Joyce Carol Oates: "As soon as such an experience — whether anecdotal or tragic — is over, we begin the inevitable process of 'healing': that is, forgetting. We extract from the helpless visceral sensation some measure of intellectual summary or control. We lie to ourselves: we revise experience to make it lighthearted and amusing to others. For in what other way is terror to be tamed, except recycled as anecdotes or aphorisms, a sugary coating to hide the bitter pellet of truth within?" (NY Times, free registration required)

Intellectual terrorism is alive and well in New Mexico. As we face the prospect of a "year of war" (per our president), conflict between India and Pakistan, and the possibility of military action against Iraq, it's really disheartening to see that book-burning makes today's headlines:

Alamagordo congregants feed books to flames to condemn Harry Potter as many others protest -- Unnamed works of Shakespeare were also burned. Pastor Jack Brock, of Christ Community Church in Alamogordo, thinks J.K. Rowling's novels are "an abomination to God." He was also quoted in this morning's Albuquerque Journal, referring to the popular novels as "a masterpiece of satanic deception." Mr. Brock's issue, apparently, is Rowling's premise that some wizardry is good, some bad; in his mind, it's all evil. This would tend to suggest that Mr. Brock believes crones can fly on broomsticks. No explanation was tendered as to the evil content of the bard's works.

Well, what a pleasant week off this has been. Remind me to never schedule highly invasive fiber-optic medical examinations over the winter holidays. In any case, Happy New Year -- we can only get better after the last quarter of '01.

Warmest holiday wishes to all

Ananova: Horses have little springs or dampers in their heels which keep their leg muscles from shaking apart. I need these for my lower back. ;-) [Via dangerousmeta!]

Reuters: Pope says all forms of terrorism dishonor God -- The same message needs to be heard, loudly, from moderate Muslim voices.

Washington Post: Afghan orphans offer kinship to delegation of New York's finest -- New York City firefighters visit a war-ravaged orphanage in Kabul.

Globalvision: Prime Minister Blair blasts doubters in the media -- "In an episode unprecedented in the history of British politicos, Prime Minister Tony Blair has tried to 'name and shame' several respected journalists and their publications who have 'dared' to express doubt about the merits of 'the war against terrorism.' . . . Against a background of growing doubts about the deployment of some 1,500 British troops in Afghanistan and the risk that some of them could be seriously wounded or even killed, the criticism of the media is even more puzzling."

ABC: Shedding light on 'Magic Lantern' -- "In order to stop criminals and terrorists who may be plotting evil deeds using computers and the Internet, the FBI is developing a tool that is more commonly associated with computer hackers."

Politech: FBI refuses to tell Congress aide about 'classified' Magic Lantern -- An FBI spokesperson said "she was told that the project is still being developed and it was a 'mistake' that coverage of this has made it into the media." Big oops...

Reuters: Bush predicts 'war year' in 2002 -- Some prediction. We already were told this would last for decades.

P.M. Carpenter: The trail leads back to Bush I and Iraq -- "What looms over the executive-privilege controversy is the White House's still-cold war with Iraq.... And the last thing this White House wants re-publicized is that Saddam possesses a certain ominousness only because Bush I handed it to him. It was Papa George and his coterie of Cold Warrior masterminds who armed Iraq to the teeth in direct contravention to the law."

Washington Post: India signals its anger over Parliament attack -- "The government of India, in the strongest signal to date of its anger at Pakistan following an armed attack on Parliament here Dec. 13, today recalled its top envoy to Islamabad for the first time in 30 years and suspended bus and train service between the two countries." This could get real interesting in a hurry. Washington is urging both countries to tone it down.

Seumas Milne: "Thousands of innocents have died over the past two months, not mainly as an accidental byproduct of the decision to overthrow the Taliban regime, but because of the low value put on Afghan civilian lives by US military planners." [Guardian]

Howard Kurtz: "...Dead or alive, we will be on this mountain, live, in Tora Bora, hour after hour, to bring you the latest, live, from this historic site where not very much is happening at the moment. Although that could change." [Washington Post]

Rights Group Voices Concern over U.K. Anti-Terrorist Arrests -- "...This legislation is creating a shadow criminal justice system in which the normal safeguards protecting the rights to liberty and fair trial are being eroded." Sound familiar? [Amnesty International/Globalvision]

Duncan Campbell: Conservative 'patriots' target liberal academics -- Course funds are threatened and professors denounced and suspended for organising teach-ins on the war and voicing criticism of American foreign policy.

ABC: American Taliban's parents want legal access -- "In a statement released Tuesday, an attorney hired by Walker's parents said the 20-year-old deserves the same Constitutional rights as any American citizen and complained that, outside a dictated letter, Walker's parents have not been allowed to have access to their son." Nor has he apparently had access to legal counsel.

Updates will be thin this week due to previously scheduled personal business.

Anthony Lewis is retiring his column in the New York Times after 32 years. Read this and you will understand why he looked so sad the last time he appeared on the PBS Newshour. He does offer a sliver of hope, though: "In the end I believe that faith in reason will prevail. But it will not happen automatically. Freedom under law is hard work. If rulers cannot be trusted with arbitrary power, it is up to citizens to raise their voices at injustice. The most important office in a democracy, Justice Louis Brandeis said, is the office of citizen." (NY Times, free registration required)

This is turning out to be a non-news weekend, as we sit around waiting for the satellite TV installer and figure out why we are bothering with Mac OS X when OS 9.x works perfectly fine! It was also a real joy to have to reformat the hard drive and do a complete reinstallation of everything. :-(

Stephanie Salter: The ghost of Christmas future in the land of the free -- "I know that speech by heart, Grandma. We recite it at the start of history class -- right after the prayer and right before we name names of neighbors and friends we suspect of aiding the Evil Ones."

The Daily Texan: Carlyle's tentacles stretch far -- "America's war on terrorism will never be won as long as we allow terrorists and bankers to profit from both sides of the same war."

Boston Herald: Bush advisers cashed in on Saudi gravy train -- "...Lucrative financial relationships call into question the ability of America's political elite to make tough foreign policy decisions about the kingdom that produced Osama bin Laden and is perhaps the biggest incubator for anti-Western Islamic terrorists."

Richard Blow: Scripting bin Laden's last act -- "...It's reasonable to assume that ever since September 11th, White House officials have been strategizing a Bin Laden end game. The goal: To kill Bin Laden without martyring him. The method: First, discredit him, to diminish his value as a martyr. Second, ensure that his death does not come at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Even if it does."

Reuters: U.S. wants al Qaeda to surrender, not die -- "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied on Thursday that the U.S. military was trying to kill all al Qaeda leaders and troops in Afghanistan, but warned that any surrender of their Tora Bora hide-out must be unconditional."

Washington Post: President backs out of ABM treaty -- "At 10 a.m., the president and his national-security entourage walked into the Rose Garden and declared that the United States would withdraw from the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement treasured by Moscow."

Reuters: Israel cuts ties with Arafat -- "'We are going to have now a sustained, prolonged military operation with the purpose... of doing what Arafat promised to do but failed to do,' Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin said."

Washington Post: Deadly shootout leaves 12 dead in India -- "A suicide squad of five men drove into the Indian Parliament complex today, killing at least seven people with explosives and gunfire before security forces shot them dead."

Richard Rodriguez: The Boy From Our Suburbs -- What happens when militant Islam has blue eyes and a white face?

Christopher Hitchens: The Night of the Weak Knees -- "But I shall not forget how some of those in supposed authority decided that the end had come, and made it a point to keep it to themselves and their immediate friends, perhaps to stop the crowding of the roads."

Richard Reeves: "Are you saying that anyone who talks about civil rights, civil liberties and the freedom that makes us Americans is a traitor in this undeclared but loudly proclaimed war?"

Robert Scheer: Connect the Enron Dots to Bush -- "Enron is Whitewater in spades. This isn't just some rinky-dink land investment like the one dredged up by right-wing enemies to haunt the Clinton White House -- but rather it has the makings of the greatest presidential scandal since the Teapot Dome." [When L.A. Times link rots, article is available here.]

In other news

SSSCA hearings postponed -- "Senate Commerce Committee hearings relating to the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), originally set for October 25, have been postponed in the face of mounting opposition from the technology community." [EFF] This was to be Sen. Fritz Holling's gift to Hollywood, requiring computer makers to include digital rights management (DRM) technology.

AP: Taliban quit last Afghan stronghold, Kandahar. Some left with their weapons, some without. Mullah Omar has disappeared. The "war," of course, is not over, not by a long shot.

U.S. casualties greater than reported -- The Institute for War and Peace Reporting claims "the real figures of US casualties are far higher than the Pentagon's official totals."

We must be regaining a false sense of normalcy: Gary Condit is back in the news. :-(

Ashcroft and the Senate hearings

Dave Winer: I don't trust Ashcroft -- "Their pitch is basically this -- give us a blank check with freedom, and trust us to do the right thing, and keep your mouth shut or be labeled a traitor."

Justice Dept. spokesperson Mindy Tucker made some damage-control statement today denying Ashcroft's charge that criticism gives aid to the enemy. (Can't find this online, but there was some talk about it on PBS tonight.) This is totally absurd, since Ashcroft was reading from a written, prepared statement when he said that very thing. For the record, Ashcroft's exact statement was: To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens and against noncitizens, to those who scare peaceloving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this, your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to American's enemies and pause to America's friends.

NY Times op-ed: John Ashcroft misses the point -- "Senators from both parties gently reminded Mr. Ashcroft that what matters in this global battle against terrorism is not just the details of what the administration does, but also the impression it leaves. It is vital that the United States be seen as acting in accord with human rights principles."

NY Times: Ashcroft defends antiterror plan and says criticism may aid foes -- "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists." Senator Russell D. Feingold "asked the attorney general if the series of Senate hearings culminating in today's session was somehow aiding the enemy." In reply, Ashcroft stated, "We need reasoned discourse as opposed to fear- mongering. This is the place where reasoning and discourse take place." One might infer that public discussion of US policy on op-ed pages, on Internet discussion groups, or elsewhere, is not reasoned. I'm sure Mr. Ashcroft wishes everyone would just sit down and shut up.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah seemed unperturbed that Congress had not been consulted prior to Bush's military order: "It's not that we don't have a solemn obligation to assess the department's actions to ensure that they are both effective and sufficiently protective of our civil liberties. But do any members of this committee really believe that in this time of crisis, the American people, those who live outside the capital beltway, really care whether the president, the secretary of defense or the attorney general took the time to pick up the telephone and call us, prior to implementing these emergency measures?" Yes, some of us do.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

America gamely stumbled off to war [Washington Post]

Bush prepared to nominate 'biblical law' activist J. Robert Brame to National Labor Relations Board -- While we're fantasizing over how many bullets Mullah Omar should get in the head, the president proposes to nominate to a federal post the former leader of a group which believes that democracy is the road to fascism and that gays should be executed. Brame denies knowledge of the group's extreme views. Right... It's amazing what tries to slip through the cracks when we aren't paying attention.

William Safire: 'Voices of Negativism' -- "The sudden seizure of power by the executive branch, bypassing all constitutional checks and balances, is beginning to be recognized by cooler heads in the White House, Defense Department and C.I.A. as more than a bit excessive." It may well be counterproductive, since European nations are reluctant to extradite suspected terrorists to face "miltary tribunals" as proposed by the administration. (NY Times, free registration required)

Soren Swigart: The Reichstag fire -- "This decree also authorized the Reich government to assume full powers in any federal state whose government proved unable to restore public order, ordered death or imprisonment for a number of crimes including some newly invented such as resistance to the decree itself. The decree did not include any provision guaranteeing an arrested person a quick hearing, access to legal counsel, or redress for false arrest. Those arrested often found their detention extended indefinitely without legal proceedings of any kind." [Via Dave]

McCarthy redux

Washington Post: Ashcroft defends anti-terror tactics -- "Attorney General John D. Ashcroft today defiantly faced congressional critics, defending the Justice Department's aggressive tactics in prosecuting terrorism and suggesting that people who oppose the government's plans are aiding the terrorist." Uh-oh...

Dan Gillmor: "So now dissent -- or even a difficult question -- is tantamount to treason. This disgusting charge from John Ashcroft should be given the contempt it deserves."

Where's China? -- Beijing is strangely silent in the new war. [Globalvision/Asia Times Online]

ABC: US military drafted plans to terrorize US cities to provoke war with Cuba -- "Code named 'Operation Northwoods,' the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities." This could never happen again, right? Nah . . .

The Taliban offers to surrender, conditional on amnesty for Omar. I don't think so... [Reuters]  More at the Washington Post.

NY Times: Justice Dept. bars use of gun checks in terror inquiry -- "The Justice Department has refused to let the F.B.I. check its records to determine whether any of the 1,200 people detained after the Sept. 11 attacks had bought guns, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials say." That Ashcroft is a funny guy -- it's OK to wiretap attorney-client conversations, but gun-purchase background-check records are sacrosanct.

Ginger unveiled -- "The Segway Human Transporter, better known by its former code- name, Ginger, can go up to 12 miles an hour and has no brakes. Its speed and direction are controlled solely by the rider's shifting weight and a manual turning mechanism on one of the handlebars." (NY Times, free registration required)

NY Times op-ed: Justice deformed - War and the Constitution -- "This is a nation built around the rule of law, not faith in the goodness of particular officials. . . . The right to a fair trial, to consult with a lawyer beyond the range of government microphones and protection against being held in secret for minor crimes are not for Americans alone. We believe that they are the rights of all human beings."

NY Times: Tribunal comparison taints courts-martial, military lawyers say -- "Former military lawyers say they are angered by a public perception, fed most recently by the top White House lawyer, that the military tribunals authorized by President Bush are merely wartime versions of American courts-martial, a routine part of military life with a longstanding reputation for openness and procedural fairness." The tribunals are nothing of the sort. (Free registration required)

Thomas L. Friedman: Rights in the real world -- "In the cold war, we could always count on the fact that at the end of the day, the Soviets loved life as much as we did — which is why the Soviets finally backed down in the Cuban missile crisis. That is not the kind of enemy we are up against here at all." (NY Times, free registration required)

Paul Coggins: Kafka and the Patriot Act -- "Forget the books and movies. There is no phone call from prison, no lawyer in the visiting room and no judge watching over my case. There are only captors, questions and solitary cells."

Jane's: Have Soviet-era bio-weapons infected Afghan refugees? -- "Ominous news from Pakistan and Iran indicate that at best a viral pandemic may be brewing among Afghan refugees, at worst that former Soviet biological weapons have possibly made their first appearance."

Brian Dickerson: FBI raises questions as it asks them -- "If you're one of the 566 Middle Eastern men the FBI wants to interview locally in connection with the 9/11 terror attacks, you're probably feeling a little confused. . . ."

Boston Globe op-ed: The tribunal fallacy -- "The constitutional argument against Bush's decree is that by creating the tribunals he is arrogating to himself the lawmaking power of the legislative branch. The White House version is that when the country goes to war the president as commander-in-chief has the power to establish military tribunals for what Bush calls 'unlawful combatants.' However, Congress has not declared war, and there is no state against which it could declare war."

David Plotz: The war briefers - How Rumsfeld, Stufflebeem and the rest defeat the press -- Interesting comparison of today's Great Void of Facts with the VietNam war era.

Washington Post: U.S. wants custody of enemy leaders -- "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that the United States has told opposition commanders in Afghanistan that it wants any senior Taliban or al Qaeda members captured by rebel forces turned over for interrogation by U.S. personnel and -- if ordered by President Bush -- trial by the U.S. military."

Elsewhere, in the above Post piece, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales offers sincere assurances that Bush's military tribunals will not be "kangaroo courts." Speaking of the plan for military tribunals, Gonzales said, "It applies only to noncitizen enemy belligerents" and would not apply to green card holders living in the U.S. Fine, then. If it is only going to apply to that specific class of persons, then please make that quite clear in the language of the order, rather than using sweeping terms that might encompass anyone. We are being asked to "trust" the government to not misuse extraordinary new powers, a concept which would be anathema to the founding fathers.

NY Times: Ashcroft seeking to free FBI to spy on groups -- "Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a plan to relax restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious and political organizations in the United States, senior government officials said today." The old program of domestic spying ("Cointelpro") was laid to rest following the death of J. Edgar Hoover, after public revelations of surveillance of individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Some senior FBI officials, and others in the Justice Department, are furious that there is no consultation with them as these new measures are announced. (Free registration required)

Anthony Lewis: It can happen here -- "On the basis of secret evidence, the government accuses a non-citizen of connections to terrorism, and holds him in prison for three years. Then a judge conducts a full trial and rejects the terrorism charges. He releases the prisoner. A year later government agents rearrest the man, hold him in solitary confinement and state as facts the terrorism charges that the judge found untrue." (NY Times, free registration required)