gain of a conflict that they could probably engage in anyway would be extraordinarily foolish.

Vladamir Putin is not foolish.

There is more to the behavior of countries and peoples than money, and I'm not convinced that outside of the money question the interests of the U.S. and the other emmbers of the security council coincide. And let's not forget... according to the schedule, the preliminary inspectors go in tomorrow. For all the blather, invading while inspectors are on the ground would look really bad. Iraq knows that, France knows that, Russia knows that, and the U.S. government probably knows that. It's just a question of what they do about that.

As Atrios put it...Crap. To say that this is both disturbing and frightening is an understatement. The fact that this guy is going on 11 hits and still hasn't been found is really, really depressing, and makes me wonder how this will embolden others who were previously cowed by the fear of getting caught. I'd hate to see this become a trend, and it would appear to signify the return of the right-wing nut.

(Yes, it could be anybody. Still, gun culture and especially sniper culture isn't exactly a leftist thing, and it's even less akin to the kind of things that radical Islamic theocrats tend towards. Yeah, there was that "Gihad in America" sign in the dash of that white van, but that could just as easily be an attempt to throw investigators off his track.)

Oddly enough, however, that points out that there's an absence at the center of this. After Columbine, there was a great hue and cry about two things: media, and guns. Both somewhat petered out, but the point was that there was actually a conflict, and a bruising one at that. Now, however, the battle over guns that one would expect to have broken out is nowhere to be found. No politician wants to approach it, even liberal ones in liberal states, and most of the reportage has focused on the fear of the sniper's weapon, not why he has it and whether others should be able to have them too. I generally don't take a position on such issues, but the absence of the issues is perhaps one of the bigger stories.

Then again, maybe it's quite simple: guns prompt one-issue votes on behalf of their advocates and not on behalf of their detractors, so the votes simply aren't in it. Quite possible, although it prompts a puzzled question: why the hell are manifestations of so many important issues showing up right now, less than a month before the election?

Edit: A friend pointed out that this technically isn't the work of a real sniper rifle; the calibre of the bullets is nowhere near the size that you'd find in an honest-to-goodness sniper rifle. Point taken, although the comments about sniper (marksman?) culture remain valid, I think; Josh Marshall believes that the "from the facts at hand it really sounds like someone who has training as a sniper", and from what I've heard, I'm inclined to agree.

OK! I'm playing linker today, to three good pieces by people whose work I consistently admire.

First up is Dwight Meredith's piece on the question of disarmament vs. regime change. Yeah, it's about a week old, but I've been pretty busy lately, so I'll just play catch-up. It's not that Dwight's piece contains new and spectacular analysis or information, but it provides a great summary of the arguments for either. The only thing that I wish he could have added was the problem of invasion and regime change from an international law standpoint; not only is it directly against the U.N. charter, but it sets an example for other, less benign regimes to follow.

(I imagine that the Georgians are probably not big fans of the concept, for example.)

Second and third are a set of pieces by Jeanne D'Arc (here, and here) discussing the question of rebuilding in both Afghanistan and in Iraq. Jeanne brings a personal side to the question of Afghanistan:

The little yellow food packets were a symbol to me -- for a short time at least -- that there was a good chance that Bush understood the enormous human needs in Afghanistan, and recognized that meeting those needs was at least half the war effort. It was a token, of course -- but a good one. I took it as a promise that food, doctors, and medical supplies would be coming as soon as possible. And this time we wouldn't abandon the Afghans, because this time we understood how intimately our interests were mingled with theirs....

The essence of democracy -- whatever most people believe is true. Or all that counts anyway. George Bush obviously understood something about the American psyche that had whizzed right past my Catholic schoolgirl innocence: people in Afghanistan did not matter; what mattered was being able to tell ourselves that we are loved -- even by people we are bombing.

When Doctors Without Borders asked the administration to stop dropping the food because they were putting people's lives at risk, and making humanitarian workers' jobs harder in the long run, Bush didn't respond, and they kept dropping the food. What concerned DWB -- helping suffering people -- was irrelevant, and the issues they raised were not even worth responding to.

And if there was an implied promise to the people of Afghanistan in those packets, it has long since been broken.

The cynicism Bush displayed in manipulating humanitarian concerns (along with a similar cynicism in the exploitation of a genuine concern for women's basic human rights) and the failure to follow through in stabilizing the government of Afghanistan, continued to trouble me as I tried to decide whether or not to support war with Iraq.

That troubled thought is the subject of the latter post, where Jeanne correctly points out that if the U.S. neglects Iraq like it has Afghanistan outside of Kabul, the situation will be horrible and the region will be shattered.

And there are still more dangers. As James Fallows recently discussed in The Atlantic, a post-Saddam Iraq would be so chaotic it would make Afghanistan look easily governable in comparison. The US would have to make Iraq virtually, in Fallows' words, "the fifty-first state." We could not allow Iraq, with its arsenal, to become the kind of failed state that made Afghanistan a home for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But keeping it from doing so would require international support and a commitment to nation-building that dwarfs anything in our history, including the occupation of Japan.

That's a commitment that ought to give us pause and force some serious thinking, no matter who is president. But in Afghanistan, Bush demonstrated that he does not consider the commitment to re-building a part of his war strategy. If Karzai's government fails and Afghanistan falls back into anarchy, we face a threatening situation, but it is nothing compared to the situation we would face if Bush were to abandon Iraq after an invasion the way he has abandoned Afghanistan.

Again, that's the big question, isn't it? Not the invasion, but what happens after. Hopefully, it won't be the process of questing around for a new target. Hopefully, it'll be keeping Iraq from flying apart and rebuilding it properly, with the political and financial support of the United States.

Unfortunately, I'm not feeling particularly hopeful.