Monday, October 01, 2007

Lo-ammi: a son is born

Sometimes LI wonders why we bother with commentary. Collage is the mightier instrument. So, this is from the latest NYT Blackwater piece, reporting on one of Blackwater’s murders [called ‘incidents’ as a figleaf]


“The incident involving “a drunken Blackwater contractor” arose when the employee killed a bodyguard for the Iraqi vice president, Adil Abd-al-Mahdi, in December 2006. State Department officials allowed Blackwater to take the shooter out of Iraq less than 36 hours later.

Then the State Department charge d’affaires recommended that Blackwater make “a sizable payment” and an “apology” in an effort to “avoid this whole thing becoming even worse,” the report went on. The State Department official suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard’s family, but the department’s Diplomatic Security Service said that was too much and could cause Iraqis to “try to get killed.” In the end, $15,000 was agreed upon. The report adds credence to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have adopted an aggressive, trigger-happy approach and displayed disregard for Iraqi life.”

Via TPM
A Blackwater contractor wrote an initial U.S. government report about how his colleagues killed Iraqi civilians in a September shooting that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations, government and industry sources told CNN.

The Iraqi government claims private contractors with Blackwater USA, who were guarding a U.S. diplomatic convoy, killed as many as 20 civilians on September 16 in western Baghdad's Nasoor Square.

The incident produced an outcry in Iraq and raised questions about the accountability of foreign security contractors in Iraq, who under an order laid down by the U.S.-led occupation government are not subject to Iraqi law for actions taken within their contracts.

Blackwater -- which provides security to U.S. diplomats -- says its employees responded properly to an insurgent attack on a convoy, and the State Department initial "spot report" written by the Blackwater contractor underscores that scenario and doesn't mention civilian casualties.

The Blackwater contractor, Darren Hanner, drafted a two-page "spot report" on the letterhead of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security for the embassy's Tactical Operations Center, said a source involved in diplomatic security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The TOC -- which tracks and monitors all incidents and movements involving diplomatic security missions -- has outsourced positions to Blackwater and another private firm, the embassy source said.


And this, from David Carr’s For the Rich, Magazines Fat on Ads:

But it is not just about rich people. Luxury has been defined down any number of ways. “Sex and the City” is now in wide syndication, which means that most of the country now knows that Jimmy Choo is not a kind of beef jerky. BMW is introducing the 1 Series next year with a lower point of entry for the aspirant. Even if you can’t afford a baby Beemer, you can express your taste in finery in everything from coffee to chocolate. And while other teenage magazines folded, Teen Vogue proved that brand aspiration can be baked in at a very young age.

I think what has to really be baked in at a young age is how those Crazy Iraqis leap to take our bullets in the gut so they can get the big big payoff! Because, of course, they lack a life respecting ethos, like us Christians. Ah, the liberation generation, the liberation culture, the winds of the ownership society sweeping through the Benevolent Hegemon. Makes me shiver.

And from the Book of Hosea:

And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
3: So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
4: And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5: And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6: And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.
7: But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
8: Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.
9: Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

Everybody dance now.

4 comments:

northanger said...

double movement

when did we know?
I remember, during the war, that my father would read the Yiddish language newspaper, The Forward, and, after dinner, he would often share with me the awful news from Europe. To paraphrase the Watergate questions -- what did we know? and when did we know it? We knew enough, and we knew enough in timely fashion. Week after week, month after month, we read about the roundup of Jews, the wholesale deportations, the killings.

hitler's gift to america
In 1901, a German received the first Nobel Prize in Physics, and when Heisenberg won the 1932 physics Nobel, he became the 11th German physicist Nobel laureate in just 31 years (in some years two or three winners share a Nobel prize). Just three Americans won the physics Nobel in those 31 years. But in the 50 years after 1932, Germany had just 3 Nobel laureates in physics; the United States had 43. In chemistry, the results were almost as striking. From 1901 to 1932 Germany had 14 Nobel laureates, and the United States only 2. Between 1932 and 1982, the United States had 24 Nobel laureates in chemistry, and Germany only 10. Emigres from fascist Europe in the United States won many of these Nobels, and it was they who inspired, mentored, and taught many of those who won the rest.

northanger said...

jews who committed suicide: Paul Ehrenfest, Szmul Zygielbojm...

Brian K. Stanley said...

What nobody seems to be commenting on is the cat-and-mouse game our great friend Nuri has been playing with the Prodigy Condi ever since the convenient advent of this latest atrocity. Nuri to Condi: "Wanna talk about one government 'applying pressure' on another? Sure, we'll talk. Just don't bring your bodyguards. And we may need to talk about ending 'extraterritoriality' for your 'total force,' by the way. After all I want you guys around. Just as long as I can use you the way I want."

northanger said...

condi

Lovecraft

“If Lovecraft was an odd child,” his biographer L. Sprague de Camp writes, “his mother showed signs of becoming even odder. In fact, she gav...