Speedkill

No posting today. Partly because I don’t feel like it, partly because politics feels less important today.

Decoded at last: the ‘classical holy grail’ that may rewrite the history of the world

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure – a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

The discovery of classical works is great, but the prospect of new Christian gospels is more interesting to me. Of course, there seems to be a pretty small chance of that. If anything, we’ll get copies of ones we have, maybe some fragments of works we have other fragments of.

Still, very very cool.

Emmet Tyrrell over at Town Hall has some things on his mind about Pinochet.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Justice never sleeps. Or rather, the free-floating moralism that is the left never sleeps.

Ok, he’s going to attack the left from a principled moral perspective. I can’t wait.

The 89-year-old man is, of course, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and his human rights abuses are not even reported in the newspapers as “alleged” human rights abuses. For The New York Times on Tuesday, Guzman’s decision was front-page news — in fact, the day’s major news story with a color picture of Guzman embraced by Pinochet’s emotional opponents.

The photograph dominated three columns! In the body of the Times story, the word “communist” never appeared, only “Marxists.” For all the untutored reader might know, Pinochet’s victims might have been the country’s librarians or butterfly collectors.

Uh, bad start. Marxists are less worthy of life than others.

That word, “Marxists,” appeared in a quote from Pinochet, who said a year ago on a Spanish-language television show: “Everything I did I would do again. Who am I supposed to ask for forgiveness? They are the ones who have to ask me for forgiveness, them, the Marxists.”

The old boy came to power in 1973. For six months before he took over, politicians and private citizens in large numbers had been imploring the military to deliver Chile from President Salvador Allende, a romantic and incompetent Marxist pseudo-intellectual who spent his last year in a drunken haze while economic chaos spread.

Wait, why are we attacking Marxists again?

For the next 17 years, Pinochet, his military and his secret police waged war against leftists, usually within Chile but occasionally abroad through a series of political assassinations. Pinochet’s political assassinations were not as numerous as those practiced by Soviet satellite countries. Nor was his war as bloody as Gen. Francisco Franco’s war against communists and other leftists in the 1930s, but it was brutal enough to offend civil libertarians everywhere, including me.

Ok, better, he was offended by the violations of human rights. He loses a point for qualifying it by saying the Soviets were worse.

Yet, like Franco, he did return his country to democracy. How many communists have done that? Moreover, communism accounted for scores of millions of innocent victims in the 20th century. Pinochet’s regime allegedly accounted for 4,000, not all of them peace-loving progressives.

Ok, there are still problems. Still trying to excuse the murders a little. This principled thing is harder than it looks.

How many has Fidel Castro murdered, tortured and jailed? Today, Castro remains a bloody tyrant and far more of a problem beyond his shores than the general with the absurd sun-glasses and the 18th-century uniforms ever was.

Finally, when Fidel ultimately croaks, he will have left what was once the most prosperous country in Latin America in a heap. Are any of Pinochet’s present-day tormentors demanding Castro’s prosecution for crimes against humanity?

Ok, more relativism; I’m not sure he’s even trying anymore. He gets a bonus deduction for equating Castro’s current situation (current leader of a country, not really in a position for us to prosecute him, tormentors of Pinochet are largely relatives of victims of Pinochet) with Pinochet.

There are two points worth noting here. One is that the left — whether communist or simply glassy-eyed reformist — never tires in hunting down its enemies. The other is that its enemies are always on the right, or at least the perceived right. The old Soviet Bloc countries are filled with retired brutes who did far more damage to the civil liberties and the prosperity of their countries than Pinochet ever did. There is no effort to prosecute these enemies of freedom commensurate with the effort against Pinochet.

Oh, wait, I may have misunderstood what Tyrrell meant. He doesn’t need to be morally principled, the left does. It does clear some things up.

If indeed the prosecution of Pinochet would elevate regard for human rights worldwide, I would be among the first to celebrate Judge Guzman’s decision. Yet it is not the opponents of Pinochet who have made great strides in the elevation of human rights worldwide. Rather, it has been North Americans and Europeans, most notably the English-speaking peoples.

Right now, those people are leading the world in a struggle against tyrants who, unlike an 89-year-old retired general, can actually shoot back. How prominent have Pinochet’s opponents been in the struggle against Islamofascism and the sadistic Saddam Hussein? The answer is not very.

Yeah! And where’s the condemnation of Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov? His government boils people! How about Saudi Arabia’s beheadings?

Oh, wait, those are friends of the President. We’ll ignore them for now.

In fact, many of those cheering for Pinochet’s neck today blithely lump Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush into the same category they reserve for Pinochet.

There is a great deal of posturing about civil liberties and justice in the campaign against Pinochet. There is also something else. It is difficult to explain, but it is observable. The left worldwide reserves its hostility for people on the right and for America and its allies, who are the real guarantors of the rights of man.

Well then, how did he do? He was a rousing success in holding the left to some kind of moral standards. Unfortunately, he didn’t quit make those standards either. Ah well, just another day at Town Hall.

Putin Urges Strength; School Toll Tops 340

BESLAN, Russia – A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an “all-out war” by terrorists after more than 340 people — nearly half of them children — were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.

Venezuelans Vote to Keep Chavez in Office

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelans overwhelmingly voted to keep President Hugo Chavez in office, dealing a crushing defeat to a splintered opposition and allowing the leftist leader to convert one of the biggest challenges of his presidency into an even broader mandate to carry on his “revolution for the poor.”

Stunned opposition leaders, who have fought for years to oust Chavez, claimed fraud after results announced Monday by election officials showed nearly 60 percent of voters had said “no” to the question of whether he should leave office immediately.

Scattered protests erupted in Caracas, despite an endorsement of the outcome by former President Carter and the Organization of American States.

More on what OAS had to say is here (or there’s a video of the press conference here). I don’t know a great deal about Venezuela’s situation, but a fair election in his term, compared with an attempted coup by his opponents a couple years ago has me leaning towards this being a good thing.

Indonesia’s Suharto tops ‘worst ever’ corruption charts

1. Mohamed Suharto, Indonesia, 1967-98, 15 to 35 billion dollars
2. Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1972-86, five to 10 billion
3. Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire, 1965-97, five billion
4. Sani Abacha, Nigeria, 1993-98, two to five billion
5. Slobodan Milosevic (news – web sites), Serbia/Yugoslavia, 1989-2000, one billion
6. Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti, 1971-86, 300 to 800 million
7. Alberto Fujimori (news – web sites), Peru, 1990-2000, 600 million
8. Pavlo Lazarenko, Ukraine, 1996-97, 114 to 200 million
9. Arnoldo Aleman, Nicaragua, 1997-2000, 100 million
10. Joseph Estrada, Philippines, 1998-2001, 78 to 80 million

No Clinton. ‘kin left wingers.

Fine, this is old, but I was thinking about it today for some reason (don’t get your hopes up, that doesn’t mean I thought anything new or insightful) and wanted to comment.

The arguments behind the Muslim headscarf (and Jewish skullcaps and “large Christian crosses” as well) ban in France seem very hollow to me:

The ban, which targets headscarves but also outlaws Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, comes into effect in September. Politicians and teachers had clamored for it to stem a perceived wave of Islamic radicalism among Muslim youths.

“Our plan is not aimed against any religion,” he declared, defending the law against criticism it received from France’s Muslims and other religious groups, Islamic countries and Pope John Paul.

Silly. Wearing a headscarf doesn’t make you a radical. Sheesh, you’re just giving extremists propaganda. The inclusion of skullcaps appears to just be there to make it look evenhanded, but with it the reasoning for the ban doesn’t make sense. Is Jewish radicalism/terrorism really a problem? Can anyone think of recent examples (not even just French examples)? Good quote in the article:

“This law is only a symptom, it’s not the real problem,” Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Islamic scholar with a wide following among disaffected French Muslim youths, told Reuters.

I’m not sure that there isn’t an underlying agenda in this. Is this an attack on religion, Islam most directly? I don’t know the main proponents of the ban or French politics, so I can’t say. This is the kind of thing some religious types always rail against, i.e. banning religion instead of simply removing the favoring of it (not that they really notice a difference). France seems to have crossed the line.

I feel like I should add this to my earlier comments. My comments are relevent only if you believe Spain’s change was a result of the bombing in and of itself, which I don’t think is the case. A good suggestion I’ve seen made is the fact that it could be the conservative party playing politics with who was behind the bombing, saying it was the ETA when it was al Qaeda, to keep people from being more enraged at the Iraq war and it’s results, the bombing simply cementing their previous outrage. Tom Tomorrow has a letter on this and NTodd has a good post.

Haiti. It’s been in the news lately, and I’ve not commented. That would be because I know little about it, and have tried to educate myself over the last couple days. So what’s happening? Or more importantly, why is it happening?

The basic story seems to go like this: Aristide was first democratically elected leader in 1991 (or 1990, I forget), was thrown out in 1991, and reinstalled by the U.S. in 1994. Depending on your political viewpoint, this was because of a fear of “boat people,” promotion of democracy, or coercing Arisitide into accepting some of our neoliberal reforms. Then in 2000 they held large scale elections for parliment and the presidency. These were observed by OAS primarily. Some of the opposition refused to participate, which led to skeptism from the U.S. (they aren’t legitimate unless the opposition participates. Think about that). Among other irregularities, there was a dispute raised over the calculation standard to use – OAS noted that some of the elected officials should be subject to a second round of elections. The CEP disagreed. It appears Aristide’s party would have won no matter what, however. It centered around 8 senate seats, and finally 7 of the 8 stepped down. In January of this year, the legislative seats expired, essentially dissolving parliment, and Arisitide ruled by decree, basically. Accusations of corruption have surrounded Aristide for some time now. Then the rebellion started, and we get to the current events.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve gathered.

Now there are two accusations against the U.S.: that we were supporting the rebellion and that we kidnapped Aristide and spirited him out of the country. Neither have much evidence for them, but both are at least partially plausible.

The charge of support comes from Haitian lawyer Ira Kurzban:

“I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States,” Kurzban told the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. “This is clearly a military operation, and it’s a military coup.”

“There’s enough indications from our point of view, at least from my point of view, that the United States certainly knew what was coming about two weeks before this military operation started,” Kurzban said. “The United States made contingency plans for Guantanamo.”

Zero evidence, but it’s possible.

Ezra at Pandagon questions the account of Aristide’s claims, and has a point. Though, we need to know exactly what happened to him when he got to the Central African Republic. If our troops just left him there, alone, then the phone call is plausible.

Then there are the charges of corruption. Drugs, general thuggery, etc.

What does this all add up to? Moral ambiguity. The rebels are thugs, with no respect for democracy(also, a U.S. poll in 2000 found they had the support of only 8% of the population). Aristide looks pretty pathetic. The U.S. has it’s hands dirty, in a major or minor way. Obviously, there aren’t very many good guys on either side. My solution would be a UN mission with new elections as soon as possible. Aristide should not be a candidate (in the interest of stability, though if he was adamant about returning, I wouldn’t be that opposed to letting him), though his party should be allowed. U.S. troops there now isn’t a bad idea, though the motives are questionable.

Old story, but the latest development seems to be that the British pilot’s union has some sort of agreement with one airline.

I’d say the union is right on this one. Why would you want an armed guard on a plane? Why not just a sky marshal with a tazer or something similar. Guns seem like a recipe for disaster.