Vita ab Alto Extra

Cybersquatting

2005-06-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

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This is Chefjef's paper on Cybersquatting that I linked to in this post. Enjoy.

Monk

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In addition to traditional trademark actions, two remedies have recently been devised to permit an owner to defend his or her trademark against persons who register a domain name containing that trademark. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) adds a cause of action to Section 43 of the Lanham Act to protect trademark and famous mark owners against “cybersquatting,” which is the practice of registering an Internet domain name, or other identifier of an online location, with the hopes of profiting due to that name’s association with a trademark owned by someone else.

The ACPA makes it unlawful to register, traffic in, or use in "bad faith" a domain name that is identical, confusingly similar to, or dilutive of another's trademark or personal name, regardless of the goods or services of the parties. Due to the First Amendment implications of the ACPA, the statute also requires that the website be non-commercial in nature in order for the ACPA to apply. Furhtermore, the plaintiff must demonstrate that an appreciable number of ordinarily prudent purchasers are likely to be misled or confused.

Remedies include cancellation or transfer of the domain name, and statutory damages between $1,000 and $100,000 per domain name (as an election in lieu of actual damages and profits). Injunctive relief is available against domain names. Additionally, an in rem action may be brought against the domain name itself if jurisdiction cannot be obtained over the owner.

While the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act has never been applied to prohibit the use of a domain name to criticize a company where the defendant had no intent to profit from the website, corporations and politicians have begun using the new cybersquatting laws to attempt to quash consumer criticism, open dissent and personal expression in violation of the sprit of the First Amendment. Many corporations have obtained preliminary injunctions, forcing consumers and other non-commercial use parties to shut down their websites, quashing their creative works and costing them money.

Under the ACPA, a party may prevail in a trademark infringement action under the cybersquatting theory by satisfying a two-pronged test: (1) the registered domain name must be identical or confusingly similar to the owner's distinctive trademark and (2) the domain name must be registered or used by that person with a bad faith intent to profit from the owner's trademark. Furthermore, Congress limited the application of section 43 of the Lanham Act to cases of commercial speech; Congress included a savings clause explicitly providing that the cybersquatting law would not override either the First Amendment or section 43(c)(4) of the Lanham Act, thus preserving all First Amendment defenses.

OUTLINE

I. INTRODUCTION

A. “Cybersquatting” is the practice of registering an Internet domain name, or other identifier of an online location, with the hopes of profiting due to that name’s association with a trademark owned by someone else.

1. Closely associated with cybersquatting has been the emergence of parody sites and dissent sites in which “cybergripers” voice consumer commentary and other forms of dissent.

B. In 1999 the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was passed as a means of dealing with, among other things, the new and growing problem of cybersquatting.

1. The Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was designed to prevent private citizens from registering domain names of prominent businesses and then offering to sell them to those businesses.

(a) Holders of trademarks, both consumer and corporate holders, extensively lobbied for passage of this legislation and were well prepared to utilize it from the moment it was signed into law.

(b) However, notwithstanding the ACPA, the First Amendment protects a griper’s use of a trademark party’s name in the text, domain name and meta tags of a web site.

C. While the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act has never been applied to prohibit the use of a domain name to criticize a company where the defendant had no intent to profit from the website, corporations have begun using the new cybersquatting laws to attempt to quash consumer criticism, open dissent and personal expression in violation of the sprit of the First Amendment.

1. For example, several weeks following the passage of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act:

(a) LucasFilm asked for the domain name rights to MyStarwars.com., an authorized reseller of LucasFilm products. The site decided to give up using its domain name because it was cheaper to start over with fresh sites rather than battling LucasFilm.

(b) Alitalia Airlines obtained a preliminary injunction against a consumer who established the website www.alitaliasucks.com to voice consumer dissent regarding the consumer’s experience flying with Alitalia Airlines.

II. THE ANTICYBERSQUATING CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT

A. On November 29, 1999 the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act thereinafter “ACPA”) was enacted as an amendment to the Lanham Act.

1. ACPA, PL 106-113 Title III, 113 Stat. 1537-537-44(2000)(codified as Lanham Act §43(d), 15 U.S.C. §1125(d)).

B. Under ACPA, a party may prevail in a trademark infringement action under the cybersquatting theory by satisfying a two-pronged test:

1. The registered domain name must be identical or confusingly similar to the owner's distinctive trademark or, in the case of a famous mark, identical, dilutive of, the owner's trademark; and

2. The domain name must be registered or used by that person with a bad faith intent to profit from the owner's trademark. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A)(i).

C. Courts may consider a number of factors in applying the two-pronged test.

1. The more significant factors used by courts have been commercial use, confusion/diversion of consumers, bad faith intent and the “creative works” exception.

D. Background

1. The ACPA law was passed to meet problems that grew out of the sudden emergence of alphanumeric domain names as a means of locating content on the Internet.

2. Some people had the foresight to reserve domain names that they, themselves, did not intend to use, recognizing that in coming years others might find those names particularly valuable and worth considerable sums of money.

3. As a result, by the time that it occurred to many companies that it would be in their interest to advertise their goods and services on the Internet, they found that others had beaten them to the domain name registrar's door. Such companies found themselves having to pay others who had “squatted” on their cyber names. .

E. Remedies

1. The ACPA provides the traditional trademark infringement remedies of injunctive relief, the defendant’s profits, actual damages and costs.

(a) Additionally, a court, in its discretion, may also award statutory damages, over and above the other damages, in an amount ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 for each infringing domain name.

(b)The injured party may also recover attorney’s fees, in the court’s discretion.

(c) The ACPA can provide the injured party with in rem jurisdiction over the domain name where that party cannot, with due diligence, obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant.

2. Also, the factors for determining bad faith can be applied by the domain name registrar. The domain name registrar may fill the shoes of a court in determining bad faith and is exempted from liability.

F. Problematic Scope of the ACPA

1. The “reasonable grounds to believe” exclusion provides cybersquatters with an opportunity to create a factual issue as to whether the cybersquatter reasonably believed his or her use was fair or lawful.

III. FIRST AMENDMENT IMPLICATIONS OF ACPA

A. Corporations began to seek cybersquatting remedies against registered domain names in which average citizens voiced dissent or dissatisfaction with the company or politician.

B. The Alitalia Case

1. This case arose out of a dispute between plaintiff Alitalia Airlines and defendant William Porta, one of its former customers.

2. Porta registered the name www.alitaliasucks.com. The web site was completely non-commercial - it carried no advertising, it sold no goods, and it did not link to any commercial sites. Its sole function was to set forth Porta’s criticisms of Alitalia’s treatment of Porta, as well as documents portraying Alitalia’s attacks on what Porta considered to be his free speech rights.

(a) Alitalia was granted a preliminary injunction, which forced Porta to shut the website down.

(b) At trial, the injunction was reversed and Porta was awarded damages.

3. Enforcement of Alitalia’s claims would have violated the First Amendment. In trademark cases, unlike copyright cases, e.g., Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 560 (1985), First Amendment considerations routinely receive separate discussion.

(a)Where, as is true in Alitalia, the defendant was engaged in non-commercial speech, the mere application of trademark law may violate the First Amendment, L.L. Bean v. Drake Publishers, 811 F.2d 26, 32-33 (1st Cir. 1987).

IV. APPLICATION OF THE TWO PRONGED TEST AND ITS FACTORS

A. Commercial Use

1. In many cases, the courts have struggled with the question of whether a particular use of trademarks constituted commercial or non-commercial speech.

(a) Commercial speech, although protected by the First Amendment, has a lesser status than non-commercial speech, and thus does not benefit from all of the dctrines developed to protect non-commercial speech. Dun & Bradstreet v. Greenmoss Bldrs., 472 U.S. 749, 762-763 (1985); and

(b) This is because Congress limited the application of section 43 of the Lanham Act to cases of commercial speech.

(1) See sections 43(a)(1)(B) and 43(c)(4)(B), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1125(a)(1)(B), 1125(c)(4)(B).

(2) Furthermore, Congress incorporated the ACPA into the Lanham Act as subsection 43(d), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), where it is covered by the exclusion of non-commercial and consumer commentary, which applies to everything in “this section.”

a. In addition, Congress included a savings clause explicitly providing that the cybersquatting law would not override either the First Amendment or section 43(c)(4) of the Lanham Act, thus preserving all First Amendment defenses. Public Law 106-113, Section 3008, 113 Stat. 1501A-551.

B. Confusion / Diversion

1. Evidence Of Confusion

(a) A trademark party must show that an “appreciable number of ordinarily prudent” customers would be “misled” or “confused” as to the source of the griper’s web site. Thompson Medical co. , Inc. v. Pfizer, 753 F.2d 208, 213 (2d Cir. 1985).

(1) An “initial belief” is not equivalent to confusion regarding source. See The Network Network v. CBS, 54 U.S.P.Q.2d 1150, 1155 (C.D. Cal. 2000) (“There is a difference between inadvertently landing on a website and being confused.”)

(b) Some courts recognize a brand of consumer confusion called “initial interest confusion” which permits a finding of a likelihood of confusion although the consumer is only initially confused and quickly becomes aware of the source's actual identity. See Planned Parenthood Fed'n of Am. Inc. v. Bucci, 1997 WL 133313, at 12 (S.D.N.Y. Mar.24, 1997), aff'd, 152 F.3d 920 (2d Cir.1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 834 (describing initial interest confusion).

C. Bad Faith Intent to Profit

1. A trademark party must also present evidence that a cybergriper used, registered, or trafficked in the trademark party’s domain name with a “bad faith intent to profit” from use of the domain name, to prevail on a claim under the ACPA, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A)(i).

(a) For the ACPA to apply, the defendant must have “a bad faith intent to profit from that mark” or a personal name as may be applicable. 35 U.S.C. § 43(d)(1)(A)(i). See Harrods Ltd. v. Sixty Internet Domain Names, 110 F. Supp. 2d 420 (E.D. Va. 2000) (dismissing in rem action for failure to plead bad faith).

(b) Further, the ACPA does not apply to a party who is aware of the trademark status of a mark, but registers the mark for a reason other than bad faith intent to profit, even if the domain name is likely to confuse consumers.

2. Some trademark parties have argued that cybergriper websites violate section 1125(d) because it is clear, by the wording or construction of the griper’s site, that the griper’s intent is to divert consumers from the trademark party’s online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark.

(a) However, ACPA clearly states that a cybergriper must have a “bad faith intent to profit,” and thus a trademark party cannot satisfy the standard by showing only that the griper wished to ”tarnish or disparage” the trademark party. See 5 J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 31:148 (4th ed. 1999)(footnotes omitted).

D. Creative Works Exception

1. The use of another’s name in a domain name is analogous to the use of a trademark in the title of a creative work, to which the courts give First Amendment protection because it is part of the author’s expression, calling attention to the content of the work in question.

(a) E.g., Twin Peaks Production v. Publications Int'l, 996 F.2d 1366, 1379 (2dCir. 1993); Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 999 (2d Cir. 1989).

2. In several cases, trademark party’s have cited Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Bucci, 152 F.3d 920 (2d Cir. 1998), to support the argument that a griper’s use of the trademark party’s name in the domain name is not protected by the First Amendment.

(a) See, e.g., Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770 (6th Cir. 2002) (preliminary injunction granted, where district court cited Planned Parenthood v. Bucci, 42 U.S.P.Q.2d 1430 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), aff'd mem., 152 F.3d 920 (2d Cir. 1998), for the proposition that “[u]sing websites that
incorporate Plaintiff's mark to disparage Plaintiff would likely be an unfair commercial use within the scope of the Lanham Act's protection.”)

(b) However, the Planned Parenthood case supports the argument that use of a trademark party’s name in a domain name is protected speech as long as the griper is clear that the trademark party is not the source of that website.

V. CONCLUSION

A. Websites that proffer consumer commentary and political assent or dissent is exactly what courts, under the First Amendment, should fastidiously protect. A citizen’s criticisms would be wholly mysterious -- indeed, they would be pointless -- if s/he had to omit the name of the company or politician s/he is criticizing. This is core speech that should be fully protected by the First Amendment as non- commercial speech.

INTRODUCTION

The Internet age has created a variety of new means of communicating, making money, and promoting personal and political agendas. One internet scheme which began to emerge in the mid-nineties is “cybersquatting.” Cybersquatting is the practice of registering an Internet domain name[1], or other identifier of an online location, with the hopes of profiting due to that name’s association with a trademark[2] owned by someone else. Profits materialize once the owner of the trademark pays a premium to purchase the Internet domain name or identifier from the cybersquatter[3].

Closely associated with cybersquatting has been the emergence of parody sites and dissent sites in which “cybergripers” - as opposed to cybersquatters- voice consumer commentary and other forms of dissent[4]. With a few limited exceptions, the law did not provide an effective remedy to those injured by cybersquatting, because the conduct did not fit within the traditional definitions of activities that constituted trademark infringement.

In 1999 the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was passed as a means of dealing with, among other things, the new and growing problem of cybersquatting. Traditional cybersquatting in its profiteering form is certainly objectionable and deserving of the legal remedies afforded under the new cybersquatting law. Still, while the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protecttion Act has never been applied to prohibit the use of a domain name to criticize a company where the defendant had no intent to profit from the website, corporations and politicians have begun using the new cybersquatting laws to attempt to quash consumer criticism, open dissent and personal expression in violation of the sprit of the First Amendment. Holders of trademarks, both consumer and corporate holders, extensively lobbied for passage of this legislation and were well prepared to utilize from the moment it was signed into law. For example, several weeks following the passage of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act the following article appeared in an industry newsletter:

Recently, two of our clients were asked to cease and desist the use of their domain names, because URLs contained trademarked terms. With the recent trademark laws passed [Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act], it has become very difficult for non-trademark holders to argue their case. I have decided to write this article to mostly warn people from choosing domain names that may infringe upon trademarked terms.

A few months ago one of our clients, shadesrus.com, notified me that we should stop optimizing their site at the given URL, and that they had changed their name because Toys-R-Us had threatened to take action. We had worked very hard in getting their site to the number 2 position on AltaVista with the keyword “sunglasses” and now we had to start over.

Then a few weeks ago we heard a similar story from another client, MyStarwars.com. This time LucasFilm was asking for the domain name rights.

Both of our clients have been asked to cease and desist using these domains, even though they both have very good cases for holding on to them. Shadesrus does not sell toys or any toy-like product, and MyStarwars.com is an authorized reseller of LucasFilm products. Unfortunately, both these sites have decided to give up using the domain names because it will be cheaper for them to start over with fresh sites, rather than battling the
giants.

Another similar case is the non-profit community site latinabarbie.com. The site belongs to 21-year-old Michelle Curiel, who has been receiving thousands of hits a week and has about 900 registered email users. She is being asked by Mattel, Inc. to transfer the name back to them and in return they will pay her $70 for her domain registration fee!

I had a chance to speak with Michelle and found out that she has simply chosen her childhood nickname of “latinabarbie” as her domain name. Michelle does not sell or mention any products at her site related to those products made by Mattel. At this point, Michelle is talking to her attorneys and has not yet decided what she will do. She has worked very hard on her site, and I hope that she will be able to keep it. SubmitExpress Newsletter, Dec 15 1999[5].

A cybergriper website created by a consumer, satirist etc. (hereinafter collectively referred to as “griper”) to air his or her frustrations with a business, public figure, etc. (hereinafter collectively referred to as “trademark party”) is not only permissible under trademark law but is speech that should be protected by the First Amendment.

Often, when such a website is established the trademark party seeks a preliminary injunction to prevent a griper from posting criticism on the Internet. The injunction is often sought to prohibit the griper from using the trademark party’s name in the domain name, meta-tags[6] or anywhere in the text of any Internet site, and is based fully or in part on the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

The Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was designed to prevent private citizens from registering domain names of prominent businesses and then offering to sell them to those businesses. Any attempt to sell the domain name back to the business or to profit from it any way violates the anti-cybersquatting law.

However, the First Amendment protects a griper’s use of a trademark party’s name in the text, domain name and meta tags of a web site. The domain name is similar to the title of a creative work in that it uses the trademarked party’s name to draw attention to the content of the site; such use of a trademark party’s name is permissible under federal trademark law and constitutes the type of consumer commentary that has long been protected by the First Amendment. Still, trademark parties, in attempting to procure permanent injunctions, have begun arguing that griper sights are commercial in nature, thus not protected by the First Amendment. Trademark parties have further argued that, even if the griper’s sight is a non-commercial, creative work, tend to confuse and/or divert consumers and were established with a bad faith intent to profit, which is prohibited by the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

Nevertheless, as long as a griper’s website in no way attempts to confuse users or mislead them to believe that it was the trademarked party’s official site, includes prominent disclaimers explaining that the site is not sponsored by or affiliated with the trademarked party, and uses the trademarked party’s name merely to identify it as the subject of the criticism, the web site is protected by the First Amendment.

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THE ANTICYBERSQUATING CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT

On November 29, 1999, as part of the Omnibus Budget Bill, President Bill Clinton signed into law the “Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act” (hereinafter “ACPA”) as an amendment to the Lanham Act. ACPA, PL 106-113 Title III, 113 Stat. 1537-537-44(2000)(codified as Lanham Act §43(d), 15 U.S.C. §1125(d)). Under ACPA, a party may prevail in a trademark infringement action under the cybersquatting theory by satisfying a two-pronged test:

1. The registered domain name must be identical or confusingly similar to the owner's distinctive trademark or, in the case of a famous mark, identical, confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, the owner's trademark; and The domain name must be registered or used by that person with a bad faith intent to profit from the owner's trademark.[7]
15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A)(i).

The statute provides that a court may consider the following factors in determining whether a person alleged to have violated ACPA has acted in bad faith, the first four factors counting against a finding of bad faith and the remaining factors weighing in favor of finding bad faith:

If the registrant has any trademark or other intellectual property rights in the name.

If this is the legal or nickname of the registrant.

The registrant’s prior use of the domain name in connection with the good faith offering of goods

and services[8].

Intent to divert to a site that could harm the trademark owner’s goodwill – either for commercial gain or with intent to tarnish by creating likelihood of confusion as to source, sponsorship or affiliation, or endorsement of the site.

Offer to sell the domain name without having used, or having an intent to use, it in the bona fide offering of goods and services, or a prior pattern of such conduct.

Intentional provision of misleading contact information in the domain name registration application or the history of such conduct.

Warehousing of multiple domain names known to be identical or confusingly similar to distinctive marks or dilutive of famous marks, without regard to the goods or services of the parties.

The extent to which a mark is distinctive or famous. 15 U.S.C.A. §1125 (d)(B)(i)(I)-(IX).

These factors are not exclusive. In addition, a court may consider other factors or evidence that it deems relevant to the issue of bad faith. Nevertheless, the ACPA does specifically provide that, where a person believed or had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of a domain name was a fair or otherwise lawful use, a court cannot find bad faith intent, and therefore, there can be no violation of the ACPA. 15 U.S.C.A. §1125 (d)(B)(ii).

Furthermore, while there a number of factors that a court may consider, most courts that have placed particular emphasis on the factors codified in the ACPA which, prior to its passage, were traditionally considered in the analysis of trademark infringement actions. The more significant factors, as can be seen by their emphasis in the above listed factors, have traditionally been confusion/diversion of consumers, bad faith intent, commercial use and the “creative works” exception.

Background of the ACPA

The “cybersquatting law was passed to meet problems that grew out of the sudden emergence of alphanumeric domain names as a means of locating content on the Internet. Originally, each site on the Internet was identified only by a series of four number sets, such as 156.121.20.201. In the late 1980's, the concept of the alphanumeric domain name was invented, allowing the operator of a web site to use an address that expressed something about the site. See, 51 F. Supp.2d 389, 391-392 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), 202 F.3d 573 (2d Cir. 2000). Domain names may either denote the topic of the web page, or it may identify the person who sponsors the web page.

Some people had the foresight to reserve domain names that they, themselves, did not intend to use, recognizing that in coming years others might find those names particularly valuable and worth considerable sums of money[9]. The system for assigning domain names is that the first person to register a name can keep it, to the exclusion of anybody else, as long as s/he pays annual renewal fees for each such name. Consequently, there was a veritable land rush as individuals and companies snapped up as many domain names as they could, intending to market names to those who might want them. As a result, by the time that it occurred to many companies that it would be in their interest to advertise their goods and services on the Internet, they found that others had beaten them to the domain name registrar's door. Such companies found themselves having to pay others who had “squatted” on their cybernames. House Report 106-412, 106th Cong. 1st Sess. (1999), at 5-6.

The Committee Reports identify a series of ways in which cybersquatters unfairly used the trademarks of others. Senate Report 106-140, 106th Cong. 1st Sess. (1999), at 5-7. Some actually registered the trademark itself as the domain name[10]. Others would register the trademark name with minor spelling errors, intending to catch a careless consumer who mistyped the trademark as part of the domain name[11]. Still others would register a domain name combining the domain name with some other word that made it appear to be part of the company[12]. But there is not the slightest hint in the reports, or anywhere else in the legislative history, that Congress intended to prevent the registration of domain names that plainly implied hostility to the trademark holder, such as “verizonsucks.com.” To the contrary, both the Senate and the House Committees repeatedly insisted that companies would not be able to bring lawsuits against people who established web sites using trade names for the purpose of commenting upon or criticizing companies to which those trademarks belonged. House Report at 10, 11; Senate Report at 14.

Even before the amendment, companies brought lawsuits based on their trademark rights. But some courts refused to grant relief against cybersquatters who did no more than register domain names, reasoning that mere registration of a domain name is not "commercial use" as required for trademark liability. 189 F.3d 868, 879-880 (9th Cir. 1999); Senate Report 106-140, at 7. The cybersquatting law has made it possible to sue based solely on the registration of a “cybersquatted” name, so long as it was done, in theory, with intent to profit from another's good will.

Remedies Under the ACPA

The ACPA provides the traditional trademark infringement remedies of injunctive relief, the defendant’s profits, actual damages and costs. Additionally, a court, in its discretion, may also award statutory damages, over and above the other damages, in an amount ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 for each infringing domain name. The injured party may also recover attorney’s fees, in the court’s discretion.

Of crucial importance, the ACPA can provide the injured party with in rem jurisdiction over the domain name where that party cannot with due diligence obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant. In rem jurisdiction is no mere legal technicality; it permits the trademark owner to obtain forfeiture, cancellation or transfer of the infringing domain name simply by filing the action against the domain named, as opposed to the cybersquatter himself. In rem jurisdiction is an important time and cost effective mechanism where the cybersquatter is either a “fly-by-night” that cannot be found or a foreign entity. The trademark owner can file a lawsuit against a variety of infringing domain names (whether or not owned by different parties) and, if successful, can obtain an immediate transfer of those domain names from the cybersquatter to the trademark owner. An in rem proceeding can be brought in the judicial district where the domain name register, registry or other domain name authority is located or where documents sufficient to establish control and authority regarding the disposition of the registration are deposited with the court. 15 U.S.C.A. §1125 (d)(2)(A)

In addition, another important aspect of the legislation is hidden in the legislative history. The way the bill is currently written, the factors for determining bad faith can be applied by the domain name registrar. Thus, in an effort to provide less expensive and timely legal remedies, the legislation allows the registrar to fill the shoes of a court in determining bad faith and exempts them from liability if they so do. If the registrar decides against the domain name holder, the domain name holder will have no recourse against the registrar, who is not liable for bad faith. 15 U.S.C.A. §1125 (D)(ii)

In concept, then, the ACPA offers significant additional protection to trademark owners which did not exist prior to its passing. Trademark owners have taken immediate advantage of the new law. Less than two weeks after the bill was signed into law, three lawsuits were filed under the Act. In California, New Zealand’s “America’s Cup” obtained a temporary injunction under the ACPA, which prevented the defendants who registered the “AmericasCup.com” domain name from using it for a website. Harvard University filed a suit against two defendants who attempted to auction off a number of domain names containing Harvard marks. In New York, the National Football League sued an alleged cybersquatter for his registration and use of the domain names “NFLtoday.com”, “NFLtoday.net”, and “NFLtoday.org”. See National Football League v. Miller, 200 W.L. 33566, 54 .S.P.Q. 2d 1574 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).

Problematic Scope of the ACPA

There are several issues that could arise as to the scope of the new law's protection. To begin with, ACPA requires that the cybersquatter act with “bad faith intent”. ACPA states that a party who has "reasonable grounds to believe" that its use was fair or otherwise lawful does not act in bad faith. This exclusion provides cybersquatters with an opportunity to create a factual issue as to whether it reasonably believed its use was fair or lawful.

To the contrary, if a person innocently attempts to register with the Patent and Trademark Office a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to an existing party's trademark, the existing trademark's owner can oppose and foreclose the new registration, even though it was made in good faith.

However, while an innocent infringement of a trademark can be permanently enjoined under a traditional trademark action, it appears from the statutory language that a trademark owner whose mark has been registered as part of a domain name, if done in good faith (or the infringing party had reasonable grounds to believe the use was lawful), cannot bring a successful claim under ACPA. Instead, due to the ACPA’s two-pronged test and the factors which the court must use to evaluate the case, the trademark owner must wait until the domain name owner actually makes commercial use of the name on the Internet or until there is an attempt by the domain name owner to sell the trademark.

While ACPA broadens the application of the law to cybersquatting in general, it also applies to a person who registers or traffics in a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a protected mark, but also to an individual who merely uses a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a protected mark. See Edward T. Dartley, Pulling the Plug on Cybersquatters, 161 N.J. L.J. 270, 270 note 33 (2000).

First Amendment Implications of ACPA

Until now, the Lanham Act only protected against infringement when a commercial use was involved. Several trademark owners had commenced lawsuits against traditional cybersquatters under the Lanham Act, but a number of courts held that, because the defendants in those cases merely registered domain names and nothing more, there had been no requisite commercial use of the marks in the sale or advertising of goods or services under the Lanham Act, and therefore, no infringement.

However, as stated supra, corporations and politicians began to seek cybersquatting remedies against registered domain names in which average citizens voiced dissent or dissatisfaction with the company or politician. One of the first cases in which a plaintiff sought to utilize the ACPA to enjoin a private citizen from using its mark on a website was Alitala-Linee Aeree Italiane S.P.S. v. William Porta, 00 Civ. 9731 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).

The Alitalia Case

This case arose out of a dispute between plaintiff Alitalia and defendant William Porta, one of its former customers. Porta flew on Alitalia to India to be the best man at a friend's multi-day wedding. Porta’s luggage, containing formal clothing that he needed for the wedding, was lost in transit. Porta was repeatedly promised, by Alitalia, that he would receive recompense, in various forms, and these promises were not kept. In addition, because he was initially told that his baggage had been found and would be sent to him promptly, he postponed buying new formal clothing and hence had to attend wedding ceremonies in the inappropriate attire in which he had traveled. Porta ultimately wrote a letter to Alitalia, dated October 26, 2000, detailing his concerns. Id.

Porta registered the name www.alitaliasucks.com on December 10, 2000, and used it to publish his October 26 letter. The web site, according to the facts as set forth in the hearing for the temporary injunction, was non-commercial - it carried no advertising, sold no goods, and it did not link to any commercial sites. Id. Alitalia learned of the site on December 12 and subsequently proposed to pay Porta a small portion of what he thought he had been promised, with payment to be sent in another month. Alitalia explained its small payment by invoking the Warsaw Convention[13], but it made no excuse for failing to honor its alleged prior promises of higher and immediate payment. When Porta refused to remove his web site for this new promise of smaller payment at a later date, Alitalia filed a suit seeking to enjoin Porta from continuing to publish his criticisms on the Internet. Alitalia was granted a preliminary injunction, which forced Porta to shut down his website. Id.
Alitalia’s theory was that, because “alitaliasucks” contains “alitalia,” consumers would be misled into visiting and staying at Porta’s web site because they may believe that it was sponsored by Alitalia. Porta’s position was that, to be sure, consumers sometimes try to find a company’s site on the Internet by typing the sequence “www.companyname.com” into their web browsers; however, few people, if any, look for a company by going to “www.companynamesucks.com.” Although the use of the word “alitalia” on his web page and as part of the domain name might draw consumers through a search engine, that is because consumers use search engines to look for a variety of information about companies, and not simply in order to do business with them. Any consumer finding Porta’s web site in a search engine’s list of relevant sites would see a description sufficient to inform him or her that his was a critical site, and not one sponsored by Alitalia. Id.

After months of litigation following the airline’s suit for, inter alia, trademark infringement, Alitalia dropped the suit shortly after a judge demanded that a top company official, such as the President, come to court to explain why the company brought the case.

Enforcement of Alitalia’s claims would have violated the First Amendment. In trademark cases, unlike copyright cases where fair use is co-extensive with the First Amendment, e.g., Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 560 (1985), First Amendment considerations routinely receive separate discussion, although they also inform statutory interpretation. Where, as is true in Alitalia, the defendant was engaged in non-commercial speech, the mere application of trademark law may violate the First Amendment, L.L. Bean v. Drake Publishers, 811 F.2d 26, 32-33 (1st Cir. 1987). Even if a trademark has been used in a commercial context, courts are required to construe the trademark laws narrowly to avoid impingement on First Amendment rights, e.g., Cliffs Notes v. Bantam Doubleday, 886 F.2d 490, 494 (2d Cir. 1989); First Amendment interests are weighed as a factor in deciding whether a trademark violation should be found, e.g., Anheuser-Busch v. Balducci Publications, 28 F.3d 769, 776 (8th Cir. 1994); and injunctions must be narrowly crafted to comply with the general and virtually absolute rule against prior restraints of speech. Id. at 778; Better Business Bureau v. Medical Directors, 681 F.2d 397, 404-405 (5th Cir. 1982). The new cybersquatting law contained a savings clause that expressly preserves all defenses under the First Amendment. Public Law 106-113, Section 3008, 113 STAT. 1501A-551. Thus, despite the general principle that requires a court to consider statutory issues first, thus avoiding the need to decide constitutional issues, the locus in quo of these type of cases is the First Amendment. In an action against a cybergriper, the action to enforce a trademark implicates the First Amendment even though plaintiff is not a government actor. An injunction sought by private parties is still government action by a court, which is therefore subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment. Shelly v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 14-15 (1948); see also, Proctor and Gamble Co. v. Banker’s Trust Co., 78 F.3d 219, 224-225 (6th Cir. 1996).

APPLICATION OF THE TWO PRONGED TEST AND ITS FACTORS

Given the ACPA’s two-pronged test, clearly a “bad faith intent to profit” and use of a “confusing mark” are the most prominent elements for analysis in an ACPA action. However, as will be discussed infra, since the Lanham Act preserves all First Amendment defenses in trademark cases, including those litigated pursuant to the ACPA, commercial use will be addressed first.

Commercial Use

In many cases, the courts have struggled with the question of whether a particular use of trademarks constituted commercial or non-commercial speech. This question is significant not only because Congress limited the application of section 43 of the Lanham Act to cases of commercial speech, see sections 43(a)(1)(B) and 43(c)(4)(B), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1125(a)(1)(B), 1125(c)(4)(B), but also because commercial speech, although protected by the First Amendment, has a lesser status than non-commercial speech, and thus does not benefit from all of the doctrines developed to protect non-commercial speech. Dun & Bradstreet v. Greenmoss Bldrs., 472 U.S. 749, 762-763 (1985). Indeed, recognition that the First Amendment would bar claims for false statements in non-commercial speech underlay Congress' establishment of the "commercial" requirement in section 43. Semco v. Amcast, 52 F.3d 108, 111-112 (6th Cir. 1995) (quoting extensively from the legislative history).

Thus, when one company has, in the course of an advertising campaign, made statements about another company's products, the courts in cases like Semco have hammered out a multi-factor test to determine when the statements are non-commercial, and thus entitled to full First Amendment protection, or commercial, and thus entitled only to have their First Amendment interests weighed as part of a fair use or fair commentary defense. Similarly, when a seller of T-shirts or some other commercial product spoofs a trademark or uses a trademark to denounce a political position, the courts have had to decide whether the alleged infringer or diluter is predominantly engaged in commentary, thus obtaining greater protection under the First Amendment, or mainly making use of a trademark to sell its own product[14]. However, when an action is brought against a plainly non-commercial use of a trademark for either political or consumer commentary, the courts have not hesitated to afford full First Amendment protection against the trademark holder's claim, either by holding that First Amendment principles bar application of the federal statute, or by holding that the state law in question is unconstitutional on its face or as applied to the particular case[15].

“Section 1125”

Section 1125 applies only if the griper made use of the trademark party’s name “in commerce” and specifically exempts all “noncommercial use of a mark” from the ambit of section 1125. Section 1125(c)(4)(B)[16]. Specifically, Congress expressly shielded non-commercial and consumer criticism from the coverage of the entire Lanham Act. Section 43(c)(4) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c), provides, “The following shall not be actionable under this section: . . . (B) Noncommercial use of the mark (C) All forms of news reporting and news commentary.” The House Judiciary Committee explained that its purpose was to ensure that non-commercial speech would not be affected:

[T]he proposed change in Section 43(a) should not be read in any way to limit political speech, consumer or editorial comment, parodies, satires, or other constitutionally protected material. . . . The section is narrowly drafted to encompass only clearly false and misleading commercial speech. 135 Cong. Rec. H1207, H1217 (daily ed., April 13, 1989)).

Similarly, when Congress enacted the cybersquatting law to address the problem of domain names that abuse the rights of trademark holders, it incorporated that law into the Lanham Act as subsection 43(d), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), where it is covered by the exclusion of noncommercial and consumer commentary, which applies to everything in “this section.” Further, Congress included a savings clause explicitly providing that the cybersquatting law would not override either the First Amendment or section 43(c)(4) of the Lanham Act, thus preserving all First Amendment defenses. Public Law 106-113, Section 3008, 113 Stat. 1501A-551. The sponsors of the cybersquatting law specifically disclaimed any intention to provide a cause of action against persons who registered domain names for the purpose of delivering comment or criticisms of trademark owners by identifying the owners with their marks. See House Report 106-412, 106th Cong. 1st Sess. (1999), at 10.

Thus, to prevail on an infringement claim under section 1125, a trademark party must demonstrate that a griper’s website was commercial. If a griper’s website does not sell any goods or services and it expressly states that it is a noncommercial site intended to educate consumers about the trademark party then the website is not commercial.

But in several cases trademark parties have argued that the Internet itself is sufficiently “in commerce” to permit Congress to regulate a griper’s website pursuant to its Commerce Clause power. (site Crown case). Indeed, the Internet generally, and individual websites specifically, could be regulated by Congress pursuant to its Commerce Clause power.

However, the only relevant question is whether Congress intended section 1125 to reach any and all activity on which it is constitutionally empowered to legislate. Congress clearly did not. Section 1125(c)(4)(B)’s noncommercial-use exception ensures that “’parody, satire, editorial and other forms of expression that are not part of a commercial transaction’” and thus are not subject to suit under that provision. Dr. Suess Enterprises v. Penguin Books USA, 924 F. Supp. 1559, 1574 (S.D. Cal. 1996), aff’d, 109 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1997) (quoting statement of Senator Hatch, 141 Cong. Rec. S19310 (daily ed. Dec. 29, 1995)). As the court in Dr. Suess Enterprises explained, “an expressive use is not rendered commercial by the impact of use on sales.” Id.

Moreover, in 1988, Congress defined the phrase “use in commerce” with the express purpose of limiting its scope to use in the ordinary course of trade. As Congress explained, “Amendment of the definition of ‘use in commerce’ [in Section 45 of the Lanham Act] is one of the most far-reaching changes the legislation contains . . . . The committee intends that the revised definition of ‘use in commerce’ be interpreted to mean commercial use which is typical in a particular industry.” Sen. Rep. 100-515, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 44 (1988). Congress could not have been clearer in stating that section 1125 applies only to commercial use of another’s mark, and not to any use that Congress could conceivably regulate pursuant to its Commerce Clause power. See, e.g., Licata & Co. v. Goldberg, 812 F. Supp. 403, 409 (S.D.N.Y. 1993) (holding that the Lanham Act “does not extend to the full outer limits of the commerce power”). Because Congress did not intend section 1125 to apply to non-commercial activities such as a griper’s site, a trademark party should not prevail on its claim that a griper infringed its name in the griper’s site.

“Section 1114”

Trademark infringement cases often include claims under section 1114 of the Lanham Act because, notwithstanding its jurisdictional “in commerce” requirement, Section 1114 contains no commercial activity requirement; rather, it prohibits any person from, without consent of the registrant of a mark, using the mark “in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any good or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive.” The question the Court must decide, then, is whether defendant’s use of plaintiff’s mark is properly viewed as in connection with the distribution or advertising of goods or services. Generally speaking, a website that would be found to be connected with the advertising of goods or services would most likely be found to be a commercial site. Furthermore, if such a site were not found to be commercial, Section 1114 is limited to federally registered trademarks.

Confusion / Diversion

“Evidence Of Confusion”

If a court finds a griper’s website is commercial in nature, to prevail in an infringement action, a trademark party must show that an “appreciable number of ordinarily prudent” customers would be “misled” or “confused” as to the source of the griper’s web site. Thompson Medical co. , Inc. v. Pfizer, 753 F.2d 208, 213 (2d Cir. 1985). Furthermore, even if some customers initially believed” that a griper’s site was the trademark party’s official site, an “initial belief” is not equivalent to confusion regarding source. See The Network Network v. CBS, 54 U.S.P.Q.2d 1150, 1155 (C.D. Cal. 2000) (“There is a difference between inadvertently landing on a website and being confused.”); Choice Hotels International v. Kaushik, 147 F. Supp.2d 1242, 1254-1255 (M.D. Ala. 2000) (finding no confusion where the only evidence was “vague” testimony about unnamed customers” confusion).

Some courts recognize a brand of consumer confusion called “initial interest confusion” which permits a finding of a likelihood of confusion although the consumer is only initially confused and quickly becomes aware of the source's actual identity. See Planned Parenthood Fed'n of Am. Inc. v. Bucci, 1997 WL 133313, at 12 (S.D.N.Y. Mar.24, 1997), aff'd, 152 F.3d 920 (2d Cir.1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 834 (describing initial interest confusion). But see Teletech Customer Care Management, Inc. v. Tele-Tech Co., 977 F.Supp. 1407, 1414 (C.D.Cal.1997) (finding no likelihood of confusion existed when plaintiff “only demonstrated an initial confusion on the part of web browsers using the [plaintiff's] domain name ... but [instead] finding the Defendant's website. This brief confusion is not cognizable under the trademark laws.”).

This “initial interest confusion” has been described as a “bait” and “switch” by infringing producers to impact the “buying decisions of consumers in the market for the goods, effectively allowing the competitor to get its foot in the door by confusing consumers.” Dorr-Oliver Inc. v. Fluid-Quip Inc., 94 F.3d 376, 382 (7th Cir.1996).The court finds plaintiff's argument here unpersuasive. However, in the instances where courts have found “initial interest confusion” as an indicator of the “likelihood of confusion” element of trademark infringement, the courts have also found that the defendant had a commercial incentive or motive in using plaintiff's mark to attract “initial interest.” For example, in Name.Space, Inc. v. Network Solutions, Inc.,202 F.3d 573, (2d Cir. 2000) the plaintiff relied heavily on the Planned Parenthood case to support its argument that “initial interest” confusion is sufficient to demonstrate a likelihood of confusion.

In several cases, trademark party’s have, as did the plaintiff in Name.Space, Inc., cited Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Bucci, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3338 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 24, 1997), to support the argument that a griper’s use of the trademark party’s name in the domain name is not protected by the First Amendment. In Planned Parenthood[17] the court found that the defendant stood to benefit commercially on two bases: (1) defendant was using the “bogus” web site to further sales of a book; and (2) defendant’s nonprofit anti-abortion group stood to commercially benefit through the solicitation of funds by diverting users from plaintiff’s site. Planned Parenthood, 1997 WL 133313, at 5. In addition, there was evidence in the record to demonstrate that Internet users were being diverted from visiting Planned Parenthood’s web site. Id. at 4. Based on that evidence, the court determined that defendant’s actions were commercially harming plaintiff. Id. at 4.

Nevertheless, Planned Parenthood supports the argument that use of a trademark party’s name in a domain name is protected speech as long as the griper is clear that the trademark party is not the source of that website. The court explained that the defendant’s use of www.plannedparenthood.com was a violation of the Lanham Act because the defendant was not engaging in First Amendment protected speech, such as parody or criticism, but rather was using the name to create confusion about the source of the site. The court stated:

Defendant’s use of another entity’s mark is entitled to First Amendment protection when his use of that mark is part of a communicative message, not when it is used to identify the source of a product. By using the mark as a domain name and home page address and by welcoming Internet users to the home page with the message “Welcome to the Planned Parenthood Home Page!” defendant identifies the web site and home page as being the product, or forum, of plaintiff. I therefore determine that, because defendant’s use of the term “planned parenthood” is not part of a communicative message, his infringement on plaintiff’s mark is not protected by the First Amendment.

Id. at 35-36.

Thus, it is important to note that in Planned Parenthood the court held that the defendant’s particular use of the domain name “plannedparenthood.com” was as a “source identifier” rather than a “communicative message,” while leaving open the possibility that a domain name could constitute such a message under other circumstances[18]. Id.

Bad Faith Intent To Profit.

As stated supra, a trademark party must present evidence that a griper used, registered, or trafficked in the trademark party’s domain name with a “bad faith intent to profit” from use of the domain name, to prevail on a claim under the ACPA, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A)(i). The Anticybersquatting Act targets individuals who register “’well-known brand names as Internet domain names’ in order to force the rightful owners of the marks ‘to pay for the right to engage in electronic commerce under their own brand name.’” Virtual Works, Inc. v. Volkswagon of America, Inc., 238 F.3d 264, 267 (4th Cir. 2001) (quoting S.Rep. No.106-140, at 5 (1999)).

For example, the defendant in E. & J. Gallo Winery v. Spider Webs Ltd., 286F.3d 270 (5th Cir. 2002), admitted to owning hundreds of domain names associated with existing businesses which he attempted to sell back to those businesses for upwards of $10,000 a piece. See also Virtual Works, 238, F.3d at 267 (Virtual Works informed Volkswagon that it would sell www.vw.net to the highest bidder).

This element is of critical importance, because for the ACPA to apply the defendant must have “a bad faith intent to profit from that mark” or a personal name as may be applicable. 35 U.S.C. § 43(d)(1)(A)(i)(emphasis added). See Harrods Ltd. v. Sixty Internet Domain Names, 110 F. Supp. 2d 420 (E.D. Va. 2000) (dismissing in rem action for failure to plead bad faith). Further, the Act does not apply to a party who is aware of the trademark status of a mark, but registers the mark for a reason other than bad faith intent to profit, even if the domain name is likely to confuse consumers. Id. (emphasis added)

The Act specifically states that courts may not find bad faith “in any case in which the court determines that the person believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of the domain name was a fair use or otherwise lawful.” Further, the Act enumerates nine factors to be considered by courts in determining if bad faith exists. The factors are not exclusive and none alone is dispositive: 1. The intellectual property rights of the registrant in the domain name; 2. The extent to which the domain name is the same as the registrant's own name or nickname;3. The registrant's prior use of the domain name in connection with offering goods and services;4. The registrant's noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a web site accessible under the domain name[19];5. The registrant's intent to divert customers away from the trademark owner's web site to a web site that could harm the goodwill of the owner's mark[20];6. The registrant's intent to sell the domain name rather than using it for any bona fide purpose, or a prior pattern of such conduct[21];7. The registrant's provision of material and misleading false contact information when applying for the domain name, or a prior pattern of such conduct;8. The registrant's acquisition of multiple domain names which the registrant knows are identical or confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, other's mark9. The extent to which the mark incorporated in the domain name is distinctive and famous

15 U.S.C. § 1125(c)(1).

“Diversion of Consumers through Bad Faith”

Some trademark parties have argued that that griper websites violate section 1125(d) because it is clear, by the wording or construction of the griper’s site, that the griper’s intent is to divert consumers from the trademark party’s online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site[22].

This argument is quoting from one of the nine factors in section 1125(d) that a court “may consider” in making a determination about whether the defendant had a “bad faith intent to profit” in selecting its domain name. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(B)(i)(V). Some articles have argued that if a trademark party can show that a griper intended to tarnish or disparage its name, then it will have demonstrated that the griper violated the Anticybersquatting Act. [need cite] However, this is incorrect for three reasons.

First, as a threshold matter, the Cybersquatting Act clearly states that a griper must have a “bad faith intent to profit,” and thus a trademark party cannot satisfy the standard by showing only that the griper wished to ”tarnish or disparage” the trademark party. Second, although a griper may certainly intended to criticize a trademark party, to violate the Act the griper must do so “by creating a likelihood of confusion as to source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site as section 1125(d)(1)(B)(i)(V) requires. Thus, as this commentary has previously stated, if a griper goes to great effort to display prominent disclaimers throughout his site and distinguishes his site from the trademark party’s official site, then this statutory element is not met. Third, the mere fact that criticism has a tendency to make the public think less of the target of the criticism is not sufficient to make out a trademark violation. Professor McCarthy, a noted expert on trademark, makes this point in his treatise:

Criticism of a company or product

In terms of traditional free speech policy, use of a mark in a purely communicative,non-trademark setting should be permitted or else trademark law could be used as atool to stifle unwelcome discussion. For example, a newsmagazine article which criticizes a firm’s policies should be permitted to use the firm’s logo as a familiar symbol of that firm. A political cartoonist should be allowed some room to use a caricature of a character or design mark in order to make a social point about the firm that owns the mark. If the trademark is “tarnished” in such commentary, it is the result of the content of the ideas being conveyed. The main remedy of the trademark owner is not an injunction to suppress the message. As Justice Brandeis long ago stated, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

The Restatement [of Unfair Competition] takes the position that in cases where the trademark owner alleges injury to reputation from a non-trademark purely communicative use of its mark, trademark law, whether in the form of traditional infringement or dilution, should not apply. Speaking in the context of anti-dilution law, the Restatement remarks that:

The commercial value of a highly distinctive trade symbol results from the strong association of the symbol with the goods, services or business of a particular user.

When that symbol is used by others to identify a different source, the power of the mark to evoke its original association is diluted. Non-trademark uses, which do not involve a use to identify another’s goods, service or business, however, are unlikely to have this diluting effect. In most instances such uses are intended to refer back to the original trademark owner and serve to confirm rather than undermine the associational significance of the mark. The Restatement recognizes the tarnishment impact that can flow from an unfavorable communicative statement about a product or its maker, using the trademark as an identifier of the product or company. But it cautions against use of an anti-dilution law to squelch such “tarnishment,” for this raises “significant free speech concerns and duplicates existing remedies better suited to balance the relevant interests.”

J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 31:148 (4th ed. 1999)(footnotes omitted).

As Professor McCarthy’s explanation makes clear, not only is a griper’s website
permissible under trademark law, it also constitutes speech protected by the First Amendment.

Creative Works Exception

In many cases, trademark parties argue that the First Amendment applies only to a griper’s use of its name in the text of a website, and does not apply to the use of its name in the domain name or meta tags of the griper’s website. See (the Crown Ballock case). That is incorrect. The use of another’s name in a domain name is analogous to the use of a trademark in the title of a creative work, to which the courts give First Amendment protection because it is part of the author’s expression, calling attention to the content of the work in question. E.g., Twin Peaks Production v. Publications Int'l, 996 F.2d 1366, 1379 (2dCir. 1993); Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 999 (2d Cir. 1989). Such speech in a website is protected so long as the griper’s website does not masquerade as the trademark party’s official website, contains prominent disclaimers, and is so clearly critical of the trademark party that no reasonable viewer of the site could believe that it is the trademark party’s official site. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp.2d 1161, 1163-64 (D.C. Cal. 1998) (concluding that “no reasonable consumer” would believe that a website critical of plaintiff was sponsored by plaintiff).

RECENT APPLICATION OF THE ACPA

Crown Pontiac, Inc. v. Ballock, 287 F.Supp.2d 1256 ( N.D.Ala.,2003) B’ham star July 10, 2002

The Preliminary Injunction was lifted in its entirety by this Court's Order of July 16, 2002, following briefs and a hearing on Ballock's Motion to Dissolve the Preliminary Injunction. By this time, Ballock had secured highly competent representation. There was no evidence that Ballock was motivated by profit, or any other commercial motive in creating his website. Moreover, there was no evidence that Crown suffered damages as a result of the website. Thus, the Preliminary Injunction never should have been issued.On September 4, 2002, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the Ballocks on all disputed issues. Based on the arbitrator's decision: (1) the Ballocks were permitted to revoke their purchase of the vehicle; (2) Crown was required to reimburse the Ballocks for all the car payments they had made; (3) Crown was required to pay off the vehicle loan in its entirety; and (4) Crown was required to pay the Ballocks $7,500 for their expenses and time.Automobile dealership sued disgruntled customer to enjoin his use of dealership's name in domain name of website created and maintained by customer to express his dissatisfaction with dealership. The District Court issued preliminary injunction contingent on dealership's posting of $10,000 bond. Following dissolution of injunction, customer moved for damages from bond. The District Court, Clemon, J., held that: (1) customer was entitled to $766.45 in out-of-pocket expenses; (2) $4,000 in mental anguish damages; and (3) $2,000 for deprivation of First Amendment rights.Motion granted. Disgruntled customer was entitled to $4,000 in mental anguish damages resulting from wrongfully issued preliminary injunction enjoining his use of automobile dealership's name in domain name of website created and maintained by customer to express his dissatisfaction with dealership from bond posted by dealership, based on dealership's attorney's threats to have customer "jailed or fined for contempt of court" for any violation of injunction.Disgruntled customer was entitled to $2,000 in damages for deprivation of First Amendment rights resulting from wrongfully issued preliminary injunction enjoining his use of automobile dealership's name in domain name of website created and maintained by customer to express his dissatisfaction with dealership from bond posted by dealership.

Pursuant to a Settlement Agreement between the parties, this case was dismissed, with prejudice, on February 13, 2003. Ballock suffered $766.45 in out-of-pocket costs to defend against the Preliminary Injunction. He suffered $4,000 in mental anguish damages. Finally, the deprivation of his First Amendment rights flowing from the wrongful issuance of the Preliminary Injunction is valued at $2,000.00.

CONCLUSION

Unlike patents and copyrights, the principle purpose behind the trademark law was—until recently—to protect consumers from confusion. Trademarks were not primarily designed to reward the intellectual property owner with an exclusive right to enjoy the financial fruits of their ingenuity. They were designed to protect individual and commercial consumers from accidentally buying a computer made by Incredibly Boorish Manufacturers on the basis of an IBM sticker on the tower case. This distinction – that trademarks are supposed to protect consumers—is important when considering cybersquatting and the emerging law that covers this concept.

Websites that proffer consumer commentary and political assent or dissent is exactly what courts, under the First Amendment, should fastidiously protect. A citizen’s criticisms would be wholly mysterious -- indeed, they would be pointless -- if s/he had to omit the name of the company or politician s/he is criticizing. This is core speech that should be fully protected by the First Amendment as non-commercial speech. If a user is trying to get to, for example, the Verizon website, if the user incorrectly inputs the domain name, they will not arrive at the Verizon website whether the incorrect spelling is a registered domain or not. In addition, while I have no supporting empirical data, common experience suggests that most people input a company or product name into a search engine, and then discern from the list of websites that appear in the search results which website is the one they are in fact seeking. Thus, to label what would be considered, in the traditional sense, non-commercial dissent as an unfair trademark use, simply because the dissent is published over the internet via a domain name that is similar to a trademark, is disingenuous of the spirit of ACPA and of the intelligence of Internet users.

Where a griper uses a trademark party’s name in a domain name and meta tags, as well as the text, to communicate the subject of the griper’s criticism, and not to create any confusion about the source of the website, the use of the trademark party’s name in the domain name and meta tags of the griper’s site, like the use of the trademark party’s name in the text of that site, constitutes First Amendment protected speech and should not be subject to the restraint of an injunction.

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NOTES

[1] A domain name is simply a website’s “address,” specifically the address one would type into the URL window to go directly to a specific website. For example, Faulkner University’s official website has a domain name of www.faulkner.edu.

[2] A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof-- used by a person to identify and distinguish his or her goods from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of those goods. See 15 U.S.C. § 1127.

[3] For example, a person named John Doe creates a website with a registered domain name of “www.disney.com.” Doe’s purpose, though, is not creative expression but rather to hold sole right to the domain name and attempt to sell the name to the Disney Company when it attempts to establish an official Disney website at www.Disney.com.

[4] Such as “www.verizonsucks.com”, where dissatisfied customers voice their dissatisfaction with Verizon Communications - the new telecommunications giant formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE- and “gwbush.com”, where citizens voice what they think are totalitarian, anti-American actions perpetrated by the Bush administration.
[5] SubmitExpress is a search engine optimization firm which helps companies increase their web site productivity through a combination of web site optimization and search engine submissions and specializes in advanced search engine marketing. Its on-line member company newsletters are one of several complimentary services it provides to consumers and its members. Its website may be found at www.submitexpress.com

[6] Meta tags are hidden text placed in the “head” section of a html page. They are used by most major search engines to index websites based on the keywords and descriptions the website’s creator chooses for the website. It is very important to use Meta tags as well as a good title for a website if one expects to be found in most search engines. Meta tags are not the only thing search engines will look at when ranking a website. Also, some search engines will ignore Meta tags completely. However, most search engines will rank and index websites by a combination of the Meta tags, the website title and the website’s body text.

[7] The act also provides a cause of action where an individual’s name is used within a domain name by a cubersquatter, such as “www.georgebush.com.”
[8] According to the legislative history fair use includes comparative advertising, comment, criticism, or parody – even where done for profit. However, simply establishing a website with a fair use, if the actual intent is to sell, will not allow a cybersquatter to avoid a bad faith determination. Id.
[9] For example, a local California comedienne registered “www.usamabinladen.com”, and every variation thereof, in late September of 2001.
[10] For example “www.porsche.com”
[11] To continue with the same example, “www.porcshe.com” or “www.prosche.com.”
[12] An example given in the committee reports is “911porsche.com.”
[13] The Warsaw Convention is a unification of certain rules relating to international carriage by air.
[14] E.g., Cardtoons v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 95 F.3d 959, 968-970 (10th Cir. 1996); Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 997-999 (2d Cir. 1989); Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co. v. Novak, 836 F.2d 397, 402-403 (8th Cir. 1987).
[15] L.L. Bean v. Drake Publishers, 811 F.2d 26, 33 (1st Cir. 1987); ACLU of Georgia v. Miller, 977 F. Supp. 1228, 1233 (N.D. Ga. 1997); Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 1161, 1167 (C.D. Cal. 1998); Lighthawk v. Robertson, 812 F. Supp. 1095, 1097-1101 (W.D. Wash. 1993); Stop the Olympic Prison v. United States Olympic Comm., 489 F. Supp. 1112, 1124-1125 (S.D.N.Y. 1980); see also Lucasfilm v. High Frontier, 622 F. Supp. 931 (D.D.C. 1985) (ruling on non-constitutional grounds).

[16] This section of the Act, as amended by the ACPA, is applicable to federally registered trademarks as well as unregistered trade names and other marks.
[17] Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA) has sued several anti-choice activists who unlawfully registered domain names that infringe on PPFA’s famous service marks, to include “Planned Parenthood®” and “teenwire®,” which is used in connection with PPFA’s award-winning Web site that provides teens with information about reproductive and sexual health and relationships.

The defendants in these cases collectively registered nine domain names, including ‘”wwwplannedparenthood.com” and “teenswire.com,” all of which are identical to or close variations of PPFA’s marks and point Internet users to graphic anti-choice Web sites such as www.abortionismurder.org and www.abortioncams.com. Once Internet users are initially misdirected, websites such as the abortionismurder.org site employs further technical and software devices to keep the consumer from finding PPFA’s legitimate Web sites.

[18] In reaching this conclusion, the Planned Parenthood court conducted a particularistic, context-sensitive analysis, including analyses of the domain name itself, the way the domain name is being used, the motivations of the author of the website in question, the contents of the website, and so on.

[19] Uses that are for commentary, comparative advertising, criticism, parody, or news reporting are not covered by the ACPA. However, if that site is registered with the intent to sell it back to the owner, then the registrant is not using it for comment, but for commercial gain and may be liable in an ACPA action. Compare Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 2d 1161 (C.D. Cal. 1998) (holding that criticism site is not a commercial use and therefore not dilutive); with Lucent Techs. v. Johnson, 2000 WL 1604055, 56 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1637 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 12, 2000) (allowed claim under ACPA where defendant used lucentsucks.com for a pornographic Web site); Shields v. Zuccarini, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3350 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 22, 2000) (finding bad faith where the defendant changed the nature of the challenged Web sites to political protests hours after he was served with the complaint); and Northland Ins. Cos. v. Blaylock, 115 F. Supp. 2d 1108 (D. Minn. 2000) (used to express dissatisfaction with Northland Insurance after the company refused a claim filed with it).
[20] Typically, this entails using a famous trademark to link to a site that offers competing products or sexually explicit material. This also includes activities such as "typo-squatting," e.g., www.pannasonic.com (extra "n") or wwwpainewebber.com (missing the period after www). See also Electronics Boutique Holdings Corp. v. Zuccarini, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 765 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 25, 2001) (entering default judgment where the defendant registered five domain names with slight misspellings of the plaintiff's mark); Ford Motor Co. v. Lapertosa, 126 F. Supp. 2d 463 (E.D. Mich. 2001) (granting preliminary injunction against registrant of www.fordrecalls.com being used for hard core pornography site).
[21] This factor is often demonstrated by the registrant's attempts to sell the domain name to the plaintiff in the particular case, or through a prior pattern of such conduct. See Northern Light Tech. v. Northern Lights Club, 236 F.3d 57 (1st Cir. 2001) (finding that registration of multiple domain names was evidence of bad faith under ACPA).Even if the registrant's intent was only partially to profit from a protected mark, the registrant can be found to have violated the Act. See Virtual Works, Inc. v. Volkswagen of Am., 238 F.3d 264 (4th Cir. 2001).
[22] As was discussed supra, this was one of the arguments made by the plaintiff in Alitala-Linee Aeree Italiane S.P.S. v. William Porta, 00 Civ. 9731 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).

Ordering Pizza in 2010

2005-02-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

******

This post and all those below it represent entries sent to readers via email before Vita ab Alto started. They are placed here for reference and amusement.

******

It surprised me to find out that you'd still be talking to a live person in Hillary's America, but then I found out that the operator was in Bombay...

ORDERING PIZZA IN 2010

Operator: Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your national ID number?

Customer: Hi, I'd like to place an order.

Operator: I must have your NIDN first, sir.

Customer: My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610.

Operator: Thank you Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number is 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302 and your cell number is 266-2566. Email address is sheehan@home.net. Which number are you calling from sir?

Customer: Huh? I'm at home. Where'd you get all this information?

Operator: We're wired into the HSS, sir.

Customer: The HSS, what is that?

Operator: We're wired into the Homeland Security System, sir. This will add only 15 seconds to your ordering time.

Customer: (sighs) Oh well, I'd like to order a couple of your All-Meat Special pizzas.

Operator: I don't think that's a good idea, sir.

Customer: Whaddya mean?

Operator: Sir, your medical records and commode sensors indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice .

Customer: What?!?! What do you recommend, then?

Operator: You might try our low-fat Soybean Pizza. I'm sure you'll like it.

Customer: What makes you think I'd like something like that?

Operator: Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion.

Customer: All right, all right. Give me two family-sized one's, then.

Operator: That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids. Your 2 dogs can finish the crusts, sir. Your total is $49.99.

Customer: Lemme give you my credit card number.

Operator: I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash. Your credit card balance is over its limit.

Customer: I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your driver gets here.

Operator: That won't work either, sir. Your checking account is overdrawn also.

Customer: Never mind! Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready. How long will it take?

Operator: We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45 minutes. If you're in a hurry you might want to pick'em up while you're out getting the cash, but then, carrying pizzas on a motorcycle can be a little >awkward.

Customer: Wait! How do you know I ride a scooter?

Operator: It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid for and you just filled the tank yesterday.

Customer: Well, I'll be a #%#^^&$%^$@#

Operator: I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a July 4, 2003, conviction for cussing out a cop and another one I see here in September for contempt at your hearing for cussing at a judge. Oh yes, I see here that you just got out from a 90 day stay in the State Correctional Facility. Is this your first pizza since your return to society?

Customer: (speechless)

Operator: Will there be anything else, sir?

Customer: Yes, I have a coupon for a free 2 liter of Coke.

Operator: I'm sorry sir, but our ad's exclusionary clause prevents us from offering free soda to diabetics. The New Constitution prohibits this. Thank you for calling Pizza Hut.

Monk

Update: Chefjef responds.

Hey, no fair.... all of the legislation that has made the types of intrusions in this scenario possible have been pushed by Repubs... specifically neocon's...one
of the points of emerging contention between "Reagan Repubs" and neocons is the neocon distinct lack of obedience to constitutional principles, states rights
and personal privacy in the pursuit of some of their policy goals.

But, I'll gove you one thing..... if Hillary is the Dem candidate in '08, I'll have to vote Repub or third party. Can you imagine her as President? I didn't think she was going to run, but her posturing the last few months had made it clear that she is certainly both entertaining and testing out the possibility of so doing. I think she could win the nomination, but cannot win a national election. If I were a
republican, I would do everything I could to facilitate her success in the 2008 primary.

I'll give you that last paragraph, though... pretty funny (well, maybe to lawyers). The exclusionary clause on selling soda to diabetics... definitely a fringe benefit of "Trial Lawyers gone bad," right up there with the warning labels that come inside new blenders that say "do not insert hand while operating." I can see Barbara Boxer sponsoring an amendment to the Constitution now!

Chefjef

Abomination II -- Chefjef's Revenge

2004-11-17T04:14:00.000-08:00

Correspondent Chefjef responds to this post from yesterday:

Monk

Okay, now for the other side of the argument.... I agree that the Marine who shot the insurgent should NOT be villified in the press. And yes, that reporter is probably trying to make a bigger name for himself (read "$$$"). But an investigation - now that the incident is public- should be conducted by the Marine Corps.

Listen, I know everyone's reaction to these rat bastards is "kill 'em all." I'd be a big, fat liar if I said my visceral reaction is not the same. However, even war being what it is - the worst, most vile endeavor of man - if a man is wounded, unarmed, and does not pose an imminent threat (the last prong of that test being the real locus in quo of whether the Marine's action was justified), then there really is
no moral justification to shoot him.... and since our country adopted a moral stance (i.e. getting rid of an evil regime, installing democracy, etc.) in invading Iraq in the first place, consistency in moral conduct (not moral language, moral consuct)is paramount in maintaining the legitimacy of our occupation.

To shoot a man (regardless of what he has done) who is unarmed, wounded, and does not pose an imminent threat, is plain wrong. The Marine was certainly trained that way. When I was in the Infantry, we were specifically trained (my unit, specifically, spent one week being trained by recon specialists of the 2nd Ranger Battalion)on approaching and detaining wounded or dead enemies who may be booby-trapped. Just shooting them was not an option. I'll admit that even in a safe training environment, it was nerve wracking and most of us thought it was nuts - why not just kill 'em, we thought - so I can only imagine, at best, what it is like to do it for real. Nontheless, it is part of the job. Like my platoon seargant used to say, "[Y}ou don't have to like it, Private, you just have to do it. If you can't do it, go flip burgers. This is a gig for big boys with big balls."

The expounding of certain values and morals, folks, is not what separates the Christian from the non-believer, the criminal from the law abiding tax payer, the Red State from the Blue State, etcetera; it is the PRACTICE of certain values and morals that is the differentiating factor. Our Savior Jesus Christ tried, repeatedly, to teach this to the Pharisees (indeed, to everyone) and they just didn't get it.

They believed if they spoke Holy and pretended to be Holy, they were Holy. They weren't. I'll give a more practical example.

The "Red State" of Texas, which is a supposedly "family values" state, has one of the highest rates of divorce and teen preganancy in the country. San Antonio, when I lived there, had one of the highest rates of the spread of Herpes and Syphillis in the country (that statisitic was reported by the city itself). In contrast, the "Blue State" of Massachusetts, a liberal state (okay, more of a socialist state, really) has one of the lowest rates of divorce in the country and one of the lowest rates of teen pregnancy in the country. (feel free to check the stats, of course)

So, Texas may call itself a "family values" state, but it isn't doing family values; it is doing a lot of teen and extra-marital sex. Massachusetts, on the other hand, apparently practices what Texas preaches. Talk is cheap. Divorces, un-wed teen mothers and abortions are not.

Which is the real "family values" state? The one that talks the talk or the one that walks the walk?

If we behave like the barbarians, even in war, then we are the barbarians. Moral superiority is more difficult than depravity. Following a Christ-like-moral path is severly more difficult than not; Jesus made it clear that abiding by God's principles WOULD be extremely difficult and could even cost you your life. If a piece of crap drug dealer shoots my partner, then drops his gun, raises his hands and says,"I give up," I cannot shoot him. I have to take him into custody and read him his rights.

I'll be up-front: I think that sucks. I hate that. It pisses me off. I think it is b**l s**t. It is a slap in the face, and I would much rather see the drug dealer dead, and be the one to send him to to his maker, than smell his stinking f*****g breath in my patrol car. I am not overstating my position, either. I damn well mean every word. But, in that situation, arresting him and reading him his rights is the right thing to do; morally and legally. And I would do it. Most people probably could not; but that's why most people can't wear the badge I wear. Most of us who do wear the badge (unfortunately not all, though) have the ability to abide the moral and legal values of our nation in difficult, horrific, delicate and/or tempting situations in which many others cannot. But that is why we require such personality traits in police officers; if our law enforcement officials simply verbalize, but do not practice, the principles set forth by our Founders and our Savior, then our self-proclaimed Christian democracy is really just an illusory self-deceit.

As for the young Marine, certainly his age, training, the totality of his circumstances, his mental state, the particularities of the engagement in which he was involved, the presence and effect(or lack of) of his command structure, as well as many other factors MUST be taken into account in any evaluation, analysis and/or investigation of the incident. But to say, absolutely, that what he did was okay, so let's kill'em all and move on - I respectfully disagree.

Chefjef

Abomination

2004-10-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

This is an unconscionable abomination:

The U.S. military is investigating the videotaped fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine in a mosque in Fallujah, a Marine spokesman said. The dramatic footage was taken Saturday by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC television, who said three other prisoners wounded a day earlier in the mosque had also apparently been shot the next day by the Marines.

I mean, of course, not the Marine's action, but the reporter's deliberate effort to discredit the US and its fighting men and the fact that this is eing "investigated."

How dare that reporter--who is almost certainly opposed to the war, as most of his pampered Birkenstock Bolshevik class is--and how dare the Establishment suits who made the decision to push this story forward--equally pampered, equally opposed to the military--stand in judgment of that young Marine. War is a nasty, ugly, sordid business; there is no way to make it otherwise. Attempting to blame soldiers in face-to-face action against the enemy for "war crimes" is an absurdity and an obscenity, especially when this is what they're fighting against:

Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule.

Amid the rubble of the main shopping street, one decree bearing the insurgents' insignia - two Kalashnikovs propped together - and dated November 1 gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city's library or face execution.

Another poster in the ruins of the souk bears testament to the strict brand of Sunni Islam imposed by the council, fronted by hardline cleric Abdullah Junabi. The decree warns all women that they must cover up from head to toe outdoors, or face execution by the armed militants who controlled the streets.

Two female bodies found yesterday suggest such threats were far from idle. An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the head.

Just six metres away on the same street lay the decomposing corpse of a blonde-haired white woman, too disfigured for swift identification but presumed to be the body of one of the many foreign hostages kidnapped by the rebels.

This from the London Times, hardly a hotbed of sympathy for the war or Red State values. This is what the young Marine was fighting, whether or not his proximate actions were wrong. Every islamist thus killed, armed or no--'rightly' or no, is one who is no longer able to booby-trap wounded mujahedin in order to kill Marines who come to their aid; or kill children with roadside bombs somewhere else in Iraq; or disembowel foreign female aid workers; or cane to death native girls who are inadequately bhourka-ed; or survive to old age in a Canuckistan pensione, working with a young leftist lawyer from San Francisco or Paris to sue the Marine who shot him for violating his rights as a "citizen of the world"; or emigrate to Michigan as a "student" with vials full of Sarin, single-cell protein, or enriched Uranium. Kudos to that young Marine! May he stick around to aerate a thousand more islamocockroaches!

Kill them all. Let God sort them out.

Monk

Never Get Out of the Boat

2004-08-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Willard [voice over]:

"...'Never get out of the boat'.

Absolutely goddamn right...

...unless you're going all the way."

Remember this? It's seared in my memory... And, indeed, John F. Kerry seems to be following the script--he hasn't gotten out of the boat in decades and won't until he occupies the White House.

He's pinned a large part of his campaign on his heroic exploits as a SwiftPTgunpatrolboat Cap'n, trolling for Commie Gooks and drunken ARVN zipperheads on the snake-infested Meee-kong back in the Big One, Dubya-dubya Viet-frickin'-NAM, man!

Yet it seems that he's pulled a large part of his exploits and remembrances straight from the script of Apocalypse Now. And then elaborated on them a bit.

Ahh...but he was THERE, man! He ought to know better what went down in th' Nam better than some pansy-assed Hollywood type, right? That's what he told the Boston Herald back in '79 anyway:

"Coppola's vision of Vietnam is pure fantasy--a celluloid acid trip which fails to satisfactorily convey the real craziness or the madness of the war."
"On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia. I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity."

(YEAH, man, it was, like, even WORSE than Hollywood could portray it, y'know? And when the Maaaan came down on us and ordered us into the Heart of Darkness, there was all this, like, Jimi Hendrix n'stuff coming off loudspeakers over there...and all these dead, bloated bodies floating in the water (cf para. 4, right side of page) and hanging from trees and B-52s howling overhead (see para. 5).....it like, totally freaked me OUT, man!)

I, however, sensed a touch....just a touch.....of the absurd:
Nixon wasn't President when he and his Band of Brothers (2004 Dem Convention acceptance speech) supposedly went Kurtzing up to Kampuchea--The Maaaaaaaaaaaan at the time was a Democrat.

He wasn't in Cambodia on or about Christmas Eve '68, as his campaign has admitted: "On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around fifty miles from the Cambodian border" (Doug Brinkley, author of Tour of Duty).

There are serious questions about the validity of his medal citations (but we can forgive him that--there's a long Democratic tradition of lying about combat citations--see, for instance, Robert McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, on LBJ's Silver Star). He didn't think much of the medals anyway--he threw them away the first chance he got.

Of course, when Kerry got back to The World and found that the political winds had changed, he accused his "Band of Brothers" of having

"raped, cut off ears, cut off heads...cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, [and] razed villages in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan..."

(Complete Testimony of Lt John Kerry to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pg 5)

And he, like Jane Fonda, felt it necessary to hold private meetings in Paris his good friends, the North Vietnamese, who thanked him for his hard work on their behalf--all while he was still a serving officer in the US Naval Reserve.

The WaPo and the NYT, of course, are fronting free propaganda for the Kerry campaign, telling us how everyone who questions Kerry's memory concerning his LBJ-quick Silver Star and Christmas in Cambodia is a lying-dirty-oily-lying-filthy-treasonous-lying-two-toothed-redneck-lying-loblolly-pineywoods-primitive-Baptist-who-believes-in-God-f'rchiesake-lying-stinking sack of dung. Most of the usual suspects have lined up with Kerry, too (with the admirable exception of Slate). Here's Pat Oliphant, for instance. Yep, that's what the Cognoscenti think of us in Flyover Country.

But what did you expect? For something closer to the truth, as always, you need to go places like this . Seems to me that, back in the TIME, man, the Left used to complain about the media being controlled by, like, the Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Hmmmm....

Concerning Kerry's memory, there's only one possible explanation. He spent too much time Over There....y'know...in the Heart of Darkness. It affects different men in different ways. In Kerry's case, it only took four months before his soul went mad, man:

Hopper [to Willard in tiger cage]:

"You know something, man? I know something you don't know. That's right, jack! The man is...clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. Oh, yeah. He's dying, I think. He hates all this [gesturing to bodies hanging from trees]. He hates it! But...the man's...uh..... He reads poetry out loud, alright? And a voice! A voice.... He likes you 'cause you're still alive. He's got plans for you. No, no...I'm not gonna help you...you're gonna help him, man. You're gonna help him. I mean, what are they gonna say, man, when he's gone, huh? 'Cause he dies when it dies, man! When it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him? What? They gonna say, 'he was a kind man?' 'He was a wise man?' 'He had plans?' 'He had wisdom?' BullSHIT, man! Am I gonna be the one that sets them straight? Look at me! WRONG! [Pointing at Willard]........YOU..."

(For Kurtz, think John Kerry; for Hopper the Photographer, think the Democratic Left; for Willard in the tiger cage, think the American voter)

...And JFK is going all the way...if the Swifties don't sink him first. To contribute to Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, go here

(/screed)

Monk

Smash the Machines! Oh...And No Betting Either

2003-07-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a little snippet of news that probably escaped your notice.

This from the NY Times:
"The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.
The discarded program was met with astonishment and derision almost from the moment it was disclosed.
In the proposed futures market, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel, say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)."

Another:
"Appalling," " repugnant," and "incredibly stupid" were a few of the choice words used by two U.S. Senators, Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-WA) over a Pentagon proposal to create a futures market aimed at predicting events in the Middle East. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle chimed in, "I must say this is perhaps the most irresponsible, outrageous and poorly thought-out of anything that I have heard the administration propose to date." In reaction, an embarrassed Defense Department swiftly canned the project. What nefarious activity is Pentagon up to? Creating an online betting parlor to enable insider traders at the Defense and State Departments to feather their retirement nests?"

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? What WILL those evil Bushie capitalist warmongers think of next? Betting on the death of millions so they can eat turtle soup and venison served on gold spoons...while the jobless poor huddle around their fuel-barrel fires in our gutted cities.... I makes me want to weep.

Perhaps by now, though, you've come to the conclusion, as I have, that you can take NOTHING that comes from the mainstream press or its political masters on the left at face value. Such a conclusion might have led you here.

And here.
And, eventually, here.

The truth? This was a good idea...no, a series of brilliant ideas, worthy of St Andrews Academy (those who have ears to hear, let them hear). Here, in a nutshell, is why:
Free futures markets are powerful predictors, with proven track records. They are more accurate than opinion and election polls and a lot more accurate than long-range weather forecasting. If you don't believe me, try here. and here.
DARPA set up a policy analysis market (PAM), to trade worldwide in futures contracts dealing with underlying issues in the Middle East (economics, the fate of regimes, etc.), experimenting with them as a form of predictive intelligence gathering. There are many such markets in the private sector, many of them "betting" on nasty things, and they've worked for years.

"Why not harness the predictive power of markets for intelligence purposes? Markets have demonstrated time and time again that people have a lot of dispersed and hidden information that the prospect of profit can lure into the open."
"Why wouldn't terrorists just hop online and start betting if they couldn't either mislead American authorities about their plans or make money to fund more al Qaeda operations?" [Senator] Wyden asked. Why not indeed? If terrorists were trying to use PAM to make money that "would mean that they are giving up information to gain money," says Hanson. "In other words, we're bribing them to tell us what they are going to do. That's kind of like normal intelligence gathering when we bribe agents for information."

Might work, might not. But it was certainly worth a try. You'd never see this side of the matter in the press, though.

"In the end, a promising research program that might have enhanced U.S. intelligence gathering was killed off by cheap moral posturing on the part of a couple of U.S. Senators."
...And fed, I might add, by compliant leftists in the mainstream media.

"Who's incredibly stupid now?"

Monk

Harry Potter and the Garden of Nutbag

2003-07-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

The following Lileks essay is remarkably apt, given the sentiments in the posters I posted earlier today. It puts such sentiments in proper perspective as only Jim Lileks can:

In the Sunday book pages of the Strib was an article about the women of Afghanistan. It was discussing the new-found freedoms of women in the post-Taliban society, about girls queuing for school after years of oppression. Quote: “No matter what one’s political misgivings about the war might be, the sight of those girls was a thrilling shock.”

That sentence stuck in my head, and made me think back to October 01, to all the discontent over the Afghan campaign. We’ve forgotten what that was like - the marches in Europe, the predictions of mass casualties, the accusations of empire-building, how it was all about (cue Twilight Zone theme) an oil pipeline, how it would become a quagmire, how it was a quagmire, how we should have used international law to bring OBL to justice. It was the dress rehearsal for Iraq. The same blind sputtering fury; the same protests with Bush = Hitler posters and giant mocking puppets; the same inability to accept that a byproduct of the campaign would be a freer society for the very people the protesters supposedly cared about.

Any mass executions at the Kabul soccer stadium recently? No?

Wonder why.

That book-review quote says it all. We have to honor those who had “political misgivings,” because dissent is a virtue too pure to be stained by truth. Nevermind that the end result of those “political misgivings” would have been another generation of Afghan daughters beaten with bats for winking at a cute guy. Those “political misgivings” would have assured that any young Afghan woman who stepped outside her house and asked to be educated would be whipped with 2 X 4s by the Committee for Flaming Theocracy Gynophobe Committee.

But that can’t be said. People who were wrong for the right reasons will always get a pass.
Look. I don’t have “political misgivings” about a Liberian intervention; I have practical misgivings about using American forces in TFNs, or Totally Farked Nations. I’m on the fence here. I’ve heard compelling arguments against intervention, and I've heard solid arguments about the uniqueness of an American presence in Liberia, considering their attitude towards its distant thrice-removed paternal figure. But if I decide it’s all a big mistake, and I put up a lawn sign and write letters to the editor and show up for candlelight vigils and all the other examples of symbolic busywork, I don’t get to be thrilled when Monrovia is peaceful and thriving again. I get to be embarrassed.

i thought of this today while reading an interview with the director of the latest Harry Frickin’ Potter movie. Oh, he’s a brave man; oh, he’s a truth teller:

Cuaron’s outspokenness is also new to the franchise. Does the evil wizard Voldemort still remind him of George W. Bush, as he said recently? “In combination with Saddam,” he says. “They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment.”

That last fillip is priceless. It’s like Mick Jagger on stage pointing to the right half of the balcony - they all stand up and scream. Me! Me! He noticed Me!

Let's review. Bush: supported legislation that wanted to open up an obscure distant corner of caribou country for oil production. The legislation failed; the drilling has not occurred.

Saddam: drained the entire southeastern marsh of his nation, diverted the water, ruined wetlands and the Ma’dan, the people who lived in that ecosystem. One could call it Ethnic Cleansing. One could even call it a Hate Crime.

Well, the water is flowing into the marshes again. Saddam flooded them to hamper the invasion. Yeah, that worked well, eh? Now the villagers are returning; now they’re fishing again.

Of course, this was not the objective of the war; hardly. But it’s happened. And it’s irrelevant to the finely-tuned political minds of our culture’s artists. If Bush had called Saddam “a real-life Voldemort” they’d have spit out their tea and laughed themselves silly - such simplistic Hollywood drivel; what else would you expect from an example of doltus Americanus?

But should a director of moving pictures call Bush a real-life Voldemort, and twin him with a fascist who gassed a village for research purposes - ah, there’s a canny lad. There’s a piercing mind.

This director’s movie will open nationwide on 3,000 screens, and it will make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tell me again about the crushing of dissent. But speak up! The TV is rerunning Baghdad reaction to the death of the brothers, and the celebratory gunfire is deafening. Their political misgivings about American intervention aside, they actually seem happy.

Nurse: 40 ccs of Reuters, STAT!

Monk

Posters, Part 1

2003-07-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

I gather from the source site [Note 27 Apr 06: I have long since lost the link to the source] that these are intended to be "in-your-face," biting leftist sarcasm, much the way that "Dr. Strangelove" was when in first came out in '64. "We'll put those fascist warmongers in their place!" that movie seemed to want to say. Of course, those of us who have learned to stop worrying and love the bomb are the very ones who enshrine--and memorize--that movie today. The left doesn't remember it.

In a similar vein, I love these. They shall adorn my small corner of the cube farm. Irony always trumps sarcasm.

Monk

American Hero (and Friend)

2003-07-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Wow! National Public Radio did a remarkable job highlighting a true American hero you don't hear much about these days.
For those who don't know, Kinch was my dad's best friend (the grave spoken of in the story is adjacent and identical to my dad's at Arlington). It's great to see Kinch getting the recognition he deserves.

Dot: FANTASTIC JOB!

A few highlights:

July 25, 2003 -- His feat is tucked in the timeline of aviation history -- somewhere between Chuck Yeager ripping through the sound barrier in 1947 and John Glenn making his orbital flight in 1962. But in his day, Capt. Iven Kincheloe, who flew a rocket-powered plane to the edge of space one morning in 1956, was as much a star as those other two famous aviators. NPR's Bob Edwards reports.

Neil Armstrong, a friend and fellow test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1950s, says Kincheloe probably would have been at the center of America's space program. "I know had he survived that he would be very much in the middle of whatever was going on subsequent to that point. He may very well have been selected for the astronaut program. He was certainly capable of doing that -- or he might have chosen to do something else. But in any case, he would be at the forefront out at the edge of the frontier and having a ball doing it."

The NPR site contains loads of pix, video snippets, audio clips and general commentary. Check it out

Monk

Musician Jokes

2003-07-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both."

Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist's arm?
A: A tattoo.

Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.

Q: What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: "The Defendant"

Q: What do clarinetists use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: What did the drummer get on his I.Q. Test?
A: Saliva.

Q: What do call a guitar player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: What's the similarity between a drummer and a philosopher?
A: They both perceive time as an abstract concept.

Q: What is the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner?
A: You have to plug one of them in before it sucks.

Q: Why do some people have an instant aversion to banjo players?
A: It saves time in the long run.

Q: What's the difference between a folk guitar player and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: What's the difference between a jet airplane and a trumpet?
A: About three decibels.

Q: What's the latest crime wave in New York City?
A: Drive-by trombone solos.

Q: What is another term for trombone?
A: A wind driven, manually operated, pitch approximator.

Q: What is the dynamic range of a bass trombone?
A: On or off.

Q: What's the difference between a SCUD missile and a bad oboist?
A: A bad oboist can kill you.

Q: Why do clarinetists leave their cases on the dashboard?
A: So they can park in the handicapped zones.

Q: What's the difference between an opera singer and a pit bull?
A: Lipstick.

Q: Why do people play trombone?
A: Because they can't move their fingers and read music at the same time.

Q: How does a violist's brain cell die?
A: Alone.

Q: What do you call a guitar player that only knows two chords?
A: A music critic.

Q: How do you keep your violin from being stolen?
A: Put it in a viola case.

Q: What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
A: You can tune a chainsaw.

Q: What will you never say about a banjo player?
A: "That's the banjo player's Porsche."

Q: What do a viola and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is relieved when the case is closed.

Q: Why are harps like elderly parents?
A: Both are unforgiving and hard to get into and out of cars.

Q: How many trumpet players does it take to pave a driveway?
A: Seven- if you lay them out correctly.

Q: What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
A: You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.

Q: How are a banjo player and a blind javelin thrower alike?
A: Both command immediate attention and alarm, and force everyone to move out of range.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and a baby elephant?
A: Eleven pounds.

Q: Why are violist's fingers like lightning?
A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 13 - one to do it, and twelve to stand around and say, "Phhhwt! I can do that!"

Tuba Player: "Did you hear my last recital?"
Friend: "I hope so."

Q: How does a young man become a member of a high school chorus?
A: On the first day of school he turns into the wrong classroom.

Did you hear about the Tenor who was so arrogant the other Tenors noticed?

Q: What do you call a hundred conductors at the bottom of the Ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: How can you tell when a singer is at your door?
A: The can't find the key, and they never know when to come in.

Q: How do you get two bass players to play in unison?
A: Hand them charts a half-step apart.

Q: What's the difference between a dead chicken in the road, and a dead trombonist in the road?
A: There's a remote chance the chicken was on its way to a gig.

Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A: A vocalist.

Q: How do you get a guitarist to play softer?
A: Place a sheet of music in front of him.

Q: Why can't voice majors have colostomies?
A: Because they can't find shoes to match the bag.

Q: What's the perfect weight of a conductor?
A: Three and one-half pounds, including the urn.

Q: What do all great conductors have in common?
A: They're all dead

Q: What's the definition of optimisim?
A: A bass trombonist with a beeper.

Q: What do you do if you run over a bass player?
A: Back up.

Q: How do you reduce wind-drag on a trombonist's car?
A: Take the Domino's Pizza sign off the roof

Q: How do you get a clarinetist out of a tree?
A: Cut the noose

Q: What do you throw a drowning bass player?
A: His amp.

Q: How do you get a three piece horn section to play in tune?
A: Shoot two of therm.

Q: What's the difference between a bull and a band?
A: The bull has the horns in the front and the asshole in the back.

Q: How many vocalists does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None. They hold the bulb over their head and the world revolves around them.

Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None, they have machines for that now.

Q: How can you tell if the stage is level?
A: The drool comes out of both sides of the drummers mouth.

Q: How do you get a trombonist off of your porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza.

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says before he gets kicked out of a band?
A: "When do we get to play MY songs?"

Q: What's the difference between a tuba and a vacumn cleaner?
A: You have to turn one of them on before it sucks.

Q: How do you define a perfect pitch?
A: When the Saxaphone lands in the MIDDLE of the dumpster.

Q: What do you call a musician with a college degree?
A: Night manager at McDonalds

Q: Why are violas larger than violins?
A: They aren't. Violists heads are smaller.

Q: How are trumpet players like pirates?
A: They're both murder on the high Cs.

Monk

Musician Jokes: The Defininitive Collection

2003-07-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

Thought y'all might enjoy these.

A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both."

Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist's arm?
A: A tattoo.

Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.

Q: What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: "The Defendant"

Q: What do clarinetists use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: What did the drummer get on his I.Q. Test?
A: Saliva.

Q: What do call a guitar player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: What's the similarity between a drummer and a philosopher?
A: They both perceive time as an abstract concept.

Q: What is the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner?
A: You have to plug one of them in before it sucks.

Q: Why do some people have an instant aversion to banjo players?
A: It saves time in the long run.

Q: What's the difference between a folk guitar player and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: What's the difference between a jet airplane and a trumpet?
A: About three decibels.

Q: What's the latest crime wave in New York City?
A: Drive-by trombone solos.

Q: What is another term for trombone?
A: A wind driven, manually operated, pitch approximator.

Q: What is the dynamic range of a bass trombone?
A: On or off.

Q: What's the difference between a SCUD missile and a bad oboist?
A: A bad oboist can kill you.

Q: Why do clarinetists leave their cases on the dashboard?
A: So they can park in the handicapped zones.

Q: What's the difference between an opera singer and a pit bull?
A: Lipstick.

Q: Why do people play trombone?
A: Because they can't move their fingers and read music at the same time.

Q: How does a violist's brain cell die?
A: Alone.

Q: What do you call a guitar player that only knows two chords?
A: A music critic.

Q: How do you keep your violin from being stolen?
A: Put it in a viola case.

Q: What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
A: You can tune a chainsaw.

Q: What will you never say about a banjo player?
A: "That's the banjo player's Porsche."

Q: What do a viola and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is relieved when the case is closed.

Q: Why are harps like elderly parents?
A: Both are unforgiving and hard to get into and out of cars.

Q: How many trumpet players does it take to pave a driveway?
A: Seven- if you lay them out correctly.

Q: What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
A: You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.

Q: How are a banjo player and a blind javelin thrower alike?
A: Both command immediate attention and alarm, and force everyone to move out of range.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and a baby elephant?
A: Eleven pounds.

Q: Why are violist's fingers like lightning?
A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 13 - one to do it, and twelve to stand around and say, "Phhhwt! I can do that!"

Tuba Player: "Did you hear my last recital?"
Friend: "I hope so."

Q: How does a young man become a member of a high school chorus?
A: On the first day of school he turns into the wrong classroom.

Did you hear about the Tenor who was so arrogant the other Tenors noticed?

Q: What do you call a hundred conductors at the bottom of the Ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: How can you tell when a singer is at your door?
A: The can't find the key, and they never know when to come in.

Q: How do you get two bass players to play in unison?
A: Hand them charts a half-step apart.

Q: What's the difference between a dead chicken in the road, and a dead trombonist in the road?
A: There's a remote chance the chicken was on its way to a gig.

Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A: A vocalist.

Q: How do you get a guitarist to play softer?
A: Place a sheet of music in front of him.

Q: Why can't voice majors have colostomies?
A: Because they can't find shoes to match the bag.

Q: What's the perfect weight of a conductor?
A: Three and one-half pounds, including the urn.

Q: What do all great conductors have in common?
A: They're all dead

Q: What's the definition of optimisim?
A: A bass trombonist with a beeper.

Q: What do you do if you run over a bass player?
A: Back up.

Q: How do you reduce wind-drag on a trombonist's car?
A: Take the Domino's Pizza sign off the roof

Q: How do you get a clarinetist out of a tree?
A: Cut the noose

Q: What do you throw a drowning bass player?
A: His amp.

Q: How do you get a three piece horn section to play in tune?
A: Shoot two of therm.

Q: What's the difference between a bull and a band?
A: The bull has the horns in the front and the asshole in the back.

Q: How many vocalists does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None. They hold the bulb over their head and the world revolves around them.

Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None, they have machines for that now.

Q: How can you tell if the stage is level?
A: The drool comes out of both sides of the drummers mouth.

Q: How do you get a trombonist off of your porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza.

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says before he gets kicked out of a band?
A: "When do we get to play MY songs?"

Q: What's the difference between a tuba and a vacumn cleaner?
A: You have to turn one of them on before it sucks.

Q: How do you define a perfect pitch?
A: When the Saxaphone lands in the MIDDLE of the dumpster.

Q: What do you call a musician with a college degree?
A: Night manager at McDonalds

Q: Why are violas larger than violins?
A: They aren't. Violists heads are smaller.

Q: How are trumpet players like pirates?
A: They're both murder on the high Cs.

Monk

Researchers Define a "Conservative" (Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part 432)

2003-07-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Your Tax Dollars At Work:

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

BERKELEY - Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

- Fear and aggression
- Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Need for cognitive closure
- Terror management

Seems to me that describes the Berkeley faculty and the average anti-war protestor or PETA-freak pretty well. I must be a "radical.

Read the whole, disgusting, tax-dollar-wasting thing.

POWER TO DA PEOPLE, BABY!

Monk

Kabul Today

2003-07-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

This recent first-hand experience of Afghanistan after OEF provides a very interesting contrast with the doom and gloom of the US/Brit media:

"Despite dozens of missteps, made mostly with good intentions, it has been the understated but forceful American influence, not the UN and the hundreds of NGOs, that has taken the major gambles here. The Americans have displayed admirable flexibility in altering tactics and strategy when necessary and achieved this dicey, delicate transition."

Please read all of it

If Women Ruled thed World, Part I of ?

2003-07-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Monk

Advice for the Democrats

2003-07-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

A lengthy post, but very thought provoking. Interesting regardless of what side of the political fence you're on.

The author makes some excellent points, particularly with regard to homeland security. I tell you what: if this war were nearer to victory, I would seriously consider voting for a Demo who a) wasn't a human dung-beetle (as pretty much all of them this year are; as Herren Hillary is also), and b) promised to dismantle the Gestapo of Homeland Security.

The section on "solutions" says why I won't, of course. If we fail to pursue our current foreign policy, we will recapitulate the fate of Rome in a matter of decades at the most. For all intents and purposes, Europe's already gone.

July 17, 2003 / 12:01 PM ET

ADVICE FOR THE DEMOCRATS

I used to like the Democrats. Heck, I used to be a Democrat. But their handling of the whole Iraq war issue reminds me of why I’m not a Democrat anymore. On the other hand, I’m not a Republican, either. So here’s some advice for the Democrats on how they can more effectively criticize the Bush administration on this and other issues.

Intelligence Failures

Forget this “where are the weapons?” and “Bush lied!” stuff. It’s not flying. Heck, it’s even getting refuted, over and over, by the strongly pro-Democrat Daily Howler. This issue is a loser. As the Howler writes:

Let’s make this as simple as possible. If you’re going to accuse public officials of conducting a “hoax” (Nicholas Kristof), you can’t refuse to publish their explanation (Kristof) and you can’t bury their explanation at the end of a long, front-page article (the Post). You can’t pretend you don’t know what they’ve said. And no, you can’t make the kind of factual presentation made on Monday night’s Hardball.

Ouch. It’s a loser, and though it generated some sound and fury last week and over the weekend (conveniently eclipsing Bush’s enormously important AIDS and trade initiatives in Africa), it now seems to be a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing. As the Howler points out, Bush’s speech said that Iraq was trying to get nuclear material from Africa and that our information came from the British. The British still stand by this and there’s not much evidence that they’re wrong. Bush’s critics have conflated one bogus document relating to Niger with Bush’s statement about all sorts of other evidence relating to Africa, a continent of which Niger is, of course, only a small part. (You can read more on the subject at the Howler links above, and here.)

So where’s the administration vulnerable? Well, there are important process issues here: There may have been bad intelligence (with, tantalizingly, the possibility that the French were feeding the allies forged documents) and there’s a real question of why people fell for it. (It’s also possible that there were obviously-forged documents saying things that were, in fact, true, in order to discredit other evidence to the same effect: Such things are far from unknown in the world of espionage.)

But this is a side issue at best. More importantly, there’s the administration’s unwillingness to look into the intelligence failures leading up to September 11. That the September 11 attacks occurred isn’t, by itself, proof that people dropped the ball, but there’s reason to think so, and the Bush administration has been notably reluctant to look into the matter, or to have anyone else do so. But learning from failure is vitally important in wartime, as is accountability on the part of those who fail. We’ve seen precious little of either. Nor is there anything unpatriotic about raising such questions - though it would help to avoid cheap partisan shots in the process.

The Saudi Connection

It seems pretty obvious that the root of Islamist terror worldwide is in Saudi Arabia. That’s where the money, the ideology, and often the terrorists themselves come from. The Bush administration has been awfully friendly with the Saudis, as has the Bush family. It may be, as blogger Steven Den Beste writes, that we’ve gone easy on the Saudis as part of a longer-term strategy, and that the administration will start tightening the screws now that the liberation of Iraq reduces the Saudis’ leverage. I hope that’s true, but there’s no question that there’s a lot of room to criticize in the administration’s relations with the Saudis.

Homeland Security

Homeland security is, as I’ve written already, ripe for criticism. It’s about empowering bureaucrats, not about protecting America. From the pointless absurdities of airline security to the Homeland Security Department’s new focus on non-terrorist-related issues, it’s a happy hunting ground for people looking for idiocies to attack. You could make a good commercial based on tweezer confiscation alone, and millions of frequent fliers would laugh.

And here’s a wedge issue: The Bush administration’s Transportation Security Administration is strangling the popular armed-pilots program with bureaucratic folderol. This is likely to be especially unpopular with pro-gun swing voters in swing states like Tennessee and Pennsylvania, and raising the issue would put Bush on the defensive: Does he control his own bureaucracy, or is he anti-gun?

Communications

Lots of people are worried about media concentration. This can be put in more basic terms: There are lots of channels, but they stink. There are lots of movies, but they mostly stink too. And there are lots of radio stations, but they all play the same crap.

There was an effort a while back to make it easy for individuals and community groups to set up low-power FM stations (which, thanks to technology, now costs only a few thousand dollars), but commercial broadcasters and NPR shot it down claiming that there would be interference. Now a new study done for the FCC says that the interference issue is bogus. (You can read a short account here and a longer one here. The latter report notes that the FCC, which is controlled by Republican appointees, buried the report in the comment section of its Web site and made no public announcement.) This issue ties together two good themes - sympathy for the little guy, and widespread dissatisfaction with radio. The FCC can be cast in the role of the “Mr. Dickless” character from Ghostbusters, an interfering bureaucracy that’s really a tool of bad guys. And, given recent Democratic hostility to mega-broadcaster Clear Channel, a boost for independent radio would offer a bit of payback.

Solutions

My biggest advice for the Democrats is to come up with positions, not just criticisms. This is particularly true on the war, where, as blogger Ed Cone notes, the Democrats have had a real problem:

If a Democrat wins next year, what would be the future of Bush’s aggressive military strategy of addressing state-sponsored terrorism emanating from the Middle East? What will our message be toward Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria? How much time and money would a Democratic president devote to nation building? Those are answers I’d like to hear.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t want to go to war, it’s done. We are where we are. Where we go next is the key. . . .

Screwing up on nation-building in Iraq will lead to more terrorism and undermine our status in the world. The same is true in Afghanistan. That’s why Democrats should lay off the trusty quagmire rhetoric and avoid politicizing the reconstruction process. There is no quick exit or cheap solution if we do it right.

Quagmire talk and after-the-fact finger-pointing doesn’t help. We need to hear solutions. We’re not hearing those. The same is true on the economy. You can savage Bush’s tax cuts, but if you want to make the deficit an issue, you’ve got to be willing to talk about spending cuts, too. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not serious, and you’ll come across as a kvetcher, not a serious alternative.

Those are my main suggestions. Want more? Here’s one from James Morrow: Lower the drinking age. The increase in the drinking age from 18 to 21 was a federal encroachment on traditional state affairs, foisted on the country by a Republican administration. Democrats are having trouble firing up younger voters. This should help. And with a war on, the “old enough to fight = old enough to drink” argument seems a pretty strong one.

OK, that’s my advice for the Democrats. There may be better advice for them somewhere else, but judging by their actions they’re not taking it.

Monk

Back Again After 500 Years

2003-07-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

A thought-provoking article concerning what we have done to ourselves and what we must do next:

Back Again, After 500 Years

A new mosque opens in Spain. Good news? Not necessarily.

For the first time in six centuries the muezzin's cry echoed over Spanish Granada with the inauguration in that city of a new mosque last week. The call to prayer hadn't been heard in the old capital of Moorish civilization since the last Muslim king was expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

A rather ominous remark by a top mosque official was quoted approvingly in the Muslim coverage. The new mosque, he said, would be "one of the purest sources of Islam."

Here, then, is a precise illustration of the West's complicity in its own troubles.

The mosque seems customized for Spanish soil and the traditions of Spaniards only aesthetically. Spiritually and politically--which are the same thing to hardline Islamists--the mosque remains a product of forces from outside Spain.
The problem hardly concerns Spain alone. The U.S., Britain, Germany, France--all have paid a price for their nuance-free welcome to all brands of Islam. Underpinning this welcome is the well-intentioned liberal tradition that we don't tell anyone how to worship. It may be time, however, to take a closer look at our own responsibility.

But there is some inspiration for those fighting on the Hearts and Minds Front in the larger war:

Why shouldn't Spain actively try to re-create Moorish standards of Islam in doctrine as well as in brick and mortar? It can start by sponsoring a Spain-inspired creed within its own borders. We in the West complain incessantly about anti-Western thought in Saudi-inspired madrassas, or religious schools, around the world. We demand that they open up to a freer market of ideas, but we shy from entering the marketplace. We can start within our own borders by sowing new ideas in mosques and madrassas. The benefits will accrue as much to Islam as to the West. After all, the grandeur of Moorish culture grew not out of a pursuit of purity but from the irritant of exposure to other cultures.

The whole thing

Monk

"Impressive Speech"

2003-07-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

Good follow-up on the speech from James Lileks. He's got it about right, I think:

Impressive speech by Blair today. I wonder how much press it will get. It sounded not at all like a Bush peroration, but when you pare away the accent you realize that both men are best suited by words that are tart, blunt, stark, and resolute. Not to say there aren’t differences - Blair’s speeches sound like the work of a keen and fierce intellect that has come to a certain conclusion by logical deduction. His heart has been informed by his head. In the case of Bush I think it’s the other way around. I suppose that’s the difference between being the leader of a nation that was attacked, and the leader of a nation whose ally was assaulted. What I found most invigorating about the speech was the tenor - the tune, not the notes. It was a speech sung in the key of War, and reminded us that we are just midway through the end of the beginning. If that.

Blair is, at heart, a socialist; I’ve no time for half the stuff he wants and most of the stuff he’d agree to. But he’d get my vote. We can argue about the shape and direction of Western Civ after we’ve made sure that such a thing will endure. I haven’t heard every single speech Tony Blair has made since he popped on to the political scene; I don’t know if he argues for increased license fees for domestic gerbils with the same passion and force. But today he sounded like a man who knew things, who knows that the threat is still grave, and cannot understand why others seek transient political advantage in exploiting those sixteen words. The people are worried, your majesty! "Oh, let them eat yellowcake."

When I hear a speech like Blair’s, I have to check the calendar. And the calendar is usually wrong. It may say 2/23, or 7/16, or 4/30. But I know what the date is, and the date is 9/12. It’s going to be 9/12 for a long time to come.

Original here

Monk

The Spread of Freedom Is the Best Security for the Free

2003-07-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

From Tony Blair's speech yesterday:

This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorists. Yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs. (Applause.)

There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit, and anywhere -- (applause) -- anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack.

And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify around an idea. And that idea is liberty. (Applause.)

The entire speech is better still. Words worthy of Churchill.
The full text.

Monk

News from Birkenstockia

2003-07-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

For those in California, here are your tax dollars at work.
For those outside the People's Republic, here's more of what we expect:

Steve Hinkle, a student at California Polytechnic State University, was posting fliers around campus last November 12 that advertised a speech to be given the next evening. The fliers contained a phoato of the speaker, black conservative Mason Weaver, and the words "It's OK to Leave the Plantation," the name of a book in which Weaver likens African-American dependence on government programs to slavery.

When Hinkle approached a public bulletin board in the lounge of the campus Multicultural Center, some African-American students who were sharing pizzas nearby objected. They told Hinkle not to post the flier because they found it "offensive" and "disrespectful." By all accounts, his response was something like, "How do you know it's offensive? Why can't we talk about it?" The offended students then said that the flier violated the Multicultural Center's "posting policy," and threatened to call the campus police. Hinkle left, without posting the flier.

That was not the end of the matter, however. One black student did call campus police, with what was recorded as a report of "a suspicious white male passing out literature of an offensive racial nature." She and others also urged university authorities to discipline Hinkle, a member of the Cal Poly College Republicans, for what she called "hate speech" (i.e., the flier).

Incredibly, university authorities did just that, under the pretext of punishing Hinkle for "disruption" of what complaining students later claimed to have been a Bible study dinner and meeting. (Nobody had told Hinkle that this was a "meeting" at all, and he saw no Bibles.)

This episode provides a window into the politically correct censorship that pollutes so many of our nation's campuses. For seeking peacefully and politely to exercise his First Amendment rights, Hinkle was subjected to a seven-hour disciplinary hearing, from which his lawyer was barred. He was found guilty of "disruption" of the "meeting." And he was ordered to apologize to the offended students, in writing, or face much stiffer penalties, possibly including expulsion. All of this is to go on Hinkle's permanent record, perhaps hurting his chances of getting into graduate school.
....
Campus censorship lives on, often justified under the guise of enforcing vague rules against racial or sexual "harassment." Administrators typically interpret these rules to encompass any speech that offends nonwhite students or insults the left-liberal-radical-feminist-postmodernist orthodoxies of the academic class. The rules are typically enforced by campus kangaroo courts with no semblance of fairness.

Monk

Bush Lied for Dummies

2003-07-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

A very good single-source treatment of the recent "Bush Lied!!!!!" foolishness:

Monk

From: Damnum Absque Injuria

July 15, 2003

BushLied (TM) for Dummies

Last night, while watching a discussion on Hannity and Colmes over the "Bush Lied" meme, Mrs. Xrlq asked me what all the fuss was all about. After explaning the basics to her, it occurred to me that many other people might have been wondering the same thing, but were afraid to ask. Here it is, in a nutshell:

Shortly before President Bush's State of the Union address, the British government learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

President Bush, in his State of the Union address, uttered the infamous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA signed off on the speech, noting that the British government had indeed learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

British intelligence still stands by its findings.

The CIA has subsequently backed off from its position, apparently on account of some new intel showing that the average Democrat is too stupid or lazy to distinguish a statement prefaced by "the British government has learned that ..." from one prefaced by "the CIA has independently confirmed that ..."

So there you have it. Seriously. Of course there are other details to thes story, but that's all they are, details, and for the most part, distracting ones to boot. Here are a couple of the more common canards:

What about those forged documents purporting to implicate Niger? Well, what about them? The Brits didn't rely on them, and neither did Bush. He said Saddam attempted to buy the stuff from Africa, not from Niger, and certainly not from "knee-ZHAIR," as Bush's more pretentious critics like to pronounce it.

"If the CIA couldn't confirm it, Bush shouldn't have said it." Well, that's a question on which reasonable minds will have to differ. If we have any real reason to think American intelligence is that much more reliable than British intelligence, then I suppose it might not be such a good idea to quote British intel in any context. But I do not believe that to be teh case, and in any event, Bush's 16-word "lie" made it very clear that he was relying on the findings of the British government, not on anything the CIA had confirmed independently. If you're mad that the CIA didn't have an opportunity to review the intel in question, that anger should properly be directed at France (hat tip: Howard Veit, via Daily Pundit), not at the Bush Administration.

"Wait a minute! Bush said outright that 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa!' He didn't qualify that by saying the Brits had learned that, blah blah blah..." This is because you are watching a Democrat commercial featuring a dowdified version of the statement. Try watching the original speech instead.

He's Dead Already

2003-07-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

In an interesting sidelight to the last post, if you follow the links to the London Telegraph story and then do a bit of Googling, you will find that the defendant's lawyer is a muslim member of the Dubai Society (who may be the same Jew-bashing "Arab League legal affairs expert" the BBC sometimes quotes) and the prosecutor is an Indian.

Sublime irony (sublime in the sense that Burke meant it: tinged with dread): a man steeped in the hadith and shari'a is defending civilization's cause against a Hindu.
Not a true Brit to be found around, excepting Martin himself.

Such a nation is dead, I tell you.

Dead.

Monk

Why Europe Will Not Save Mankind from Howling Barbarism (aka Islam)

2003-07-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

If anyone has doubts that America is the only power capable of defending civilization against the legions of Mordor, read the links below.

A nation that acts in such a manner is dying. Britain is by far the best of the lot. France and Germany actively pander to the savages; Russia routinely disses us even though fighting our fight in Chechnya. In the US, we kill people who "need killing" (as they say in Tejas). Only a nation with the will to do so can successfully defend liberty.

I mentioned this a few days back. Here's some of the story...

Tony Martin will not be released from jail. He will remain inside for the crime of defending his property for the full five year period of his sentance (he was initially sentanced to life).
The parole board just decided that he poses an unacceptable threat to people who may in the future break into his home .....

Here's more on "burglar's rights"...

Government lawyers trying to keep the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin behind bars will tell a High Court judge tomorrow that burglars are members of the public who must be protected from violent householders.

(Looney) Toons For Our Times...

2003-07-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

Straight from the Acme School of Looney Leftist Internationalism comes this hysterical screed. I mean "hysterical" in every sense possible:

Yahoo! News Wed, Jul 09, 2003

Whether, Not Who, is the Question About the 2004 Election
By Ted Rall

NEW YORK--He has canceled elections in Iraq. He will probably cancel them in Afghanistan. Will George W. Bush put the kibosh on elections in the United States next year?

I can hear the goose-stepping jackboots now...

People who have spoken out against Bush are talking exit strategy--not Alec Baldwin style, just to make a statement, but fleeing the U.S. in order to save their skins.

Good riddance. I'll contribute to your ticket fund: one-way, to France or Pakistan (our choice), non-refundable

To these people, whether or not the 2004 elections actually take place as scheduled is the ultimate test for American democracy. At Guantánamo Bay the United States is converting a concentration camp into a death camp where inmates will be executed without due process or legal representation. It's easy to come up with a scenario in which canceling the 2004 election could be made to appear reasonable. Imagine that, a few weeks before Election Day, "dirty bombs" detonate simultaneously in New York and Washington. Government, media and political institutions and personnel lie ruined in smoking rubble and ash; hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered. The economy, already teetering on the precipice, is shoved into depression. How could we conduct elections under such conditions?

And, by implication, the bombs were planted by Devil Dubya's Evil Minions....Mwa ha ha! Why! Do! You! Think! This! Madman! Wants! More! Nukes!?! -- see Red Leader: I have read Michael Moore

The Cold War lasted 46 years; does Bush intend to remain in office that long?

Why, yes. Thank you for asking.

Still, you have to hand it to him: The fact that Democrats are terrified of ending up imprisoned by an American Reich is the ultimate tribute to Bush's artful bullying--and sad confirmation of the impotence of his would-be, should-be opponents.

I like the way that rolls out....Devil Dubya: Soooper Geeenius!

And so on...

What a maroon!

A' b'de a'b'de a'bde . . . that's all folks!

Monk

Guns, Guns, Guns!

2003-07-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

It's hard to argue with Rachel "Imagine No Liberals" Lucas:

What are they smoking in Australia?
July 2, 2003

A reader named Kentsh sent me this link, to a story about how Australia is engaging in yet another "gun buyback" program, which basically involves spending a lot of government money to take guns away from people who obey the law and none away from criminals, all because two people were killed at a university last year.

It's the nation's second gun crackdown. The Federal Government spent about $315 million buying back more than 600,000 guns after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

Yeah. And according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and as reported by the incredibly useful GunFacts, violent crime went up substantially after that first gun grab.

In 2001-2002, the homicide rate increased 20%. In Sydney, robbery rates with guns rose 160% in 2001, and even more in the previous year.

From the firearm confiscation to March 27, 2000, gun murders went up 19%, armed robbery went up 69%, and home invasions went up 21%.

What was going on before the gun grab in Australia? Quite fascinating, really: in the 15 years before gun confiscation, firearm-related homicides had dropped nearly 66%, and firearm-related deaths (non-homicide) had fallen 50%.

On the off chance that the reality is still not sinking in, here are the changes in Australian crime rates from before the ban in 1995 to the period from 1995-2000:

Armed robbery +170.1%
Kidnapping/abduction +144.0%
Assault +130.9%
Attempted murder +117.6%
Sexual assault +112.6%

And remember, those figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Institute of Criminology, and The Sydney Morning Herald - not the NRA or the tooth fairy.

So we go back to our Australian buy-back idiocy:

Noel McNamara from the Crime Victims Support Association...says governments should ban all firearms.
"We think that Australia would be much better off to follow the United Kingdom where they banned all guns after the Dunblane school shootings where 16 students and a teacher were murdered, and one must wonder if Australia followed their example how many of our poor souls would be alive today, especially after the Port Arthur tragedy."

Ah-hem. Noel McNamara is an unmitigated idiot. Or he simply gains a lot of pleasure from ignoring factual data.
According to The Guardian on September 3, 2000, "A continuing parliamentary inquiry into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation - double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago - and that criminals are more willing than ever to use them. One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm."

In the U.K., handguns were used in 3,685 offenses in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40% (from the Centre for Defense Studies at King's College in London, July 2001). And remember, British police only record a gun crime as a gun crime when there is a conviction, so if the crime remains unsolved, it's not recorded in the gun crime statistics. Do the math.

Lastly, in case anyone's still thinking that the U.K. has this gun thing all figured out, handgun homicides in England and Wales reached an all-time high in 2000 - several years after they almost completely banned personal handgun ownership.

There's more, there's SO MUCH more, but I'm preaching to the choir here. Basically I just want to say that the facts are clear and simple, so that even toddler monkeys could probably understand them, and even so, governments in places like Australia still Do. Not. Get. It. They're either smoking waaay too much doobage or they've genuinely been brainwashed by lying psychos along the lines of Michael Moore.

So good luck down under with all the hysterical gun grabbing. Sounds like it's gonna work out really nicely for your law-abiding citizens. Or not.

Her excellent blog is here.

Monk

Worth Thinking About

2003-07-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

Very cogent, very disturbing. Not sure I agree entirely, but worth thinking about...

Asia Times, 8 Jul 03

"Did someone in Washington take Kant literally and set about devising a constitution for devils with the Arab world in mind? Does it matter? Washington must talk about democracy in the Arab world...as in the Jewish joke about the man who sees a shop whose windows are full of clocks. He enters and tells the proprietor, "I want to buy a clock." The proprietor responds, "I don't sell clocks." "Then what do you do?" "I am a mohel [ritual circumciser]." "Then why do you put clocks in the window?" "What do you want me to put in the window?"
Which brings us to the threat of radical Islam. "You are decadent and hedonistic. We on the other hand are willing to die for what we believe, and we are a billion strong. You cannot kill all of us, so you will have to accede to what we demand." That, in a nutshell, constitutes the Islamist challenge to the West.

Neither the demographic shift toward Muslim immigrants nor meretricious self-interest explains Western Europe's appeasement of Islam, but rather the terrifying logic of the numbers. That is why President Bush has thrown his prestige behind the rickety prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. And that is why Islamism has only lost a battle in Iraq, but well might win the war.

Not a single Western strategist has proposed an ideological response to the religious challenge of Islam. On the contrary: the Vatican, the guardian-of-last-resort of the Western heritage, has placed itself squarely in the camp of appeasement. Except for a few born-again Christians in the United States, no Western voice is raised in criticism of Islam itself. The trouble is that Islam believes in its divine mission, while the United States has only a fuzzy recollection of what it once believed, and therefore has neither the aptitude nor the inclination for ideological warfare."

Monk

Yes! It's the RonCo Voice-O-Matic!

2003-07-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

All & Sundry (especially Fingers & The Voice):

Coming Soon: The Ronco Voice-A-Matic

In 2002, Line6 debuted their GuitarPortproduct, an interface through which electric guitarists can plug their trusty Stratocaster or Les Paul into the USB port of their computer. As part of its software, it allows guitarists to download patches that are often excellent recreations of the tones used by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and other guitar heroes. I have no doubt that within a few years, a similar product will be available for budding vocalists. Who do you want to sound like? Al Green? Paul Rodgers? Barbra Streisand? Aretha Franklin? Simply dial in a patch and sing into the Ronco Voice-A-Matic!

Read the whole article.

Knowing Microsoft, I'd wind up playing guitar like Al Green and singing like Jeff Beck. Hmmmmm......

Monk

Juxtapositions, Again

2003-07-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

In the blackened hell that is Baghdad, only terror reigns (apparently):

Washington Post
July 3, 2003
Pg. 1
Blackouts Return, Deepening Iraq's Dark Days
Lack of Steady Electricity Is Biggest Obstacle to Reconstruction, Officials Say
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, July 2 -- Two months after Iraqis fired AK-47s into the night sky to celebrate the resumption of electrical service, crippling blackouts have returned to the capital and the rest of the country, impeding the restoration of public order and economic activity, and creating a new focus of anger at the U.S. occupation.

In Baghdad, a vast city of high-rise buildings, bustling markets and scorching summer temperatures, most residents received more than 20 hours of electricity a day before the war -- enough to run elevators, air conditioners and other staples of modern life. Today, the capital got about eight hours of power. On Tuesday, it was even less. And for a few days last week, there was none.

The persistent blackouts -- U.S. and Iraqi specialists blame sabotage, looting, war damage and the failure of old equipment -- have transformed a city that once was regarded as the most advanced in the Arab world to a place of pre-industrial privation where shopkeepers hawk their wares on the sidewalk, housewives store food in iceboxes and families sleep outdoors.

Let's put this in context. How long did it take to rebuild this?

Something more than two months, I suspect.

How many died in the city depicted? (Just over 15,000 -- one raid, one day, early in the bombing campaign)

How many have died in Baghdad? A few dozen?

How many city blocks have been blasted into ruin? None?

To the editors of the WaPo and the "citizens" of Iraq: Quit yer whinin'!

Monk

More Wierd Juxtapositions

2003-07-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

From yesterday's WaPo:

Annan Requests U.S. Peacekeepers in Liberia
By Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2003; Page A18

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- For a second straight day, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the United States today to lead an international peacekeeping force in Liberia as the Bush administration came under increasing pressure from Britain, France and some West African countries to send U.S. troops to the country to halt a worsening civil war.

U.N. officials estimate that as many as 5,000 troops, including 2,000 Americans, would be required to restore order in Liberia.

From Yahoo News (AP):

Dean Calls for Intervention in Liberia
Wed Jul 2, 6:51 PM ET
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer,

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a prominent opponent of the war in Iraq, called Wednesday for dispatching U.S. troops to Liberia to head off a human rights crisis. "I would urge the president to tie our commitment to assist in this multilateral effort to an appeal to the world to join us in the work that remains to be done in Iraq," Dean said. Dean called for a short-term deployment of roughly 2,000 U.S. troops as part of an international effort to stabilize the African nation.

Wazzup w' dis? France? Koffi Annan? Dean? Who's next? Kim Jong Il?

What's their motive?

Is this just an ironic recognition of the world's helplessness against violence and brutality in the absence of US power, or is it driven by a cynical pleasure at seeing American boys die on CNN? ("We got zem now, Koffi! Wait 'til ze RPGs start to fly in Monrovia!")

You decide.

Monk

France: The New Soviet Union

2003-06-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

Would it surprise you if true?

Opposition spokespersons out of London said the Chirac government had cut a deal with the Iranian regime. Because of its attitude on Iraq, France was kept out of post-Saddam's financial benefits. Iran is an oil-producing country and a rising arms client. Its needs in technology parallel those of Baghdad before the invasion, and may surpass them. But perhaps the most converging interest between Chirac and the mullahs, according to exiles, may well have been the new geopolitics of the region. The U.S. has removed Saddam's Baath party and is now moving on Khamenei's theocracy. Paris, alleges observers, lost in Baghdad, but it wants to resume the battle against Washington's influence in Tehran. The Iranian opposition claims an obscure deal selling out the anti-mullah organization based in France in exchange for a French role in Iran. The idea may seem to be Machiavellian, especially as domestic tensions are exploding on Iran's campuses. But the Iranian opposition insists. They say evidence is omnipresent.

Read the whole thing.

Long Live the Crusade,

Monk

Anvil and Hammer

2003-06-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

Bill Arkin, former Greenpeace researcher but genuine friend of the truth in military affairs, tells it like it was.

The "pause," as I've written before, was not a pause. The drive to An Najaf put the anvil in place; airpower formed the hammer and even during the sandstorms, was pounding the Republican Guard and the Iraqi Army into dust.

Monk

Los Angeles Times
June 1, 2003

Fliers Rose To Occasion
In Iraq, a pause refreshed ground troops and let planes inflict major damage
By William M. Arkin

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. - "Speed kills."

That's a military axiom Gen. Tommy Franks is fond of quoting. And it has become the favored explanation for our military victory in Iraq: the high-speed drive of American ground forces straight to the heart of Saddam Hussein's power in Baghdad.

Since the war lasted only 21 days, that assessment may seem hard to argue with. And, since the lessons of the latest war are used to fight the next budget battle in Washington, the conclusions that "speed kills" and fast-moving ground forces bring victory could have an effect on what kinds of forces the United States has at its disposal next time.

Before we close the book on lessons learned in Iraq, however, decision-makers should look again at what happened. Beyond question, the Iraq war laid to rest the tempting notion that heavy ground forces no longer have a central role to play in 21st century warfare.

But a close examination of the sequence of events suggests that - despite Franks' favorite axiom - at a critical juncture in the invasion, it was not the forward "speed" of those ground troops that killed. It was "the pause."

Remember the pause? For nearly a week, Army and Marine tanks, infantry and artillery units had hurtled across Iraq at unprecedented speed. During its historic race through the desert, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) moved 310 miles in its first three days on the road. Then, for five days in March, near the Shiite holy city of Najaf, the breakneck advance slowed to a crawl, as troops pulled up to await much-needed supplies and to ride out a hellacious three-day sandstorm. At the same time, the Army was dealing with unexpectedly troublesome attacks by snipers and the Fedayeen Saddam.

It was this pause that killed. And the killing came from air power, in an unremitting assault by Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and British Royal Air Force planes against Hussein's most formidable ground forces. As a result, before the 3rd Infantry Division's tanks engaged a single Republican Guardsman of the Medina Division 11 days into the war, the unit considered Hussein's strongest had been pounded into oblivion.

"I find it interesting when folks say we're softening them up," Lt. Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, who commanded the air war, said during the first week in April. "We're not softening them up. We're killing them."

In that sense, in terms of overall military operations, there was no "pause." Ground forces might have slowed their forward rush, resupplied their units and made other adjustments before pressing on again, but the air war only intensified. "There should have been some embedded reporters with the Republican Guards," quipped Brig. Gen. Allen Peck of Moseley's command center. They would have reported that "there was no operational pause."

Franks' plan called for the 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division to bypass populated areas and the military forces around them in order to reach the Iraqi capital quickly. Franks rejected the Desert Storm model of protracted bombing before a ground war. His plan sent Army troops and Marines on their wild ride to Baghdad simultaneously with the start of bombing.

Planners at Central Command wanted to cut by half through air attacks the combat effectiveness of the Medina Division, which was deployed near Baghdad, before American ground forces reached it. Air power was to be supplemented and eventually supplanted by artillery, rocket and helicopter strikes before tanks and infantry engaged Iraqi forces on the ground. Franks' original timeline, according to prewar briefings, had ground forces in Baghdad on Day 10.

Things did not work out quite that way - fortuitously, as it turned out. Iraqi resistance damaged Army attack helicopters, and the 3rd Division slowed its advance to wait for its follow-on unit, the 101st Airborne Division, as well as for supplies. The weather also played a role.

But through air power, the time was put to good use, not only by redirecting strike sorties but also through the use of all-weather weapons. "We have the flexibility to be able to refocus additional air power" by using weapons "not hampered by the weather," Maj. Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., who was Franks' director of operations, told reporters March 25, six days into the war. Two months before the war started, the Medina Division had begun moving out of its Tigris River barracks at Suwayrah and into positions in the Euphrates River valley south of Baghdad. Military intelligence considered the Medina to be Iraq's best- equipped heavy unit.

With the 3rd Division slowing to a crawl and with Iraq's notorious sandstorms raging, Hussein's commanders thought they saw an opening. In reality, it was Moseley who got the opening.

"There may have been a sense in Iraqi forces that this was an opportunity," said Maj. Gen. Daniel Leaf, who was Moseley's representative at ground forces headquarters. Under the supposed cover of bad weather, Iraqi reinforcements began moving south. The Medina Division repositioned against the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry of the 3rd Infantry Division. Officers said the squadron was virtually surrounded at one point.

But the Iraqi opportunity was a fatal illusion.

As the Iraqis broke cover, the U.S. air commander unloaded on them. Around the clock, hundreds of precision-guided weapons struck individual trench lines, vehicles and artillery guns. Then came the "dumb" bombs as B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers started to deliver enormous loads: In just a week, the proportion of precision-guided weapons dropped from more than 90% to about 70%. More than 1,100 cluster bombs were dropped. It was not just a question of more weapons. Leaf said a natural learning curve increased the efficiency of attacks. As communications improved, pilots and spotters learned the lay of the land. Procedures became second nature. And U.S. air units reacted more quickly and effectively.

As a result, radar and other surveillance systems impervious to weather provided precise targeting information on the location of Iraqi armor and vehicles. Special operations teams that had infiltrated the area earlier gave the bombers further assistance.

"We have gotten very, very good in our ability to put air power precisely on target in short order," Gen. Peck said.

But, he added, "we still need to figure out what it is we did."

Peck was referring to the problem of assessing bomb damage. The switch from laser-guided bombs, which were not optimal for use in bad weather, to predominantly satellite-guided and dumb bombs had the unintended effect of making damage evaluation far more difficult, since they lack the gun cameras used in targeting that make it possible to watch laser-guided weapons explode.

For several days, commanders were in the dark about how effective the air attacks had been. The sandstorm broke March 27, but the 3rd Infantry Division's attack on the Medina Division was delayed for two additional days. "We knew that the Medina was getting pounded," a senior military officer said. "We just didn't know how much."

As it turned out, after the weather cleared and intelligence officers could assess the Iraqi division's condition, they concluded its combat effectiveness had plunged to a mere 20%. Officers involved in directing and assessing the air war have nothing but praise for the 3rd Infantry Division and other ground forces. Peck spoke of the synergistic effect of air and ground combatants operating together. "Ground troops forced the enemy's hand," he said. "If they massed, air power could kill them. If they scattered they would get cut through by the ground forces."

The air attacks on the Medina and other divisions south of Baghdad in the two weeks leading up to the final assault on Saddam International Airport not only destroyed the bulk of the heavy organized resistance but also helped make the job of the 3rd Infantry and 1st Marines easier once they assaulted the capital. As a result of the "pause" and its round-the-clock air attacks, the 3rd Infantry at least went into its final push with minimal casualties and with a decimated foe.

In modern warfare, playing well with others is a necessity. To win a war so lopsidedly, ground and air forces, U.S., British, and Australian special operations forces, as well as the intelligence community, had to work together. Sure, there was service culture to contend with - even some parochialism - but no one openly pressed selfish interests for the glory of an individual service. As the story of what happened in the crucial days before the final ground assault on Baghdad shows, it was this overriding commitment to joint operations that brought success to American arms and saved American lives.

That lesson, demonstrated in war, must not be lost in peace - in the budget and policy battles yet to come. The trick in warfare, as Leaf put it, is "not to focus on what was last, but focus on what is next."

William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion.

High Flight (FAA Supplement 1)

2003-06-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Heh (as the Instapundit would say....)

Monk

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-- RCAF Flight-Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922-1941)

High Flight (FAA Supplement 1)

Pilots must insure that all surly bonds have been slipped entirely before flight is attempted.

During periods of severe sky dancing, crew and passengers must keep seatbelts fastened. Crew should wear shoulderbelts as provided.

Sunward climbs must not exceed the maximum permitted aircraft ceiling.

Passenger aircraft are prohibited from joining the tumbling mirth.

Pilots flying through sun-split clouds under VFR conditions must comply with all applicable minimum clearances.

Do not perform these hundred things in front of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors.

Wheeling, soaring, and swinging will not be attempted except in aircraft rated for such activities and within utility class weight limits.

Be advised that sunlit silence will occur only when a major engine malfunction has occurred.

"Hov'ring there" will constitute a highly reliable signal that a flight emergency is imminent.

Forecasts of shouting winds are available from the local FSS. Encounters with unexpected shouting winds should be reported by pilots.

Pilots flinging eager craft through footless halls of air are reminded that they alone are responsible for maintaining separation from other eager craft.

Should any crewmember or passenger experience delirium while in the burning blue, submit an irregularity report upon flight termination.

Windswept heights will be topped by a minimum of 1,000 feet to maintain VFR minimum separations.

Aircraft engine ingestion of, or impact with, larks or eagles should be reported to the FAA and the appropriate aircraft maintenance facility.

Aircraft operating in the high untresspassed sanctity of space must remain in IFR flight regardless of meteorological conditions and visibility.

Pilots and passengers are reminded that opening doors or windows in order to touch the face of God may result in loss of cabin pressure.

The Future is Now

2003-04-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Wow! David Warren really hits it here.

Haven’t been blogging in awhile, so mail has been sparse from here, but this article should make up for some of the silence It’s long, I know, but the best part is at the end. Read it all. As I’ve said before, it’s why we fought this campaign...

Monk

The future is now

The reaction to the American and British victory in Iraq, in Iraq itself, was as predictable as the victory, to anyone with genuine knowledge of the situation there. The gratitude to President Bush and the allies is, momentarily, intense and euphoric. It is a comet-like condition that lasts about two days, but has a tail six months long -- the time in which the hard stuff has to be attempted, of creating a constitutional order for Iraq, out of almost nothing.

After that, Iraq is likely to settle back into a mood fairly unlike gratitude, as Kuwait did by the end of 1991, and, in different ways, as the countries liberated from Communism in central and eastern Europe did: the blame for problems will be increasingly assigned to the people who are trying to fix them, and removed from the people who caused them, who are no longer there. This is human nature, which is essentially incurable; but it will take various peculiarly Arabic and Islamic cultural forms -- sometimes better, sometimes worse than their Western equivalents. (So much of human nature is a freak show.)

The U.S. soldiers will gradually be re-categorized from "liberators" to "foreigners". As we know from France and Germany, as well as the Gulf States, there is no such thing as lasting gratitude, except among the saints. There will nevertheless remain an institutional memory, should new Iraqi institutions survive, that the Americans and British are allies. And this, with any luck, will last for at least a generation to come.

This much is perfectly predictable, and I think it has been taken into account in Pentagon (if not State Department) plans for the Iraqi après-guerre. My impression is that thanks to the personal shock and awe of Donald Rumsfeld, the attitudes and work habits of the Pentagon have been transformed. But thanks to the protective instincts of Colin Powell, the State Department bureaucracy continues to work within intellectual categories that should have been declared defunct on Sept. 12th, 2001.

There will be clashes between them in the weeks and months ahead, as the Pentagon tries to do things that are new, and difficult, while State tries to sabotage with the help of the old "Arabist" hands in the CIA, the academy, and the media -- the people who still have their jobs after being proved wrong about everything. It would be politically impossible for any President of the United States to simply sack the lot of them; and from that fact a lot of diplomatic "friendly fire" can be anticipated on the road ahead.

Advantage, however, to the people who've won the war, and been proved right about everything that was at issue -- for at least the immediate future. This is no time to be glum.

What is more interesting than the predictable mood on the ground in Iraq, is the mood of the onlooking world. Something very dramatic happened this week, on live television before a vast audience. For the Arab world especially, it was an event like 9/11, but upside down and inside out.

One may hardly read every Arab mind, but from experience there is much we can know. I am speaking only from my own experience, and the reader is free to accept or dismiss it. I should think that most of the Arab world, outside Iraq and Kuwait, had been, until Wednesday, of approximately one mind in watching the coverage of the war. At the subconscious level, below quite varied rational responses, there was a powerful tendency to identify with what they took to be their fellow Arabs under assault from an alien invasion force.

The Arab media coverage -- not only the spectacularly sensationalist Al-Jazeera, but really, all the Arab media outside Kuwait -- were ludicrously one-sided, simplistic, and emotional, a kind of blood-and-guts parade of "victims of America", accentuating the violence in a quite pornographic way. The account of reality given day to day by the Iraqi information minister was very widely believed -- because people wanted to believe it. They did not rationally expect the Saddamite regime to survive the allied onslaught, but they expected, and hoped, that the Americans and British would be badly bloodied by their fellow-Arab Iraqis. They expected, and hoped, that even after they had deposing Saddam Hussein, the allies would inherit a kind of Gaza on 100 times the scale -- a mess too large for them to handle, so that they would soon give up on it and hightail home, rather as the U.S. did in 1983 after the Hizbullah massacres of Marines in Beirut.

Moreover, the pressure to conform, outwardly, within societies that remain very traditional, and communal, and constrained by tyranny from the top down, is more than we in the West can easily imagine. Even those who privately hated Saddam, could either sing with the choir or stay extremely silent. (Certain Iraqi exile and mostly Maronite Christian communities excepted.)

The sight of Iraqis in Baghdad pulling down the statue of Saddam, beating its face with their shoes, and kissing photographs of President Bush thus arrived like a missile into what Fouad Ajami has so discerningly called, "the dream palace of the Arabs" -- the collective fantasy into which powerful media such as Al-Jazeera had been playing. It was no mere surprise; it was a profound shock to the entire nervous system of the Arab world. It was the first shock on anything like this scale since June 1967, when another generation of Arabs woke to the discovery that tiny Israel had destroyed the massed armies of all the most powerful Arab states, in just six days. But that did not happen with the immediacy of live television.

There have been scattered reports in the Western media about reactions around the Arab world; I've heard back from my own e-mail sources in Sana (Yemen), Cairo, Riyadh, Algiers, Beirut, Amman, and East Jerusalem. And it is precisely the same story everywhere, the same audience reactions when the joy of the liberated Baghdadis was presented on screen, and almost without commentary. Wherever this spectacle appeared, there was weeping, anger, then flicking off the TV. But the anger previously concentrated by the Arab world 's media and leaders upon the United States, Britain, and Israel, was suddenly deflected upon the same media and leaders; or else meaninglessly against the euphoric crowds in Baghdad. Those who swore were suddenly swearing not at CNN but at Al-Jazeera, not at George W. Bush, but at Saddam, and Saudi sheikhs, and Hosni Mubarak. Suddenly, all at once, this terrible recognition that they had been lied to -- lied to by everyone; lied to on an extraordinary, systematic scale; told the biggest Lie that had ever been told.

In the West, where there are (except perhaps in France and Germany) genuinely two sides to the debate, that part of the audience that had been lied to could turn immediately to the side proved not to have been lying. There are outlets, alternatives.

The reality is that in the Arab world, a vast audience that has been told and has been living in a lie, a fantasy about reality itself, has nowhere to turn. Vast numbers of people, who live in much closer-knit communities than we do, are suddenly left to think and rethink everything they know, and all by themselves. This is an extraordinary, collective, psychic disaster.

What comes of it is utterly unpredictable. We cannot guess whether this common experience will feed or quell the Arabs' accumulated anger. We can only pray that a moment has come, when the whole Arab world will begin to dismember an invisible Berlin Wall that holds it in captivity, that traps everyone in fear and ignorance and hatred and unfreedom. For the alternative must be an even more radical flight from reality, an even more desperate collective effort to deny the facts right before their eyes. (I am cautiously hopeful.)

This is a very large event: with ramifications, too, over the rest of the planet. Take, for comparison, the situation in Russia, and put yourself in the position of Russian TV viewers, taking in the same scene from Baghdad.

They know what their army does to Grozny, in Chechnya, and how little thanks they get for it. The Russian military brass had moreover been telling pan-Slavic TV audiences that the Americans only do "non-contact" wars, that they are sissies who rely on technology and get locals to do the icky ground fighting for them, as in Afghanistan. I've seen the same message repeated endlessly in Russian media websites. Imagine the shock, for people accustomed to this view, of now seeing plainly the U.S. on the ground, in Baghdad, taking fire, with very low casualties -- and in charge, after barely three weeks of war.

The obvious questions present themselves to the more independent Russian mind: "How come Brits and Yanks can pull this off, and all Putin's soldiers can do is spread carnage? How come Putin's special-op elites kill more civilians re-taking one lousy concert hall than the Yanks do taking Baghdad? Are we really so well served by that old KGB officer?"

On a lesser scale than for the Arabs, it's another humiliation, and thus another opportunity for consequential change; for failure is the great liberator.

This is the big thing that has happened. For better or for worse, this was a week in which the future of the entire planet was shifted; in which what was left of the 20th century rumbled obtrusively into the past. We are now in an unimaginable future.

David Warren

High Res Pix of Baghdad

2003-04-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

Links to high-res pix of Baghdad from Eurosatellites. Pretty cool.

Note the precision of the damage. These are better than most US images I've seen.

Monk

Seeing Red

2003-04-04T04:46:00.000-08:00

Treason comes in many colors. Most are shadings of yellow. This one makes me see red:

Monk

KOLD-TV Tucson News 13

4/1/03
Prankster Devastates Flagstaff Family With False News Of Death

(AP) A prank caller devastated the Flagstaff family of a 22-year-old soldier serving in Iraq, falsely telling them that the man was dead.

On Sunday morning, a man called the home of Wayne Hogg's uncle and said "we need to let you know Wayne died two days ago."

The report was false, but it turned into a nightmare for Hogg's family. His uncle, Danny Hogg, says it took the family a full day to get confirmation that Wayne was still alive in Iraq.

Danny Hogg had participated Saturday in a Flagstaff rally to support U.S. troops in Iraq.

Sunday morning, a photo of him taken at the rally appeared in the Flagstaff newspaper. And it was a short time after the paper hit the streets that the call was made to Danny Hogg's home.

(Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

McPeak Speaks!

2003-04-02T04:44:00.000-08:00

Ever the forward-looking thinker! (What the hell is "tactical air?" The concept that certain aircraft are "tactical," "strategic," whatever, or that the use of airpower to defeat land armies is "tactical" was hoary when I joined the AF in '83.)

Ever the team player! (Nothing like undermining the war effort to wax your own butt, eh "general?")

Land-based tactical air is the First Team. Yet we don't have enough of it - largely because diplomatic failures cost us the use of air bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The article is actually not bad (considering the source). I guess he just couldn't stand being the only Doddering Ex-General Talking Head Turned War Critic yet to be heard from. Was he wearing his blues with the rank on the sleeve when he wrote this? What would the Air Force have done without him? (Don't answer that...)

Not Fired -- Firing Squad

2003-03-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

This is treason, he is a US citizen, and dismissal is not sufficient punishment:

Constitution of the United States, Art. III, Sec. 3.
Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Transcript of Peter Arnett interview on Iraqi TV

Monday, March 31, 2003 Posted: 0306 GMT (11:06 AM HKT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. war plan has "failed," veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett told Iraqi TV in an interview that aired Sunday. Following is a transcript of that interview:

IRAQI TV HOST: Welcome in Baghdad, and our people know you, know your reports to CNN in 1991. Let us start with a question about the general image that you look now in Iraq.

ARNETT: Well, I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation. Courtesy from your people, and cooperation from the Ministry of Information, which has allowed me and many other reporters to cover 12 whole years since the Gulf War with a degree of freedom which we appreciate. And that is continuing today.

HOST: (Translates into Arabic)

ARNETT: In answer to your question, it is clear that within the United States there is growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war. So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.

HOST: (in Arabic)

ARNETT: One other point. I've been mainly in Baghdad in the past few weeks. But, clearly this is a city that is disciplined, the population is responsive to the government's requirements of discipline and my Iraqi friends tell me there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing.

HOST: (In Arabic first) What have you seen until now, have you been to some of these places where civilian casualties have been seen during these two days?

ARNETT: Yeah, I think American policy and strategy is the weakest when it comes to the Iraqi people. The U.S. administration is concerned with the possibility of killing civilians, because the international community is very concerned about the Iraqi people. President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: For that reason, the Pentagon keeps saying that the civilian casualties, particularly in Baghdad in the last three or four days, at the market places -- the Pentagon says -- well they are Iraqi missiles that land amongst the people. They keep saying that, but of course the Iraqi government says they are clearly cruise missiles that hit the population.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: For that reason the Pentagon keeps saying that maybe it is an Iraqi missile that hit the population and not a U.S. Whenever I gave a report on civilian casualties on CNN (in the first Gulf War) the Pentagon and the Bush administration got very angry and called me a traitor.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: However, when missiles hit the Al-Maria shelter in early February of 1991, killing nearly 400 women and children, the Bush administration had to admit that they were responsible. And when that happened, there was a different attitude to the war. They had to try and complete the war fast, because the world criticized that bombing very severely.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: And I personally do not understand how that happened, because I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country. But me, and others who felt the same way were not listened to by the Bush administration.

HOST: (In Arabic)

ARNETT: That is why now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan.

HOST: Yeah. (Speaks in Arabic) Mr. Arnett Thank you very much. (Speaks in Arabic)

Monk

They Dominate the Air, But Still They Can't Win

2003-03-31T11:25:00.000-08:00

The inimitable Mark Steyn--particularly trenchant in light of the shoot down of NBC's premier combat system, the GMA (Ground-to-Air Moron)-69D "Peter Arnett:"

"Speaking live from his armchair, General George S. Patton says, "Look, I'm just an armchair general, but, when I lean forward, pick up the remote and switch on the TV, it seems clear these media sonsofbitches pushed ahead too fast in the first 48 hours and then found their supply lines stretched far too thin. The supply of lines just wasn't getting through."

Read the whole thing.

Very Disrespectfully,

Monk

Quotes of the Day

2003-03-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Quotes of the day. These should make you feel good

Monk

HEARD ON SKY NEWS
"Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton", UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. "He's either never been to Southampton, or he's never been to Umm Qasr", said one British soldier, informed of this while on patrol in Umm Qasr. Another added: "There's no beer, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth."

Mark Steyn, in London's Spectator:

"Indeed, given the way [EU 'External Relations Commissioner'] Chris Patten’s ‘smart development assistance’ to Yasser Arafat appears to have wound up funding the intifada, America’s smart bombs now cause fewer deaths than the EU development budget."

[By the way, read the whole thing. It's worth it:]

Conservative Professor (!) David Gelernter, Chief Guru of Artificial Intelligence (!), at a pro-war rally (!) at Yale (!):

"Where do you Americans get the arrogance to believe that no man is an island entire of itself? Who ever gave you the crazy idea that each man murdered, each man tortured, each woman raped diminishes you because you are involved in mankind? Who ever told you that crazy arrogant stuff?

"It IS a radical doctrine and always has been. But America is a radical nation, and has always tried, sometimes successfully and sometimes not -- but always TRIED to see what's right and do it. To do the right as God gives us to see the right.
"I've often been proud of this country in my lifetime, but I've never been prouder of it than I am today. It's never been such an honor and such a privilege to be part of it."

By the way, check out Gelernter, Super Genius

TRB on the Information War

2003-03-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

I'm usually no fan of The New Republic, but I think their "war diarist" has it about right, especially concerning Iraqi TV.

Monk

THE NEW REPUBLIC
KANAN MAKIYA'S WAR DIARY
March 27, 2003

Do not believe any commentator who says that a rising surge of "nationalism" is preventing Iraqis from greeting U.S. and British troops in the streets with open arms. What is preventing them from rising up and taking over the streets of their cities is confusion about American intentions and fear of the murderous brown-shirt thugs known as the Fedayeen Saddam, who are leading the small-arms-fire attacks on American and British soldiers. The coalition forces have an urgent need to send clear and unmistakable signals to the people of Iraq that unlike in 1991, there is no turning back from the destruction of Saddam Hussein. And in order to do this effectively they must turn to the Iraqi opposition, which has so far been marginalized.
I pressed this point in a meeting with American officials yesterday. The United States needs to understand that Iraqis do not get CNN. They have not heard constant iterations of how Saddam's demise is imminent. More importantly, they have not seen it demonstrated. American forces so far have been content to position themselves outside southern Iraqi cities; they have only just began to disrupt Iraqi TV, which is Saddam's principal tool of maintaining psychological control over Iraq; and, above all, they have not allowed Iraqis to go in and organize the population, a task which we are very eager to carry out. In Basra, this hesitation has meant tanks sitting on the outskirts of a very porous city whose main arteries to neighboring towns and villages have not even been cut off. Sporadic and faint-hearted British fire was not enough to prevent Fedayeen Saddam from quelling the beginnings of a popular uprising. Moreover, hanging above the head of every Iraqi like a sword of Damocles is the memory of March 1991, when the uprising of the people of southern Iraq, the intifada, was mercilessly suppressed, and in a particularly brutal way in Basra. If Saddam came back from the grave after 1991, Iraqis are thinking, why could he not do so now? Phone calls the opposition has received over the last two days from sources in southern Iraq confirm this sense of ambiguity and hesitation.
Iraqi state TV must be put out of commission, and permanently. One Bush administration official pointed out to me that destroying Iraqi TV will only mean it has to be rebuilt after the war. So what? Money pinching at the tactical level will lead to disaster at the strategic level. Saddam's image and those of his henchmen have been visible all throughout the campaigns in the south and the bombing of Baghdad. Saddam rules through his face, through his ubiquitous presence in day-to-day life. That is what his millions of larger-than-life wall posters are all about. Every day that image is aired reinforces an aura of invincibility. Despite the on-camera speculation of the Western media, not a single Iraqi believes him to be dead. Our phone conversations confirm that, too.
But eliminating his image is not enough. The coalition needs the Iraqi opposition--Iraqis who can sneak into the cities and help organize other Iraqis, men from the same families and social networks that hold these places together, who know how to communicate with their entrapped brethren, who can tell them why this time Saddam is finished, and who are able to root out his cronies when they try to melt away into the civilian population. One cannot liberate a people--much less facilitate the emergence of a democracy--without empowering the people being liberated. Did not a Free France need its wartime resistance to help, partially at least, redeem the nation's sense of self-respect and honor, as De Gaulle demonstrated when he rode into Paris? It is a million times easier for an Iraqi soldier to join his fellow Iraqis in rebellion than it is to surrender his arms in humiliation to a foreigner. To date, however, my meetings with administration officials have given me the impression that some quarters of Washington are at war with Saddam Hussein and others are at war with the Iraqi National Congress. The administration still adamantly refuses to let the Iraqi opposition activate our networks to make the fighting easier for the coalition in the cities, towns, and villages. Why?

Regime Change at CNN "On Track"

2003-03-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

Beautiful!

Monk

BREAKING NEWS March 27, 2003
U.S. SUCCEEDS IN TOPPLING CONNIE CHUNG

Regime Change At CNN ‘On Track,’ Rumsfeld Says

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon today that the U.S. has succeeded in removing Connie Chung from the airwaves, a primary objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“To those critics who would say that this campaign isn’t moving quickly enough, let me say this: it’s only been a week and we’ve already gotten Connie Chung’s show cancelled,” Rumsfeld said. “Goodness gracious, I’d say we’re on track.”

Secretary Rumsfeld reminded reporters that regime change at CNN was the ultimate goal of the military campaign in Iraq, and that the removal of Ms. Chung from the schedule “goes a long way” towards achieving that goal.

In an official statement, Ms. Chung’s agent said, “We thought Connie was embedded at CNN, but apparently she wasn’t embedded securely enough.”

While U.S. officials were reportedly “elated” over the removal of Connie Chung, France, Germany and Russia called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to discuss what program would fill Ms. Chung’s timeslot in a post-Chung CNN.

The fear among those three countries is that the United States might act unilaterally to schedule a new program of their own choosing, possibly starring Deborah Norville.

“Deborah Norville is definitely the worst-case scenario,” said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

In other war news, a U.S. missile over Baghdad reportedly strayed off-course today and hit the filmmaker Michael Moore in Santa Monica, California.

Mr. Moore, who was said to be heavily fortified, was unharmed in the accident.

The Oscar-winning director is currently taking a temporary hiatus from filmmaking and plans to spend the next twelve months wrecking festive occasions across the country with sudden unexpected outbursts.

"Well, That's It"

2003-03-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

Another brilliant Bleat from James Lileks--pretty much sums up the foolishness of the media's reaction to the war in the last few days, all in splendid prose.

Monk

Well, that’s it. War’s lost. It’s amazing how fast things change; in Afghanistan, it took three weeks before someone whispered “Quagmire” and all was forsaken; this time it took but five days before an intrepid reporter stood up at a briefing and asked the military spokesman whether the specter of Vietnam loomed again over the swaggering, clay-footed giant of American power. Right now on TV some reporter is interviewing some bulky pink ex-general about BLACK SUNDAY, noting that everything was going magnificently on Friday, and now we’re meeting - are you ready for this? - resistance.

The BBC (about which I will say more later) is reporting that the mood at CentCom is morose and dispirited; I get the impression that Tommy Franks has retired to his bunk in tears, and most of the officers are are 24-hour suicide watch. Ten Marines dead. No one expected that. The plans called for zero casualties, after all. This changes everything. Rip up the war plan.

"We Go To Liberate"

2003-03-26T10:05:00.000-08:00

Great words. Can't believe the NYT published it. Can you imagine a US commander saying what he says in the last paragraph?

Monk

New York Times
March 25, 2003
'We Go To Liberate': A Colonel's Address

The eve of battle is a time for commanders to rally their troops. Some do it more memorably than others. Here is an excerpt, provided by the British Embassy in Washington, from a speech by Lt. Col. Tim Collins, commander of the First Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, delivered on Saturday at Fort Blair Mayne in northern Kuwait, before the battalion left for Iraq.

We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle, remember to be magnanimous in victory.

Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing. Don't treat them as refugees, for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor. In years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.

It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive, but there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.
The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.
It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.

The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

If you harm the regiment or its history by overenthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.

Thought Exercise

2003-03-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

Here's an intellectual exercise:
- Read the article below
- Take out "Baghdad" and substitute "Berlin."
- For the Khalil family, substitute "the Schmidt family."
- For the Qadisiya neighborhood, substitute the "Hackescher Markt."
- For 1991 and 2003, substitute "1942" and "1944."
- For the global war on terrorism, substitute the global war on fascism.
- Britain and the US, of course, remain the same.
Done?
Now, ask yourself, 'would the byline read, "Washington Post Foreign
Service" or would it more likely read, "Domestic Service of the German-American Bund?"'
Just food for thought.....
Monk

Washington Post
March 25, 2003
Pg. 11

"Missile Strike Shatters A House, And A Family:
Attack on Neighborhood Evokes Anger at U.S."

By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, March 24 -- Breakfast was simple, but late. Days of bombing had left the Khalil family sleepless. When a respite arrived at noon today, a moment of ease in an uneasy time, they sat down, picking anxiously at boiled eggs, tomatoes and bread.

Nine-year-old Shahid told stories, and her 12-year-old brother, Ahmed,laughed. The older family members, with harrowing memories of bombings in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, sat uneasily, their silence an eloquent testament to worry.

Then a whisper sounded, ever so slight. In seconds, the house was shattered by a cruise missile, the family said. Um Aqeel, the mother of five children, and her daughter-in-law, Sahar, were killed. Two sons and a daughter were wounded.

Hours later, weary and angry, Aqeel, the oldest son, looked out at his bandaged siblings laying dazed in their hospital beds. "There are no soldiers in my home, there's no gun in my home!" he shouted. "How can God accept this?"

In five days of bombing, the United States and Britain have hurled hundreds of cruise missiles and bombs at Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. For the most part, their precision is stunning, carving out craters in the domes of presidential palaces and gaping holes in the sides of fearsome intelligence headquarters that dot the capital. Even by the official Iraqi count, hundreds of civilians have been wounded but only a handful killed, despite a furious assault that has left the capital jittery and afraid.

But the arithmetic of war makes mistakes inevitable -- blasts gutted the student union at Mustansiriya University on Sunday and a cluster of homes in the Qadisiya neighborhood last week. Adhimiya, a working-class quarter, may have witnessed another mistake, a snapshot of the horrors of war and the scenes of resentment and revenge that lay in their wake.

In a warren of narrow alleys, perched uncomfortably beside a trench of burning oil that cloaked the neighborhood in a blinding, black haze, at least three houses were destroyed by the blast, which blew out the windows of others in an arc around the detonation. Cream-colored brick and cinder blocks were strewn across the muddy street. Rubble poured forth from a crater that left the homes resembling an archaeological dig. Nearby rested the artifacts of domesticity -- a mattress spring, a brown scarf and a green plastic bowl.

Residents insisted no military or government site was nearby, and none was visible from the limited vantage point of the street. Journalists were accompanied by government escorts to the hospital where the wounded received treatment. Neighbors said that at the sound of the blast and the smell of smoke, they rushed into the houses, pushing aside furniture and rubble to search for those buried by it. Dirt particles were suspended in the air. Five minutes later, sirens announced the arrival of ambulances, which took the four dead and 27 wounded to Noman Hospital.

At the hospital, the head of 14-year-old Ali, another son in the Khalil family, was wrapped in a bandage. He stared blankly at the ceiling. His sister, Shahid, lay motionless. Her fingernails were painted in sparkles and ringed by dried blood.
The face of his brother Ahmed was still bloodied. A bandage sat like a helmet on his forehead.

"We trust in God, what can we do?" Ahmed said softly, curled in a fetal position. "I'm safe and alive. That's most important." A doctor, Abdullah Abed Ali, leaned over to a visitor. He whispered, out of earshot of Ahmed. "He doesn't know that his mother has died," he said, shaking his head. Relatives ran into the hospital ward. Their eyes were red. Aqeel, the oldest brother whose wife's body was in the morgue, rested his head on the shoulder of one. He started sobbing. "It fell on us," he said, his voice cracking. "It fell on us."

In Adhimiya, militiamen and civil defense workers in red helmets picked through the rubble, searching for 70-year-old Khowla Abdel-Fattah. Workers shoveled dirt to the side, and a bulldozer carted away brick and concrete. Sewage from broken pipes poured into the street, lapping at the rubble. Without saying a word, as a baby cried nearby, neighbors passed around gnarled, fused pieces of metal they said were left by the blast of the missile.

Neighbors lined up to watch the workers dig clumsily through the rubble, now a makeshift grave. There were no chants for President Saddam Hussein, as there are in so many officially sanctioned public gatherings. There were no cries of "God is greatest." There was only silence, the shock of the devastation.

As the bulldozer crashed through another crumbling wall of his house, Abdel-Fattah's brother, Thamir Sheikhly, cried out. "Bush is cursed!" he shouted. "This is a civilian building, a civilian building, 100 percent. There are no weapons of mass destruction. He wants to destroy the people. Maybe God will destroy him." For a moment, he was quiet, then spoke again. "We'll have our revenge with Bush."

Update: KAHN writes, "As I recall, the twin towers did not house soldiers either."

White House Changes

2003-03-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Just to confirm this, last October we toured the White House. All the rooms are very stately and beautifully decorated. When we got to the "green room", I noticed among all the beautiful portraits of past presidents, a painting that seemed very out of place. It was an abstract [Georgia O'Keefe] painting that in another venue might have been OK. Also, it was hung in an odd place. I asked the secret service guard about it. We were not shocked when he informed us that Hillary Clinton had picked it out, and had it hung there. She felt it was necessary to have a piece on display by a woman. Everyone in the room pretty much had the same opinion, "it figures". The guard tried to be kind and point out other things Hillary had done to improve the White House. I think her moving out was the biggest improvement!

KAHN

Subject: White House Changes

A lot has changed since George W. Bush became president—executive orders that support a "culture of life," judicial appointees who respect the constitution and members of the Cabinet who are unapologetic about their faith. But perhaps nothing more clearly represents the new leadership we enjoy as a country than that place Mr. Bush now calls his temporary home - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The president is quick to point out that it is not his house but the American people's house. And, as such, he treats it and the people who work there with respect. >From the Secret Service to the grounds crew, the folks who work at the White House rave about the First Family.

The president and first lady prefer to entertain family friends in their private quarters rather than ask the stewards and waiters to negotiate difficult formal dining rooms.

Harkening back to the days of Ronald Reagan, Bush will not allow any man to attend a meeting in the Oval Office without a jacket and tie. Gone are the days of blue jeans and pizza boxes.

One of the clearest ways to show respect for someone is to respect their time. Everyone who works with and around the president has noted his punctuality. Meetings begin and end on time. This stands in stark contrast to the previous occupant of the White House, who was notorious for keeping visitors and the media waiting.

And speaking of the former president, in his administration more than 500 staffers had access to the White House kitchen. One presidential aide said they turned it into a fast-food restaurant. These days, only 150 senior staff members have meal privileges.

Of course the Clinton years were known for worse things than that. US News & World Report reported recently that it was common for President Clinton to have violent and sex-laden R-rated films playing on Air Force One. Even seasoned reporters would blush at the images being played out before their eyes while trying to question the president on some issue of national importance. A Marine who worked at Camp David publicly stated that pornography was littered all over the retreat. In contrast, President Bush has said that even some of the new major motion-picture releases, which are routinely sent to the White House for viewing by the First Family, are too vulgar for him.

I've visited the White House twice since President Bush moved in. As anyone might be, I was awed by the history of the place. Oil portraits of past occupants reminded me that some presidents have understood the honor of living there and others have wantonly dishonored it. My visits with President Bush at the White House were an opportunity to witness firsthand how much this man respects the office to which he was elected. He arrived at our meetings promptly and took the time to greet every person in attendance.

He was warm and polite to each of us. His manner conveyed the message that he knew he was only a temporary resident and his job is to leave this august home in better shape than he found it. In one of my meetings, I made a point of speaking to a young man who is part of the military service assigned to the White House. His job is to escort guests and to help people find their way through the large hallways. His uniform was covered with ribbons and his shoes were perfectly polished. His face was emotionless and he drew no attention to himself, but for some reason he caught my eye.

"Thank you," I said, "for the work you do. You really represent us all in your service here. It must be wonderful work."

He paused and then allowed a big smile to cross his face. "Oh, yes, sir, it truly is."

Yes, things certainly are different in Washington.

Courtesy of: Rear Admiral Steve Brachet, USN (Ret) & Brigadier General Bob Clements, USAF (Ret)

Nice to share some good things once in a while as well as jokes, scams and stories, enjoy and pass this along.

Outrageous!

2003-03-24T06:56:00.000-08:00

In the editorial below, the WaPo implicitly compares our ongoing campaign to the disastrous Operation TORCH (the initial invasion of Vichy-controlled Morocco) in Nov 42. With US men & women dying in combat as I write--executing one of the boldest, most audacious war plans the US has ever undertaken--is morally equivalent to dressing up like a civilian or feigning surrender and then ambushing US troops.
The simultaneous tone of schadenfreude and self-congratulation is not assuaged by the passing reference to "rapid progress."

How dare this filthy fifth-communist opine about "avoidable losses!" Friction is a fact of war, as much today as in 1942. But the military executing today's plan is NOT the military of Operation TORCH. This is a daring and complicated plan, one that is bound to entail losses. To compare it to TORCH breaks faith with those fighting in the field. This article is a disgrace.

Monk

Washington Post
March 24, 2003
Pg. 12
"Grievous Losses"

IN NOVEMBER 1942, U.S. and British forces began a desert war -- the North Africa campaign of World War II -- with a three-day amphibious landing operation against French forces, then aligned with Nazi Germany. Operation TORCH ended in victory, and was reported as such back home. But the three days were marked by confusion, error and avoidable loss, as a recently published history, "An Army at Dawn," makes clear. The narrative (by Rick Atkinson, a Post reporter now "embedded" with the 101st Airborne Division in the battle zone) describes boats capsizing in calm seas, messages to headquarters going unread because signalmen forgot to code them urgent, shells failing to explode because of 35-year-old fuzes. A coxswain mistakes a French ship for a U.S. Navy destroyer and approaches; the French sailors machine-gun his crew, killing or wounding 28 Americans. "TORCH revealed profound shortcomings in leadership, tactics, equipment, martial elan, and common sense," the narrative concludes. Eleven hundred American and British fighters died during the three days.

Yesterday was also a day of painful loss for American and British service men and women, the costliest in combat for the American military since Somalia in 1993 or maybe even since the Persian Gulf War. And whereas Americans 60 years ago learned of setbacks and mistakes long after the fact, if at all, the nation yesterday felt the blows almost as they occurred: a British plane mistakenly shot down by an American missile, U.S. prisoners and bodies displayed before television cameras, a helicopter down in Afghanistan, a fragging suspect hauled away, the videotape replayed again and again. There's no way to know how public support for the World War II effort, and for all the generals welcomed home as heroes, might have been affected by more immediate reporting. Nor is there any call for nostalgia: certainly not for the primitive military technology, which produced far higher casualty totals, but also not for the media technology, so much less capable of bridging time and distance. In the long run, more information surely is better than less, and sooner better than later, as the Pentagon calculated when it allowed so many journalists to travel with fighting units. But the tidal waves of information place a higher demand on everyone for perspective and patience. The war is only in its fifth day. More losses are to be expected, but overall U.S. forces are continuing to make rapid progress toward their goals.

What has not changed in 60 years, or 600, is the anguish of each loss. Some relatives may learn the dreaded news on CNN, instead of by telegram or from the solemn visitor on the front porch; but the sacrifice remains unbearable. "People are [saying] they are sorry," said Michael Waters-Bey of Baltimore, who lost his son, Marine Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, 29. "But the word 'sorrow' cannot fill my pain." There will again be wreaths and burials and, eventually, monuments to those who gave their lives. Ultimately the monument that matters will be victory and a sustained commitment to a rebuilt Iraq -- a commitment that will leave Americans safer and the Iraqi people better off.

The Chicks with a Guy Named Earl

2003-03-20T06:50:00.000-08:00

Paybacks are hell, ladies...

Monk

A Knife in the Back

2003-03-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

As US and British soldiers, sailors, and airmen make last preparations to put their lives on the line, the WaPo is still trying desperately to stab them in the back. The freedom to spread lies, calumny, and anti-American propaganda is one of the things we must work to defend, I guess.

The only element of truth in this piece, published as "news," is the bit about Niger and the false rumor of Iraq's Uranium purchases. What the story doesn't tell you is that UNMOVIC initiated the investigation of this rumor, the US government uncovered its falsehood and revealed it freely in the press and on TV. This was picked up by the international press and spread around the world as an example of US government "duplicity" (by Reuters--imagine that). The only organization telling the truth about this matter was the US government. You won't see that story in WaPo, however.

Meanwhile, here is the Post's core constituency in action.

and here.

Too bad all those men and women facing the possibility of death at the hands of a brutal monster's tyrannical regime don't have a voice--too bad our distant, dilettante, armchair-leftist press sees fit to spit it their faces as they prepare for war. You know the protesters and the press will chuckle smugly when they read of our young men and women being killed...

Monk

Isn't This, Like, Bad Karma, Man?

2003-03-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, the People's Republic, Land of Free Speech....

They tried this in Texas a week ago. The perpetrators now reside in a shallow mass grave outside Marfa.

Monk

Worse Than Weasels

2003-03-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

All jokes about the French and Germans aside, there can be no doubt about these cynical, decadent regimes' complicity with evil. Not only have these countries aided and abetted the enemies of civilization in the past, they are actively doing so today. Good reporting from the Moonie Times (for a change

There are two long articles included; scroll down to read.

America's enemies in Europe accuse us of being "cowboys," as if this is somehow derogatory. We should instruct them to watch Stan Kramer's "High Noon." You remember: the people of Hadleyville NM are threatened and oppressed by a revenge-seeking psychopath & his gang, but the townspeople are unwilling to confront them due to cowardice, infirmity, self-interest, or indecision. It's left to a disgusted Gary Cooper to strap on his guns and vanquish the killers by himself.

Yeah....that's about right. It's 11:59 boys and girls....

Washington Times
March 7, 2003
Pg. 1
"Iraq Strengthens Air Force With French Parts "
By Bill Gertz

A French company has been selling spare parts to Iraq for its fighter jets and military helicopters during the past several months, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The unidentified company sold the parts to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates, which then shipped the parts through a third country into Iraq by truck.
The spare parts included goods for Iraq's French-made Mirage F-1 jets and Gazelle attack helicopters.

An intelligence official said the illegal spare-parts pipeline was discovered in the past two weeks and that sensitive intelligence about the transfers indicates that the parts were smuggled to Iraq as recently as January.

Other intelligence reports indicate that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring French weaponry illegally for years, the official said.

The parts appear to be included in an effort by the Iraqi military to build up materiel for its air forces before any U.S. military action, which could occur before the end of the month.

The officials identified the purchaser of the parts as the Al Tamoor Trading Co., based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A spokesman for the company could not be reached for comment.

The French military parts were then sent by truck into Iraq from a neighboring country the officials declined to identify.

Iraq has more than 50 Mirage F-1 jets and an unknown number of Gazelle attack helicopters, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

An administration official said the French parts transfers to Iraq may be one reason France has so vehemently opposed U.S. plans for military action against Iraq. "No wonder the French are opposing us," this official said.

The official, however, said intelligence reports of the parts sale did not indicate that the activity was sanctioned by the French government or that Paris knows about the transfers.

The intelligence reports did not identify the French company involved in selling the aircraft parts or whether the parts were new or used.

The Mirage F-1 was made by France's Dassault Aviation. Gazelle helicopters were made by Aerospatiale, which later became part of a consortium of European defense companies.

The importation of military goods by Iraq is banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions passed since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Nathalie Loiseau, press counselor at the French Embassy, said her government has no information about the spare-parts smuggling and has not been approached by the U.S. government about the matter.

"We fully comply with the U.N. sanctions, and there is no sale of any kind of military material or weapons to Iraq," she said.

A CIA spokesman had no comment.

A senior administration official declined to discuss Iraq's purchase of French warplane and helicopter parts. "It is well known that the Iraqis use front companies to try to obtain a number of prohibited items," the official said.

The disclosure comes amid heightened anti-French sentiment in the United States over Paris' opposition to U.S. plans for using force to disarm Iraq.

A senior defense official said France undermined U.S. efforts to disarm Iraq last year by watering down language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 that last fall required Iraq to disarm all its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

France, along with Russia, Germany and China, said yesterday that they would block a joint U.S.-British U.N. resolution on the use of force against Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters in Paris on Wednesday that France "will not allow a resolution to pass that authorizes resorting to force."
"Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume their full responsibilities on this point," he stated.

France has been Iraq's best friend in the West. French arms sales to Baghdad were boosted in the 1970s under Premier Jacques Chirac, the current president. Mr. Chirac once called Saddam Hussein a "personal friend."

During the 1980s, when Paris backed Iraq in its war against Iran, France sold Mirage fighter bombers and Super Entendard aircraft to Baghdad, along with Exocet anti-ship missiles.

French-Iraqi ties soured after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that led to the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

France now has an estimated $4 billion in debts owed to it by Iraq as a result of arms sales and infrastructure construction projects. The debt is another reason U.S. officials believe France is opposing military force to oust Saddam.

Henry Sokolski, director of the private Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said French transfers of military equipment to Iraq would have "an immediate and relevant military consequence, if this was done."

"The United States with its allies are going to suppress the Iraqi air force and air defense very early on in any conflict, and it's regrettable that the French have let a company complicate that mission," Mr. Sokolski said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month released intelligence information showing videotape of an Iraqi F-1 Mirage that had been modified to spray anthrax spores.

A CIA report to Congress made public in January stated that Iraq has aggressively sought advanced conventional arms. "A thriving gray-arms market and porous borders have allowed Baghdad to acquire smaller arms and components for larger arms, such as spare parts for aircraft, air defense systems, and armored vehicles," the CIA stated.
Iraq also has obtained some military goods through the U.N.-sponsored oil-for-food program.

A second CIA report in October on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stated: "Iraq imports goods using planes, trains, trucks, and ships without any type of international inspections - in violation of UN Security Council resolutions."

____________________________________________________________

Washington Times
February 18, 2003
Pg. 1
N. Korea Ship Gets Arms In And Out
By Bill Gertz

The North Korean ship that last year delivered Scud missiles to Yemen transferred a large shipment of chemical weapons material from Germany to North Korea recently, U.S. intelligence officials said.

The ship, the Sosan, was monitored as it arrived in North Korea earlier this month carrying a shipment of sodium cyanide, a precursor chemical used in making nerve gas, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

The same ship was stopped by U.S. and Spanish naval vessels Dec. 9 as it neared Yemen. It was carrying 15 Scud missiles and warheads. After a brief delay and assurances from the Yemeni government, the ship was allowed to proceed to Yemen with the missile shipment.

After unloading the missiles in Yemen, the Sosan then traveled to Germany, where it took on a cargo of sodium cyanide estimated to weigh several tons. The ship then was tracked as it traveled to North Korea. It arrived at the west coast seaport of Nampo on Thursday, the officials said.

Disclosure of the chemical shipment comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear activities. The North Koreans were found to have violated a 1994 agreement to freeze plutonium production and other agreements prohibiting it from making nuclear arms.

The Bush administration is planning in the coming months to impose sanctions aimed at halting weapons shipments to North Korea and cutting off funds sent to the communist state by Korean residents in Japan, said an administration official. The plans were first reported yesterday by the New York Times.

North Korea's official media have said that any sanctions imposed on the country would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

The official Korean Central News Agency confirmed that the Sosan arrived at Nampo on Thursday.

At a press conference, the captain and crew answered questions for reporters and said that the Dec. 9 incident was an act of U.S. piracy.

The Sosan's captain, Kang Cholryong, told the news agency that the crew, not wanting to surrender their cargo to the United States, tried to set the ship on fire and sink it but were stopped by U.S. commandos who boarded from helicopters.

"The United States should be fully responsible for this piratical act and make a formal apology and due compensation to the [North Korean] government for it," the KCNA report stated.

The action against the ship was "part of the premeditated and brigandish moves of the U.S. imperialists to isolate and stifle [North Korea] and dominate the world with their policy of strength," it stated.

Sodium cyanide is a dual-use chemical. It is used to make the nerve gas sarin, as well as commercial products including pesticides and plastics.

The chemical is controlled by the 34-nation Australia Group, a voluntary coalition of states that agree to curb exports of dual-use chemicals that can boost the chemical weapons programs of states like North Korea. Germany is a member of the group.

A German Embassy spokesman could not be reached for comment.
South Korea's defense ministry stated last year that North Korea has a stockpile of between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including 17 different types of agents.

The ministry stated in a report made public in September that North Korea can produce 4,500 tons of chemical weapons agents annually. It also can produce a ton of biological weapons agent a year.

Sodium cyanide is an ingredient of the deadly nerve agent sarin, a small amount of which can kill a human.

The intercept of the Sosan near Yemen in December highlighted divisions within the Bush administration over how to act in curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile-delivery systems, U.S. officials said.

White House National Security Council officials supported seizing the missiles, but State Department officials opposed the idea, saying it would damage relations with Yemen, a growing ally in the war against terrorism.

The Sosan was seized after Yemen's government at first denied the missiles were theirs. The denial led U.S. intelligence officials to suspect the missiles could be headed for another country, such as Iraq, and they were seized.

The ship was stopped after a Spanish warship fired warning shots at the vessel. It then was boarded by U.S. commandos who discovered the missiles, warheads and canisters of chemical used for the missile's solid rocket fuel.

The Yemeni government then acknowledged the missiles had been purchased legally by the San'a government.

Bush administration officials have described North Korea as a major supplier of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons know-how and missile-delivery systems.
Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, told Congress earlier this month that North Korea's nuclear and other programs relating to weapons of mass destruction are threats to the United States.

"North Korea's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery ... are also a threat to the international community, regional security, U.S. interests and U.S. forces, which remain an integral part of stability in the region," Mr. Armitage said.

"It is time for North Korea to turn away from this self-destructive course. They have nothing to gain from acquiring nuclear weapons - and much to lose. Indeed, every day, the people of that country are paying a terrible price for these programs in international isolation and misspent national resources."

Monk

Vita ab Alto Extra

Cybersquatting

Ordering Pizza in 2010

Abomination II -- Chefjef's Revenge

Abomination

Never Get Out of the Boat

Smash the Machines! Oh...And No Betting Either

Harry Potter and the Garden of Nutbag

More Poster Fun

Posters, Part 1

American Hero (and Friend)

Musician Jokes

Musician Jokes: The Defininitive Collection

Researchers Define a "Conservative" (Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part 432)

Kabul Today

If Women Ruled thed World, Part I of ?

Advice for the Democrats

Back Again After 500 Years

"Impressive Speech"

The Spread of Freedom Is the Best Security for the Free

News from Birkenstockia

Bush Lied for Dummies

He's Dead Already

Why Europe Will Not Save Mankind from Howling Barbarism (aka Islam)

(Looney) Toons For Our Times...

Guns, Guns, Guns!

Worth Thinking About

Yes! It's the RonCo Voice-O-Matic!

Juxtapositions, Again

More Wierd Juxtapositions

France: The New Soviet Union

Anvil and Hammer

High Flight (FAA Supplement 1)

The Future is Now

High Res Pix of Baghdad

Seeing Red

McPeak Speaks!

Not Fired -- Firing Squad

They Dominate the Air, But Still They Can't Win

Quotes of the Day

TRB on the Information War

Regime Change at CNN "On Track"

"Well, That's It"

"We Go To Liberate"

Thought Exercise

White House Changes

Outrageous!

The Chicks with a Guy Named Earl

A Knife in the Back

Isn't This, Like, Bad Karma, Man?

Worse Than Weasels