Osama Who?
Could the Bush administration's retarded response to the WTC bombing (we get hit by Osama; we bomb...Saddam?!) be part of what's foiling the search for Bin Laden? James Risen and David Rohde write in The New York Times:
More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York transformed Osama bin Laden into the most wanted man in the world, the search for him remains stalled, frustrated by the remote topography of his likely Pakistani sanctuary, stymied by a Qaeda network that remains well financed and disciplined, sidetracked by the distractions of the Iraq war, and, perhaps most significantly, limited by deep suspicion of the United States among Pakistanis.
Lucky we're winning in Iraq, huh?!
When grown people fuss about this as children will on a car trip, I wonder what they WANT to have happen? And what exactly is the planet like for them meanwhile?
No; the USA's security technocracies are not capable of tracking every single human being on the surface of the globe. This is not some late 60s technothriller movie of the week with James Franciscus or Hugh O'Brian, where a co-starring, middle-aged, caucasian actor sits behind a NASA-ish console and makes the world go 'round.
Do people WANT things to work that way? So that the US government knows exactly where everyone is at all times, EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, to facilitate instant takedown?
Rereading the selected paragraph, I again think "Yeah, so?" We *are* winning the war in Iraq, but it may take decades. Freeing the enslaved is a horribly slow process. See also, Race Relations - United States.
Amy, stop reading the NYT. Start reading the NYP, which has an article today about how Kerik was doing Regan from behind in his cheatin' apartment in Battery Park. Now *that's* yer paranoid fantasy brought to life...
Cridland at December 13, 2004 5:59 PM
Also, according to Marc Cooper, the current Village Voice has a wonderful mockery of Sharpton's sexual tomfoolery, as well as his other misconduct.
New York media are singing with snarky, grounded, well-sourced pieces this week... No need to choke among the witless lefty nebulae at the Gray Lady's water cooler.
Cridland at December 13, 2004 6:33 PM
I'm in New York right now, Crid, and I wish everyone would just shut up already about Kerik. I don't care about his sex life, or his investments in stun guns, or any of it. All I care about right now is the delicious Italian cheesecake my sister made today. I could live on a steady diet of Italian cheesecake and "sexual tomfoolery."
PS: Crid, you don't actually read Marc Cooper, do you? Isn't he a little too "interior life" for your taste?
PPS: Amy, I ran into our favorite lady sociologist at Broadway and Astor Place today (it was so fucking freezing). She was on her way to class. And looking for love.
Ice, Ice Lena at December 14, 2004 2:24 AM
Heh heh...I just knew it: Crid secretly sits at home in a Che Guevera shirt and a beret reading the LA Weekly.
Lena...get your JWA home already. Haven't you had enough of the cold?! Sexual tomfoolery? That's what I'm writing about now. Tell Miss N.L. (you know what that stands for!) that I miss her, and hope to see her soon!
Amy Alkon at December 14, 2004 2:46 AM
There's a new residential property being built below Cooper Square. Prices START at $3,200,000. The lofts will include views of the black sculpture where the young Hegelians on methamphetamine hang out -- from November through March, with frozen trails of snot hanging out of their noses.
Lena "N.L." Cuisina at December 14, 2004 3:23 AM