Quote of the Day

Today's words of wisdom come from Eric the Unread, who has just joined our blogroll. (Hat tip: Discarded Lies.)

Last week the Today Programme had some interviews with disaffected Labour voters. Many reiterated the commmon mantras about trust, creeping privatisation, and the Iraq War. I suspect that many of these disaffected Labour voters were not very happy when the Tories were in power for 18 years.

However, one got the feeling, that they would be happy to see Labour lose the election, in order to enjoy that feeling again. Some even imagine that they would be able to titrate the effect of the election, in order to leave Blair in power with a reduced majority - in order to "teach him a lesson". There is, I suppose, a rather comforting thought about being in opposition to something, which is rather spoilt by your party actually being in power.

So true. Go visit the homepage of this anti-fascist, pro-Blair, Labour liberal. Check out his August archives, too, for some surprising background about Geddy Lee, frontman of the Canadian prog band Rush.

Morning Report: April 19, 2005

Analysis of Mada'en "crisis". The Fadhil brothers weigh in on the apparently fabricated hostage crisis in Mada'en, Iraq, in which a number of Shi'ite hostages were allegedly captured and threatened by Sunni insurgents. Mohammed at Iraq the Model writes: 'The American government denied the story but a She'at figure stressed that the American government is intervening to stop certain She'at parties from controlling the security systems for reasons he considered unconvincing. That's why the crisis was fabricated in Mada'en and that's why it got mentioned by prominent Assembly members and the PM and other senior politicians even before they had certain news about the situation. I think the motive was to put pressure on America and other members form the Iraqia list and the Kurdish alliance by submitting a new security formula that rescues the Shea't from an imminent genocide on the hands of the extremist Sunnis so they demand a greater active control over the security systems to confront the challenges threatening the She'at leaders and people. It's true that She'at were threatened many times and sustained many atrocities but so did the other segments of the people here and faking such crisis is not in the interest of the country; especially after we've seen many signs of unity among all Iraqis against terrorism. Someone comes now and ruins this by faking sectarian troubles ignoring everything about the higher national interest and the critical nature of the moment. ...' Ali at Free Iraqi notes that Muqtada al-Sadr and certain ex-Ba'athist elements were quick to contradict the Iraqi government's (erroneous) early reports - a risk to their own credibility they would have been unlikely to take unless they had inside information on the manufactured "crisis". Ali concludes that 'it must be done by those who want a civil war to occur; Iranians, Syrians and their agents in Iraq, the Sadrists and the "Association of Sunni scholars". The confident tone in which the latter two parties denied the incident supports such conclusion ...' Read the full articles at the links. (ITM, Free Iraqi)

More Mass Graves Found in Iraq

More evidence of mass murder under the Ba'ath Party regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq came to light as a number of mass graves were discovered near the southern Iraqi cities of Samawa and Nasiriya. Many of the victims were Kurds.

The New York Times reports:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 - Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.

The graves, discovered over the past three months, have not yet been dug up because of the risks posed by the continuing insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's interim human rights minister. But initial excavations have substantiated the accounts of witnesses to a number of massacres. If the estimated body counts prove correct, the new graves would be among the largest in the grim tally of mass killings that have gradually come to light since the fall of Mr. Hussein's government two years ago. At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.

Forensic evidence from some graves will feature prominently in the trials of Mr. Hussein and the leaders of his government. The trials are to start this spring.

One of the graves, near Basra, in the south, appears to contain about 5,000 bodies of Iraqi soldiers who joined a failed uprising against Mr. Hussein's government after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Another, near Samawa, is believed to contain the bodies of 2,000 members of the Kurdish clad led by Massoud Barzani.

As many as 8,000 men and boys from the clan disappeared in 1983 ...

Read the article at the link.

Morning Report: April 18, 2005

SMCCDI needs your help. The Iranian activist organization "Student Movement Coordination Committee
for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI) is facing a budget shortfall which has forced them to take their website offline. 'The SMCCDI website gets 45,000 to 65,000 visits each day with [peaks] of 183,000 hits on key dates such as July 9th (anniversary of Students' Uprising of 1999). SMCCDI also sends its Reports, Statements and Urgent Calls to Action via its well developed mailing lists (peyk@daneshjoo.org or list@daneshjoo.org) with several thousands of subscribers.' Visit this post at Regime Change Iran to find out what you can do. (SMCCDI via RCI)

Scandal threatens Canada's ruling Liberal Party. Newsmax reports that Canadian public outrage over a scandal involving Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal Party may result in a gain for the Conservative party. 'Martin reiterated that he had nothing to do with the ethics fiasco, in which Liberal Party members are accused of having taken kickbacks from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the rebellious French-speaking province of Quebec. ... The scandal, based on a secret program that dates back to the 1990s and the Liberal Party leadership of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, erupted anew last Thursday when a judge probing the alleged misuse of public funds lifted a publication ban on testimony by a Montreal ad executive. The executive, Jean Brault, who faces fraud charges stemming from the now-defunct program, told the federal inquiry that senior Liberals forced him to secretly divert more than $818,000 to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts. During his six days of testimony, Brault spoke of hushed-up payments to Liberals in restaurants, money being given to a brother of Chretien, and reluctant contributions strong-armed out of employees.' While the domestic dispute does not directly affect Canada's foreign policy, a poster at Free Iran wonders whether this will translate into a more aggressive policy toward the Iranian regime, which is known to have been responsible for the brutal killing of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi. (Newsmax, Free Iran)

SMCCDI Needs Your Help

The Iranian activist group SMCCDI has been working tirelessly for the freedom of the Iranian people. But they need your help. At this time, their site is offline. (Thanks to Stefania for the heads-up.)

SMCCDI needs your donations - right now - to continue its work. You can make a PayPal donation to their e-mail. Regime Change Iran has the details:

SMCCDI (Urgent Action Call):

Dear Iranian Compatriots, Dear World's Freedom Lovers,

We need desperately your valuable help in order to continue
to exist and respond to our duties and moral obligations.

In the last twenty-six years, whether in Iran or abroad,
all of our lives have been affected negatively by the
Islamic regime and its desire to destroy Iran and Iranians
alike. We have witnessed the inhumane ideas of this regime,
and we cease to be horrified at the lengths this barbaric
theocracy has reached in its ability to terrorize Iranians
as well as the international community. Most of us Iranians
have dealt with the reality that the international
community did nothing to stop the holocaust of our people
and our country at the hands of this tyrannical regime. We
know the freedom of Iran and the end of the regime of
terrorists in our country lies in our own hands.

In a surprising twist of fate, for the first time in
twenty-six years, the President of the United States
directly spoke to Iranians during his State of the Union
Address in February of 2005. For the first time, the leader
of the most powerful country in the world has proclaimed
support for Iranians committed to returning freedom and
democracy to Iran by ending the Islamic terrorist regime.
If pro-democracy endeavors are not supported during this
short window of opportunity, Iranians may never see freedom
in Iran again.

With this in mind, the Islamic regime has actively been
working in Iran and abroad to make sure freedom fighters do
not have the chance to use this window of opportunity.
After President Bush's proclamation of support for Iranian
freedom fighters, the Islamic regime has embarked on a
campaign to separate any unified forces of opposition who
seek freedom and democracy for Iran.


One such group, "Student Movement Coordination Committee
for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI), has always been on the
forefront of the opposition movement against the regime of
terror. This opposition group has been a key figure in
aiding the freedom fighters in Iran with the aim of
establishing a secular political structure elected by the
majority of Iranians and returning human rights to Iran.
By way of its web site, SMCCDI has been a major source of
political inspiration for many young Iranians striving for
modernism and democracy. ...

Read the full article at the link. And please send whatever you can, via PayPal, to the following e-mail address: SMCCDI@DANESHJOO.ORG. I've already made my contribution this morning.

And Don't You Forget It

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has some choice words for the peace movement:

Not in your name, though, and you're fooling yourselves if you think that we're ever going to let you run away from that. We'll be there to remind you, every last step of the way.

A country was liberated from the claws of a sadistic dictator and his psychotic sons - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

That country recently held democratic elections and now have, for the first time, a government that they themselves have chosen - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

The psychopath responsible for at least the 300,000 victims mentioned in the above has been brought to justice and will murder no more - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

The Kurds will no longer have to fear seeing helicopter gunships spreading poison gas over their villages, as a matter of fact one of their own was just elected President - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

Iraqi schoolgirls will no longer have to fear being picked up, abducted, raped and fed to dogs by Uday and Qusay - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

Plastic shredders in Iraq will no longer be used for anything other than shredding plastic - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

And we could go on, as we shall if any of those terror-supporting "peace" freaks ever presume to claw their way to the foothills of the moral high ground.

NOT IN YOUR NAME!

Now That's Class

"A tendency toward vanity, self-absorption and callousness"? You don't say?

I was on assignment in Nicaragua, far from my base in Washington DC. I watched the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on a flickering TV. And then I called my wife back home. She was tearful and distraught. Our kids had been rushed out of school in an emergency drill. It felt, she said, like war had broken out.

"God this is awful," I said with feeling. "I know," she replied, "there may be thousands dead".

"I don't mean that", I snapped. "I'm talking about me. I'm missing the biggest story of my life."

- BBC foreign correspondent Stephen Sackur in his farewell broadcast, via Wizbang. (In all fairness, he does admit to this "shameful sentiment.")

Terri Schiavo resources ... and a few final comments.

I'm posting a list of links that have helped me to better understand the Terri Schiavo case. I do not have the time, space, or energy to post a full-length analysis of the case as I see it; and I don't expect to post regularly on it after today. (I will post, however, if something new comes up. So if you're tired of reading about it, don't get your hopes up.)

If you have a constructive, intelligent point to add, whether you agree or disagree with me, you are welcome to do so. If you wish to post a link, please provide some context. Certain readers have taken a page from the Iraqi blog trolls and started pasting "here-look-at-this" links in my comments section. Don't waste your time and mine. If you want to advertise your inability to form your own arguments (or even your own sentences), that's your business. But don't fancy that you have the one bit of information that's suddenly going to change my mind, especially if you're too lazy to explain why you think it's credible and why I (or anyone else) should give a damn.

No two people think alike, and you and I may not assign the same level of credibility to this or that piece of information. You may find one argument more persuasive, and another less so, than I do. That's human nature. It's called having a conversation, and it's what blogging is all about. Please keep this in mind when commenting.

I've come to believe that the Terri Schiavo case represents questions we should all be concerned about: What is the value of human life? Does our society do enough to safeguard the lives of the sick, the elderly, and the vulnerable? Who decides when a life is worth saving? I don't expect that there will be any easy or conclusive answers to these questions, which is why I will continue to address them regularly in this blog in the future.

And now for the Terri links:

Blogs for Terri - Homebase for activists. Now carrying updates on other endangered lives, like Mae Magouirk and Clara Martinez.

Liberals for Terri - "But I'm not gonna go along with a bunch of right-wingers!!!" Oh, please. Haven't we heard that before? After you read the intro, go to their current posts.

In Love With Death - Peggy Noonan's column about the pro-death people. If the link has expired, you can find it here.

Deroy Murdock: Not Just the God Squad and Deroy Murdock: Schiavo's Struggle.

CNS News: "Some Kind of Trauma" - New York forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden on Terri's injuries (2003)

Straight Up With Sherri - Sherri Reese was a tireless activist in this case. Her February and March archives have lots of information.

Kesher Talk - Judith Weiss has been on the Terri case too; this recent post on The Right to Eat connects to the others.

The Redhunter - Tom is a regular reader and commenter here. He wants to know: Are human beings Disposable When Broken?

Keep watching this entry for updates and additions.

Redhunter on Living Wills

I used to think that the purpose of the "Living Will" was to create a class of people who, having expressly made their wishes against certain forms of life support known, would be allowed to live or die according to the dictates set down in these documents; and that, conversely, the rest of us might reasonably be presumed to want to live. Now that that bit of happy folly has been demolished, we might wonder exactly what a living will is for.

The Redhunter wonders, too:

If you think a living will will take care of you in a Terri Schaivo-type situation think again:

For decades, we have deluded ourselves into believing that living wills would solve our caregiving problems; that healthy individuals could provide advance instructions for what to do if they became incompetent; that such a system would ensure that no one is mistreated and that everyone defines the meaning of life for himself until the very end. But it is now clear that living wills have failed, both practically and morally.

Tom recalls an earlier post in which he argued that "Studies by University of Michigan Professor Carl Schneider and others have shown that living wills rarely make any difference. People with them are likely to get exactly the same treatment as people without them, possibly because doctors and family members ignore the wills. And ignoring them is often the right thing to do ..."
RTWT.

Media's Double Standard on Lethal Injections

Hyscience delivers this account from A Mom and her Blog:

The Death with Dignity Act would allow Vermonters with six months to live to take a lethal dose of prescribed medications. There must be two physicians who sign off on the illness as terminal, and the patient must voluntarily make a written request for the medication.

"It scares me to think I might have taken that option," said Maureen Kelly, who is opposed to the legislation. Twenty years ago, Kelly suffered severe brain damage in a car accident that left in her in the hospital for three years -- including nine months in a coma. While she may have considered using lethal medication, she's glad she did not. ...

Read the whole thing at the link(s). And ponder this observation from Hyscience:

It is ironic that at the same time the Daily Telegraph and other media outlets are reporting that execution by lethal injection is "cruel".

Allegations of Husband's Intimidation

Allegations of intimidation by Michael Schiavo ignored.

The judge presiding over the life of Terri Schiavo has ignored potentially explosive claims detailing what those making them believe is a pattern of unusual and allegedly perhaps even violent behavior by her husband, behavior they fear may have factored into the demise of the Florida woman to begin with.

The allegations are just that: assertions by a number of people who are on the opposite side of the debate over the fate of Michael Schiavo's wife -- who has languished in a severely disabled but hardly vegetative state since February 25, 1990, when she was found in a collapsed state between a hall and bathroom during the early morning hours. As allegations, they should be held with a degree of circumspection that provides a presumption of innocence until more evidence is brought to the table.

Moreover, it must be remembered at each turn that there is a bitter dispute at the heart of the issue.

But they are serious allegations, and it was apparently these assertions that caused the state's Department of Children and Families to ask for a 60-day delay in the March 18 date for removal of Terri's feeding and hydrations tubes, saying it wanted time to investigate allegations of "abuse" and "neglect" against Michael, who has since taken up with another woman with whom he has two children.

The judge, George W. Greer of the Sixth Circuit in Pinellas County, has denied that request for a delay, as he has denied virtually all substantive motions by her parents, the Schindlers -- who are desperately fighting to keep their daughter alive and who have now called for the judge's impeachment on the grounds of partiality. ...

Read the whole thing. Source: Spirit Daily via Blogs for Terri. See also Liberals for Terri.

A Few More Thoughts on Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo is dead but the questions surrounding her killing remain. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, more than any other news event since 9/11 (and perhaps even more than that), this has caused me to re-examine some of my basic assumptions. As I've said here before, I am not a pro-life absolutist; at least, not yet. I believe in the importance quality of human life, not just the fact of its existence.

But even as I write these words, something in me grows uneasy with this facile formulation. Who decides what is a desirable "quality" of life? How do these decisions get made, and for whom? We can all agree that a patient writhing in pain on a hospital bed, with no hope of relief from their pain and a certainty of imminent death, does not have a good quality of life. Perhaps one could even reasonably argue that a patient, having explicitly enunciated his or her wishes, might be allowed an early death - either passively (through the withdrawal of artificial life support) or even actively (through a lethal dose of painkiller).

But none of this applies to Terri Schiavo. She was not in discomfort - at least, not until she was sentenced to a slow death by the Florida courts. She had not left a living will. She was killed solely as a result of the determination of her so-called "husband", over the agonized objections of her blood relatives. If there was any doubt in my mind as to the reality of the "slippery slope" principle, this atrocity has removed all trace of it.