William Saletan - Afghanistan Hijacked "We didn't put the lives of Afghan civilians at risk. Afghanistan's hijackers did. The killing of Afghan civilians, followed by worldwide outrage against the United States for those killings, is central to Osama Bin Laden's long-term strategy."#
New York Times: Disappearing in America I'm not a paid-up member of the ACLU. I believe in compulsory ID cards and universal fingerprint records, for god's sake. But I'm getting nervous about the Department of Justice's disregard for basic liberties, such as the right to legal counsel, habeus corpus, and disclosure. Did you know that 11,000 people have been arrested and detained as part of the government's investigation into the September 11th event, and the majority of them remain in detention. This is going to be as embarrassing as interning Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. I never liked Ashcroft, anyhow, and now he is off his trolley. Another good reason to put Rudy Giuliani in there.#
Mazar-e-Sharif’s bloody history “Some of the Taliban troops were taken to the desert and shot, while others were thrown down wells and then blown up with grenades,” according to Human Rights Watch. Not from yesterday's capture of Mazar, but from previous changeover in 1997.#
New York Times: For Tech Workers, Promised Land No Longer Dotcommers in San Francisco start to admit that they're not on vacation, or between jobs, but out of work. I had not realized that unemployment in Santa Clara County, which covers much of Silicon Valley, has *quadrupled* in the last year.#
friday, november 9
Jobs Likes Gates' New Office I haven't had Apple pangs for several years now. Okay, the Titanium was painfully beautiful. And the pearly iBook. And that cinema screen. Okay, so I have had Apple pangs. But I still feel good about the decision. After all, Windows software is so much better. And now I read that Microsoft Office for the Mac is a thing of beauty. Damn.#
Clinton on the collective immaturity of undemocratic societies "It's no accident that most of these terrorists come from non-democratic countries. If you live in a country where you're never required to take responsibility for yourself, where you never even have to ask whether there's something you should be doing to solve your own problems, then people are kept in kind of a permanent state of collective immaturity and it becomes quite easy for them to believe that someone else's success is the cause of their distress." Sometimes, it's refreshing to have a president who can think. Or is it only ex-presidents who are allowed to think?#
Slate: The National ID Card - If they build it, will it work? With the US government intent on curtailing basic freedoms, such as the right of a defendent to speak to an attorney in confidence, a national ID card seems quite innocent by comparison. What's holding thigns up? This article, which examines ID cards from a practical standpoint, has some questions about expense and reliability. But expense is irrelevant among the military expenditure of the moment. And I just do not understand the obsession with reliability. Even if a system were not foolproof, it would be much more reliable than current identification procedures, which result in innocents being detained, and watchlist individuals getting onto aircraft without a warning being triggered.#
thursday, november 8
Made in Pakistan I don't accept the West's responsibility for bad government in the Middle East, or Islamic paranoia, or deforestation in Southeast Asia, or poverty in Africa, or ethnic conflict in Rwanda, or the unfocused anger that we're supposed to be sensitive to. But there is one area in which the US and Europe have pursued an entirely indefensible policy. Poor countries, with low wages and land costs, have a competitive advantage in just two main sectors: textiles and food. And those are precisely the sectors to which the US and the EU apply the highest tariffs. Pakistan, a country in which there is obviously a connection between urban poverty and Islamic radicalism, depends on textiles and apparel for 60% of industrial employment. And the US and EU throw up tariffs and quotas. So let me get this straight. We stifle the few industries these countries have, grant aid to salve our conscience and line the pockets of the local elites, and then support military dictatorships when the natives get restless. How do the US and EU dare to lecture the world on the virtues of the free market while hampering developing world imports? Hypocrites, and they know it. If globalization is to be defended with any conviction, the US and EU must defy their domestic lobbies and unilaterally open up textiles and agriculture to tariff-free imports from Pakistan and the developing world. And, if the protesters of Seattle and Genoa really care about sustainable economic development in the developing world, they should be campaigning for globalization, real globalization, and buying cheap slogan teeshirts Made in Pakistan. Hell, that is a cause for which I'd readily throw stones. Pakistanis Urge U.S. to Suspend Textile Tariffs Trade and Development Center: tariff reductions in the Uruguay round WTO Watch: A Sorry Tale of American Arrogance, European Hypocrisy and Developing Countries in Disarray WTOWatch.org: Payback Time as Countries Protest U.S. Trade Policies Oxfam: Loaded Against the Poor Peter Maass: Emroz Khan is having a bad day#
Not the first traitors The tabloids, and some conservative politicians, have been getting worked up about British Muslims who say they would fight for the Taliban. Traitors. Send them to the Tower. Don't let them back in. Even liberal commentators such as Hugo Young of the Guardian have said that loyalty to national ideals trumps multiculturalism, which is quite something. Yes, British Muslims should be forced to choose. But let's not pretend they are the first group to be so conflicted. Back in 1967, in the run-up to the Six Day War, my mother, Jewish but a British citizen, volunteered for Israel. Dual loyalty? And when the Stern Gang, the Jewish version of Hamas, blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, what did British Jews think behind their ritual denunciations of the terrorist attack? And what can one say about the loyalties of the Israel lobby in the US? (Don't tell me that the interests of the US and Israel are entirely coincident.) Hugo Young: A corrosive national danger in our multicultural model Daniel Pipes: The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America Guardian: Try British Taliban fighters for treason, says Widdecombe Boris Johnson: Treason, yes, but it's not their fault#
Bin Laden, in his own words Just found this transcript of Bin Laden's latest pronouncement. Okay, I'm late, but this hasn't appeared anywhere in the US media. Andrew Sullivan picked it up. Would everyone pontificating about the causes of the conflict please just read it. "This war is fundamentally religious. The people of the East are Muslims. They sympathized with Muslims against the people of the West, who are the crusaders. Under no circumstances should we forget this enmity between us and the infidels. For, the enmity is based on creed. God says: "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion." It is a question of faith, not a war against terrorism, as Bush and Blair try to depict it... we should view events not as separate links, but as links in a long series of conspiracies, a war of annihilation in the true sense of the word... These battles cannot be viewed in any case whatsoever as isolated battles, but rather, as part of a chain of the long, fierce, and ugly crusader war." Anyone still want to blame US opposition to the Kyoto agreement? Oh, and one other thing: the US administration should really grow up and realize that Osama bin Laden's own language is the West's greatest in the world public relations campaign. Let him speak!#
wednesday, november 7
Straight from the source Now you don't have to wait until Al-Jazeera - the influential Arabic satellite news station - puts out an English-language website. An NPR affiliate is carrying transcripts. Al-Jazeera is about as moderate and factual as Arabic media gets. For a discussion of the rabid Arabic media, here's a sneak preview of an article I'm writing. "In the first online discussion forums, the hippy hopes for mutual understanding were often soured by “flame wars” – online arguments which would career out of control because there was none of the reassurance of face-to-face contact. In this current conflict, we are witnessing a flame war, in which the ease of online communication first promotes bitterness. We can only hope that the understanding comes later." Al-Jazeera in English Flame war on nickdenton.org#
Demystification of Delta Force One Delta Force soldier said: "The planners "think we can perform fucking magic. We can't." Belatedly, here's Seymour Hersh's investigation into the October 20th attack on Mullah Omar's compound. Hersh has been wrong before. But this has the ring of truth. So, let's go through the list. Cruise missiles, as Bush acknowledges, are only going to hit camels. B-52 will pound the rubble. The moderate Talibans are an illusion. The Northern Alliance are too busy milking the Western military and press to fight seriously. And, now, the special forces aren't quite as special as we thought. It's wobble time. I still think there is no option but to fight this war. And, taking the broad sweep of history, the West will win. The Taliban may still crumble, just as suddenly as did the Milosevic regime. But the Afghanistan phase is going to be messier and more expensive than anyone thought. And let's hope that the conflict does not protect the US military from the thorough overhaul that Donald Rumsfeld had planned for it. The signs aren't good. Already, a $200bn order for manned strike aircraft that will be obsolete by the time they are built. And, judging by the Bush economic stimulus program, the Republicans will take advantage of the crisis to bring funds to favored corporations and pork-barrel army bases. Is there still time to get in some campaign finance reform, before the war on terrorism gets seriously underway. BBC: US military strategy: The need for innovation Salon: King Sy's Mistakes - What Seymour Hersh got wrong Janes: Special forces and the reality of military operations in Afghanistan#
Salon.com: "The Phantom Edit" So, it begins. The music industry has been rejuvenated by the remix. Now it is the movie industry's turn.#
Send in the condoms Women's rights and terrorism: what's the connection? Women are child-bearing machines in countries such as Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq. Women in these countries give birth to more than seven children each, on average. "In the Islamic world, opportunities for women are strictly limited by "purdah", the custom of keeping women out of the public eye and often confined to the home. As a result, the only sure way for a woman to gain status is through the birth of a child--preferably a son." Half the population is under the age of 25. The jobs are all sewn up. So the Middle East's baby boomers sit around in bloody cafes all day, and complain. Is it any wonder they're angry? Hey, Saudis, when are you going to start a family planning policy? The House of Saud - which produces 30 new princes a month - should start with itself.#
tuesday, november 6
A stealth bomber doing a flypast at the World Series. "Thank goodness you're here, Batman!"#
Islam quiz Test your knowledge of Islam, by answering these ten multiple choice questions. I'm not going to say how I did. Better than I would have two months ago, that is for sure. Now, how about a secular West awareness test? Some questions... · Which is the more profound commentary on America today? 1. The Sopranos 2. The West Wing 3. Sex and the City · Is America controlled by... 1. Jews? 2. Episcopalians? 3. Oprah? · Why is the US in Afghanistan? 1. Because it wants to kill as many Muslim children as possible. 2. Because of Afghanistan's strategic importance as an oil pipeline route. 3. Because it wants to toughen up its Nintendo-playing soldiers.#
Christian Science Monitor: Listening for Islam's silent majority "Tariq Ramadan, based in Geneva, argues in his books and lectures that Muslims must condemn the use of force, and embark on theological reforms to encourage a less literal reading of the Koran than fundamentalist Muslims advocate. Only that kind of "Islamic Reformation," he says, can modernize his religion so that it embraces the scientific and social changes that have transformed the world since Islam's holy texts were written, but which extremists reject as haram, or forbidden."#
Kottke sells out Jason Kottke, celebrated weblog author and scourge of modern marketers, has sold out. He's going to sell advertising on his spartan website. His soul, for the price of an Apple iBook. It would almost be worth sponsoring the site, so long as one could mar the perfection of his design with a really ugly banner ad. Am I being mean? (Disclosure: this nickdenton.org site is based on Kottke html code.)#
$118m from online porn scam Crescent ran the traditional internet sex site scam. Get a credit card number, bill confusingly, and rely on users' embarrassment and discretion. But $118m in takings over three years. Amazing. I've been in the wrong business.#
New York Times: Fighting bin Ladenism Thomas Friedman, always excellent: "What these Arab regimes still don't get is that Sept. 11 has exposed their game. They think America is on trial now, but in fact it is stale regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which produced the hijackers, that are on trial."#
Guardian: Nile blues An interesting travelogue by Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian novelist, returning to Cairo to take the pulse of Arab opinion. The main claim: the Islam v the West theory is simplistic. Cairo culture for example is far more diverse, and westernized, to allow for such a stark divide. This is a good point, well made, but in the end it's just a better-than-average summary of the classic mantra: you have to respect the depth of feeling in the Middle East; it is all about US geopolitics; and the US is responsible for economic misery and political repression. As usual, no self-criticism.#
Emmys, after the fall Host Ellen DeGeneres - she of Ellen and Anne Heche fame - makes a rather good joke: "What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?" Cue patriotic commentary. With B-52 bombers, the Sopranos on television, and a sense of humor in the darkest of times, how can America lose?#
Tips for entrepreneurs raising money I remember writing, about a year back, a guide to raising venture capital. Mainly involving setting deadlines for investor responses, ensuring a competitive environment. Be mean, keep them keen. Embarrassing now, really. The VCs hold all the cards. But there are still some valid techniques, according to Red Herring. Most of these suggestions seem sensible. RedHerring: The Smart VC: Don't get jerked around Sep 2000: Management Today#
The Turkey Card Richard Nixon, from the grave, advises the US to skip the war in Afghanistan in favor of some brutal realpolitik. Help Turkey take control of northern Iraq. A clever idea. While we're redrawing borders here, how about giving Iran control of the Shiite south of Iraq. That would certainly keep the Saudis on their toes. And forget about reconstituting Afghanistan. Allow its dismemberment. That would be the one way to ensure the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pushtun tribes had a reason to fight, and give neighbouring states a reason to throw in their resources. An ethnically inclusive Afghanistan is a western war goal. No local is going to lay down his life for that objective. Salon.com: The Turkey card#
Arab anti-semitism Exploring explicit anti-semitism in the Arab world, and implicit anti-semitism in the West. Everyone always blames the Jews: the column overdoes the wailing. Israel is incidental to the current conflict. However, there are some interesting connections that could be made between the fascist persecution of the Jews, and the hatred of Islamic fundamentalists for Jewish America. To be sure, there is the little matter of the occupation of Palestine, which complicates the matter. But there is something else. Jews have always represented modernity, disrespect, change, confusion, miscegenation. Like a red rag to fascists of the German and Islamic varieties. New York Times: The Uncomfortable Question of Anti-Semitism Matt Welch on Saudi anti-semitism#
sunday, november 4
Microsoft software development An interesting presentation on Microsoft's management of software development. Microsoft took years to perfect its process. Other companies can at least learn from its experience.#
So we're expecting the Northern Alliance to do the fighting. Yeah, right. "We want America to send 100 planes a day, 200 planes a day," said Mahmood, who is in charge of about 50 troops at Chagatai on the northern front. "Then we will attack." A story I have been waiting for: the Northern Alliance will fleece the US, for arms and bribes, and still complain that they're not getting enough support. First, the US put its hope in Pushtun tribal leaders, only to be disappointed. Now they're backing the Northern Alliance, but may find that relationship just as unsatisfactory. New York Times: Afghan Rebels Seem a Reluctant Force So Far Guardian: Ragtag soldiers betray flaws in Northern Alliance arsenal#
Dotcommers in San Francisco start to admit that they're not on vacation, or between jobs, but out of work. I had not realized that unemployment in Santa Clara County, which covers much of Silicon Valley, has *quadrupled* in the last year.
