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  • Dissing Military Parents: Bush’s Old Habit

    First Cindy Sheehan, then Dolores Kesterson and now Senator Elect Jim Webb of Virginia, whose campaign hinged largely on his opposition to the Iraq war.  It seems that George Bush just doesn’t know how to treat parents whose children are fighting and dying in his wars, with the proper respect they deserve. During a meeting with newly elected lawmakers at the White House, Bush had the following exchange with Webb.

    "At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

    Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

    “I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source."

    But unlike the two gentle Gold Star mothers Bush has insulted before, Webb is an angry father. And a feisty combat veteran to boot. His reaction to Bush’s dismissive curtness?  He wanted to slug Bush ! Wow! I bet Webb was feeling exactly as many other military parents feel towards the Commander in Chief.

    Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

    “Jim did have a conversation with Bush at that dinner,” said Webb’s spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd. “Basically, he asked about Jim’s son, Jim expressed the fact that he wanted to have him home.” Todd did not want to escalate matters by commenting on Bush’s response, saying, “It was a private conversation.”

    A White House spokeswoman declined to give Bush’s version of the conversation.

  • Bees,Dogs and Monkeys (Sujatha)

    Ruchira has animals on the brain, and now so do I. I thought immediately of her post "Liquid Explosives and Solid Lies" when I found this curious news item about trained bees being used to detect explosives.
    There go the hopes of all those corporations spending millions of
    dollars on developing complex detection equipment!
    And for your edification, this non-news news: First Dog Barney has been pressed into service to cheer up the troops in Iraq.
    OK, so the last piece wasn’t really true, but this one is. Be very afraid, your job’s going to get outsourced next to the trained monkeys. It’s truly one for the macacas!

  • How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?

    Exotic_pets Or the iguana, the civet cat, the monkey or the chinchilla? Pet ownership in affluent societies now goes far beyond Fido, the canine and Fluffy, the feline. Too far, may be. Exotic animals as household pets is a relatively new practice in normal households. The ever increasing demand for rare animals is fueled by celebrity ownership of such animals and by parents indulging their children’s whim of wanting to be different. But what looks cute in a zoo or on Discovery Channel, may be hazardous to our health if housed in our homes. Zoonotic diseases caused by infectious agents crossing over from animals to humans are caused by close encounters between man and beast.  The recent scares over global epidemics of avian flu and SARS are instances of such cross-species infections. The danger of pathogens crossing over from rare animals to humans is that it often takes a long time before the source of the infection can be identified. The HIV virus for example, has been suspected to have entered the human population from monkeys who can carry the simian version of the virus.

    Exotic animals captured in the wild are streaming into the U.S. by the millions with little or no screening for disease, leaving Americans vulnerable to a virulent outbreak that could rival a terrorist act.

    Demand for such wildlife is booming as parents try to get their kids the latest pets fancied by Hollywood stars and zoos, and research scientists seek to fill their cages.

    More than 650 million critters — from kangaroos and kinkajous to iguanas and tropical fish — were imported legally into the United States in the past three years, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Countless more pets — along with animal parts and meats — are smuggled across the borders as part of a $10 billion-a-year international black market, second only to illegal drugs.

    Zoonotic diseases — those that jump to humans — account for three-quarters of all emerging infectious threats, the CDC says. Five of the six diseases the agency regards as top threats to national security are zoonotic, and the CDC recently opened a center to better prepare and monitor such diseases.

    The Journal of Internal Medicine estimates that 50 million people worldwide have been infected with zoonotic diseases — those carried by animals that can be spread to humans — since 2000, and as many as 78,000 people have died.

    U.S. experts don’t have complete totals for Americans, but partial numbers paint a serious picture:

    •Hantavirus, which is carried by rodents and can cause acute respiratory problems or death, has sickened at least 317 Americans and killed at least 93 since 1996.
    •More than 770 people have been sickened since 2000 with tularemia, a virulent disease that can be contracted from rabbits, hamsters and other rodents. At least three people have died.
    •Three transplant patients in New England died last year after receiving organs from a human donor who had been infected with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus from a pet hamster. There have been 34 U.S. cases since 1993.

  • Peace: A Treasonous Word?

    Wreath

    It is interesting that I should come across this story right after I posted a comment on Prawfs Blawg where a discussion was under way as to whether the criticism of the Iraq war is in some ways responsible for its failure and if criticizing the war constitutes treason during war time. Although the majority of Americans now believe Iraq to be a disaster, not every one does so for the right reasons. Not all Iraq war critics are convinced about the fundamental futility and immorality of the  misadventure. Some of those who have turned against the war, did so because they gradually began to see it as a losing proposition, not that it was a criminally wrong thing to do in the first place. The blame for the mess and horror in Iraq has variously been assigned to the incompetence of the Bush administration and to the unpatriotic grumblings of Vietnam era style peace activists. That is why I fear that we may not have learnt the lessons of Iraq, just as we didn’t learn one in Vietnam. I am afraid when another pesky and arrogant leader of an oil rich nation dares to insult, needle or provoke us, we will embark upon yet another misguided war to teach a lesson in democracy and good manners to the oppressed masses of yet another sovereign nation.

    A Colorado woman has run afoul of her neighborhood homeowners’ association (the only remaining American institution that operates with totalitarian authority!) for putting up a Christmas wreath depicting a "peace" sign. The sign is seen by many residents as an expression of anti-Iraq war sentiments. They want her to take the wreath down or pay a fine until she does. But isn’t Christmas the season for Peace On Earth?  And are we not fighting in Iraq to promote freedom, democracy AND peace? The wreath owner, Lisa Jensen has refused to take the decoration down saying, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."  What a silly, unpatriotic woman!

    "DENVER — A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

    Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

    "Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said Sunday.

    Lisa Jensen said she wasn’t thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."

    Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000 and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she’s not going to take it down until after Christmas.

    The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive."

    The subdivision’s rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee. Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn’t say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members."

  • Down But Not Out

    One significant casualty (at least for now) of the disastrous and immoral Iraq war is the neo-conservative philosophy of shaping the world, particularly the middle east, through aggressive military invasions.  With Bush-Cheney’s Iraq policy now thoroughly discredited and in shambles, their neo-con supporters are scrambling to distance themselves from this administration. But they also remind us quietly that the idea of the Iraqi invasion was not flawed – only its execution by the incompetent bunch in the White House, was. They are a crestfallen bunch. To their astonishment and bitter disappointment, Bush did not turn out to be the knight in the shining armor they had hoped for but rather the emperor without a stitch on him, as many of us skeptics had suspected all along.

    But the neo-cons are intrepid and dogged warriors – albeit of the armchair variety. They don’t dirty their fingernails in the battle field. They get down and dirty only in the corridors of power where they are perennially in search for a committed fellow traveler who will fulfill their fantasies of world domination through military might. Their fondest dream of course is to reshape the middle east in order to make the region a more hospitable (and supplicant) place for the US and Israel. With numerous failed schemes on their resumes, they are ever eager to hatch a new one. With blood on their hands and egg all over their faces, the veteran empire builders of the neo-con movement are lying low. A new spokesman has emerged to begin the rehabilitation process. Joshua Muravchik a self described dyed in the wool neo con and resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, has already boldly called for the bombing of Iran. Muravchik now warns those of us who may be gloating over the demise of neo-conservatism, to not pour our celebratory champagne yet. Neo conservative war-mongering will emerge from the ashes he assures us, with the right war and the right warrior.

    These are dark days for the neocons.

    The midterm "thumping" the GOP suffered on Nov. 7 was largely a repudiation of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, a conflict linked to neoconservative ideology. Donald Rumsfeld, the administration’s leading patron of neoconservative personnel, was quickly ousted as defense secretary. Key players from the administration of Bush the elder are back — former secretary of state James Baker heading the search for new Iraq policies, and former CIA director Robert Gates nominated to take over at the Pentagon — leading some to believe the president will cast aside the neoconservative influences that have distinguished his foreign policy from that of his father.

    So, is neoconservatism dead?

    Far from it. Neoconservative ideas have been vindicated again and again on a string of major issues, including the Cold War, Bosnia and NATO expansion. It is the war in Iraq that has made "neocon" a dirty word, either because President Bush’s team woefully mismanaged the war or because the war (which neocons supported) was misconceived. But even if the invasion of Iraq proves to have been a mistake, that would not mean that the neoconservative belief in democracy as an antidote to troubles in the Middle East is wrong, nor would it confirm that neoconservatism’s combination of strength with idealism is misguided. Neoconservatism isn’t dead; it can be renovated and returned to prominence, because, even today, it remains unrivaled as a guiding principle for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond.

    The rest of Muravchik’s article describing the neo-conservative philosophy, hopes and dreams here.

  • The Rusty Iron Curtain – Still Deadly

    During my teen years, I used to be an ardent Ian Fleming fan until I graduated to John le Carre, whose tales of espionage are peerless. The cold war years were hugely beneficial to the spy novel genre, which comprised a large chunk of the publishing industry until the Berlin Wall fell and the communist bloc dissolved amidst the magic of democracy and the free market. I must say that I sometimes miss the now defunct fictional world of ruthless secret agents and cerebral, melancholy spies. (Al Qaida doesn’t quite lend itself to thrilling spy vs. spy narratives.) 

    International diplomacy and statecraft have changed dramatically in the last two decades vis-a-vis the communist – capitalist ideological divide. Old enemies have been befriended and new enmities have sprung up in unexpected places. But it appears that the political climate within Russia has not changed very much, sushi bars and newly minted millionaires notwithstanding. Last week I wrote about the poisoning of Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Litvinenko has since then died and the lethal poison was identified as the highly radioactive metal polonium and not thallium as previously believed.  Although Kremlin has vehemently denied it, Russian involvement is suspected.  According to Russian cultural commentator Artemy Troitsky, politics of secrecy and intimidation are just as alive in today’s Moscow as they were during the Iron Curtain days. Troitsky is nostalgic for the officially totalitarian era of Leonid Brezhnev.  The so called liberalized Russia of Vladimir Putin unnerves him even more.

    At least in Brezhnev’s time you knew where you stood. We had no illusions. Public life was black and white. Censorship was overwhelming. Journalists wrote under instruction and according to the social and political orders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. .. Now, in the new Russia of sushi bars and oligarchs, the situation is more shameful and rotten than it was then.

    Democracy is on the retreat in Russia, from the nationalistic rhetoric and sub-superpower gestures of its leaders to the energy threats of Gazprom, to the millions poured into European soccer clubs. Now, instead of black and white, we have different shades of grey. In the media, self-censorship is in vogue. Journalists know what is good for them to write, and what is not. In an increasingly materialist society, they depend on the authorities’ goodwill to keep them in their luxury lifestyles. They deliver the goods, convincing themselves that Putin – in the face of threats from afar – is the lesser of evils.

    As for myself, half a year ago I stopped posting difficult items on my website, Diversant Daily, feeling tired and uninspired. Or was it fear? …  I try to convince myself that I have stopped writing about politics, not out of fear but because the subject is no longer interesting. I am not sure. What I do know is this: it is demoralising to write the same things over and again, to no effect. It is demoralising to realise that among Russia’s silent majority Putin is genuinely popular and there seems no way of waking these people up. Most depressing, however, is that the so-called democracies of the west are turning a blind eye. One day, messrs Blair and Bush, the Germans and the Italians, will regret that." 

  • A Civil War By Any Other Name…

    While the real and bloody war rages on in Iraq, the Bush administration is locked in its own make-believe war over semantics.  Four thousand Iraqis are dying per month, according to the latest figures and we are splitting hairs over the proper term to define the conflict. However, in the era of 24/7 coverage of world affairs, it is hard to put a verbal spin on events that we see unfold with our own eyes. But this administration, whose entire Iraq war effort was based on a string of lies, is still shamelessly trying to pretend that the scope of the Iraqi disaster is something less horrendous than the facts on the ground and the bodies in the morgues.

    After the initial euphoria of the swift US military victory and removal of Saddam Hussein, the first inklings of discord were characterized as the "sour grapes" grumblings of disaffected Baathists. Soon, it escalated to acts of terrorism by foreign Al Qaida affiliates whom Bush wanted to fight there rather than here. When it became clear that the blood bath is now mainly due to Iraqi on Iraqi violence, Bush and Co. reluctantly allowed that there was some sectarian violence between Shia’s and Sunnis. How many Iraqis must suffer horrible deaths by shooting, burning and suicide bombings and for how long, before Bush will admit that his immoral war of aggression in Iraq has unleashed a full blown civil war there? No amount of slick word play will  alter the body count and the widespread fear and unrest that the country has plunged into.

    Is Iraq in a civil war?

    Though the Bush administration continues to insist that it is not, a growing number of American and Iraqi scholars, leaders and policy analysts say the fighting in Iraq meets the standard definition of civil war.

    The common scholarly definition has two main criteria. The first says that the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second says that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total, with at least 100 from each side.

    American professors who specialize in the study of civil wars say that most of their number are in agreement that Iraq’s conflict is a civil war. “I think that at this time, and for some time now, the level of violence in Iraq meets the definition of civil war that any reasonable person would have,” said James Fearon, a political scientist at Stanford.

    While the term is broad enough to include many kinds of conflicts, one of the sides in a civil war is almost always a sovereign government. So some scholars now say civil war began when the Americans transferred sovereignty to an appointed Iraqi government in June 2004. That officially transformed the anti-American war into one of insurgent groups seeking to regain power for disenfranchised Sunni Arabs against an Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and increasingly dominated by Shiites.

    Others say the civil war began this year, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a chain of revenge killings that left hundreds dead over five days and has yet to end. Mr. Allawi proclaimed a month after that bombing that Iraq was mired in a civil war. “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,” he said…

    Some Bush administration officials have argued that there is no obvious political vision on the part of the Sunni-led insurgent groups, so “civil war” does not apply.

    In the United States, the debate over the term rages because many politicians, especially those who support the war, believe there would be domestic political implications to declaring it a civil war. They fear that an acknowledgment by the White House and its allies would be seen as an admission of a failure of President Bush’s Iraq policy.

    The rest of the New York Times article here. 

  • Sometimes A Line Is Just A Line

      People_in_the_sun_2                       Room_sea_2

    (Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun and Room by the Sea)

    Edward Hopper is an artist I admire immensely. This review by Professor Donald Kuspit of Hopper’s art currently on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York irritated me to no end. The ever manufactured new angle, interpretation, reconstruction, deconstruction of an established and well known artist’s work have their merits only if something hitherto unknown surfaces about his/ her life and philosophy to shed new light on the artist’s motivation and technique. Beyond that we ought to leave art alone – to be seen, understood and enjoyed by viewers as they see fit. I have argued this before in an earlier post  where I made a similar point about the heavy handed silliness of art mavens.

    "There’s been much talk about the moody silences of Hopper’s spaces and the oddly disturbed figures around or in them — they seem to be living the lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau spoke of. But I suggest that the people are distractions from Hopper’s real concern: buildings. They abound in Hopper’s works, often dwarfing the figures into insignificance _ _ or using them as foils to offset structure and space. Buildings are man-made constructions of geometrical space, and as such inherently abstract and autonomous. They have a charismatic quality of their own, independently of the people who use them. Hopper is a kind of Cubist, treating buildings as abstract structures with a life of their own, and often more uncannily alive than the people who use them.

    Cubism was in part inspired by Cézanne’s "little cubes," as Picasso called the buildings that spotted Cézanne’s late landscapes. They are the point of departure for the cunning geometry of the buildings in Picasso’s early Analytic Cubist masterpieces …  Hopper’s houses also have the authority of geometry, but they look peculiarly irrational next to Picasso’s Cubist houses, which, for all their oddness, have a quasi-Bauhaus look, although they’re eccentrically rather than dogmatically rationalist.

    Hopper’s houses are also recognizable as functional buildings inhabitable by human beings. Picasso’s aren’t: they have no human function. They’re pure abstractions, formal constructions which seem to have no human significance……  Modern rationalist architecture is in fact not very functional, if part of its function is to emotionally support people, not simply to physically contain them.

    Hopper’s buildings may read as Cubist archisculptures, but they clearly have psychosocial import. Hopper registers their effect on the people who live and work in them: his buildings raise the pressing question of when a house becomes a home — an empathic place, more humanly meaningful than an abstract castle. Never, Hopper’s pictures imply: the fit between his buildings and his people is not very good. (italics mine)

    Did we need to be reminded of this rather easily discernible truth contained in the last line of the preceding paragraph? Whoever sees Hopper’s art will figure out quickly that the "aloof misfit" between the human figures and their surroundings is in fact what makes Hopper’s Americana distinct from Norman Rockwell’s cheerful version. The title of Kuspit’s review poses the wholly unnecessary riddle : "Edward Hopper: Cubist in Disguise?" In my opinion, Hopper was nothing in disguise. He was a brilliant realist who painted what he saw and felt. Yes, he drew a lot of buildings. Buildings have sharp angles, lines and geometric shapes and they cast shadows of sharp angles, lines and geometric shapes. So what?  Should that make him a cubist?  Sometimes a line is just a line and an angle forms where the lines meet. Happens all the time when you draw or paint. There were (and are) artists who willingly defined themselves as impressionists, expressionists, cubists, surrealists etc. etc.  Hopper did not. In fact from what I know, he didn’t talk about his art much and let the paintings do the talking. Please read the review if you have the patience and note that Kuspit admits in the end that Hopper was not in fact a cubist. Then what was the point of this lengthy speculation?  Please see some of Hopper’s work here and decide if one has to go into such convoluted lengths to truly appreciate Hopper’s forlorn brilliance?

  • A Change of Taste

    Now that Sujatha has convinced you that it is not un-American to NOT go shopping on Black Friday, I will add my bit by pursuading you that it is okay not to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.  For the last couple of years, my two adult kids have given family Thanksgiving a miss, choosing to come home only at Christmas. The hassle of plane travel across the width of the nation (one kid on the east coast, the other on the west and we are in the mid-south of the country) proves too daunting. My husband and I often invite others who are without family in Houston to join us for Thanksgiving. When others are over for dinner, I feel compelled to cook a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pies, a menu that I personally do not enjoy.  This year we didn’t invite anyone nor did we accept invitations from others. It was just my husband and me. I cooked an Indian meal.  Although I am a pretty decent cook, I do very little home cooking now that the kids no longer live at home. So, the few times in the year that I put together a festive meal, I enjoy the experience. I thought I would share one of my recipes with readers (mostly because I have no blogging ideas). For Indian cooking, I never follow recipes – it is more or less a haphazard process of throwing a pinch of this or a handful of that out of practice and prevailing mood. So, the recipe below may not be perfect but it will come close to what I would make at home. I am also simplifying the recipe a bit, leaving out marination and a couple of items from the spice mix.

    The recipe may seem quite elaborate to the uninitiated. But if you prepare well in advance, it really is not that complicated. The biggest problem may be recognizing the right spices. Most of the spices mentioned below are available at the regular grocery stores under Spice Island or McCormick brands at nearly three times the price that you will find at ethnic food stores. The best option is to buy them in 4 – 8 oz packets in an Indian grocery store. That works out cheaper and if kept in tightly sealed containers, they will last a long time. And remember that the Indian cumin is not the same as Mexican comino.  Cumin seeds are lighter and longer than comino and have a milder flavor.

    Chicken Mughlai

    This is a rich, flavorful and mild tasting chicken recipe that can serve as the main dish for a traditional Indian dinner. It can be served with plain or spiced (pilaf) long grain rice (Basmati) or with traditional Indian breads like Naan or Roti. Whole wheat fresh tortillas are a good substitute.

    Fresh Ingredients:

    4 large skinless chicken breasts with bones (or boneless, if your prefer) each cut into 2-3 pieces across the width

    3 medium onions cut into eighths

    10 cloves of garlic

    fresh ginger root, peeled and coarsely chopped to make about two heaping tablespoons

    1 tsp of fresh mint paste (or 1 tsp of dried mint leaves)

    1.5 cups of plain non-sweet yoghurt (low fat yoghurt is okay)

    2 Tsp each golden raisins and slivered almonds

    1/3 cup vegetable oil

    Spices:

    one 3-inch cinnamon stick broken into four

    6 pods of green cardamom

    4-6 whole cloves

    2 whole bay leaves

    1 tsp. whole cumin seed and 1tsp. powdered cumin

    1 tsp. cayenne pepper (2 tsp. if you can handle the heat)

    1 heaping tsp Garam Masala (made up of 1/3 tsp each of ground cinnamon, ground cardamom and ground clove)

    Salt to taste

    Preparation:

    Wash and pat dry the chicken.

    Put the onion, garlic and ginger in an electric blender and mince into a coarse paste.

    Heat the oil in a large, wide bottomed pot (preferably stainless steel) over medium-high heat.

    When the oil is hot, put chicken pieces in a single layer and let them turn golden brown on both sides by turning them once.

    Take the chicken out with a slotted spoon, draining the oil back into the pot and keep aside in a bowl. Repeat until all the pieces have been browned lightly.

    Into the same hot oil, put in the whole cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, cumin and bay leaves.

    When these start sputtering and turning brown in a few seconds, pour in the onion, garlic and ginger paste. Turn heat down to medium.

    Stir for 4-5 minutes or until the paste is uniformly flecked with brown.

    Add the salt, cayenne, mint paste and the cumin powder and keep stirring for a few more minutes until the oil starts to separate from the spice paste (be careful not to let the mixture burn at the bottom. If it starts to stick, add a few spoonfuls of water and scrape it off quickly).

    Add a couple of tablespoons of the yogurt at a time to the spice paste and stir for 30 to 45 seconds each time until all the yogurt has been blended into the paste and the oil starts to separate once more from the mix.

    Add the browned chicken pieces and their juices to the above sauce and coat the pieces well taking care all the while not to let the paste stick to the bottom. Add half cup (or 3/4 cup for a runnier sauce) of water.

    Bring to a simmer. Turn the heat to low, cover and cook for about 10 minutes

    Add raisins, almonds and the garam masala. Cover and cook for another 5 minutes or until chicken is done.

    Remove from heat and serve hot after stirring well. Serves six. Leftovers can be frozen or refrigerated.

  • CotL # 26

    The Carnival of the Liberals # 26, the Thanksgiving edition, is up at Stump Lane.  Blogging will be light here during the holiday weekend. Please visit the carnival site for some interesting, amusing and hard hitting liberal commentary.

    Hopefully, I will have something fresh out by Monday morning or eariler. Happy Thanksgiving. Eat well and travel safely.

  • The Assassination Bureau Inc.

    Political assassinations are as old as history. That this practice is still alive in the late 20th and early 21st century is disheartening. John F. and Robert Kennedy, Indira and Rajeev Gandhi were some of the high profile cases. But numerous other deaths of lesser known political figures and operatives go mostly unnoticed except in the local media. Some of these are blatant public acts while others involve surreptitous methods befitting of medieval conspiracies.  If the old cloak and dagger stories from the archives of the KGB, the CIA and Mossad became public, they would probably read like fictional thrillers.  Of the few that have become public knowledge, some are truly frightening in their secretive ruthlessness and others, especially the failed attempts, appear amusing for their outlandish impracticality.

    Officially, the CIA has got out of the assassination business, although it still outsources torture.  The Russian government on the other hand still appears to be actively involved in bumping off inconvenient adversaries. What is it with Russia?  It seems that whoever dares to cross the official Kremlin line, gets shot, poisoned or summarily disposed off in some manner. Last month Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot execution style in her apartment in Moscow. The Kremlin is widely believed to have ordered the hit.

    Apart from the conventional method of shooting trouble makers, the Russian government seems almost as fond poisoning its enemies as the notorious Borgias. In 1978 in London, a dissident Bulgarian author was injected with the deadly poison ricin, using the tip of a specially modified umbrella. Russian involvement was suspected.  A couple of years ago, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was horribly sickened and disfigured by a poisoning attempt, when he dared to challenge the pro-Kremlin candidate Viktor Yanukovych in the Ukrainian elections. Subsequent investigations pointed to a possible Russsian connection. Now another Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko has been poisoned and he now lies in critical condition in a London hospital. Interestingly enough, the would be assassin lured Litvinenko with the promise of providing compromising documents about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

    "A Russian security service defector is in a critical condition at a London hospital after being poisoned in a plot worthy of a Cold War novel by John le Carré.

    Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel with Russia’s FSB security service and a staunch critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime, fled to Britain in 2000, saying he feared for his life. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police said he was in a "serious but stable" condition after tests confirmed traces of rat poison called thallium in his body.

    The 44-year-old defector, who was sentenced in absentia for treason in Russia, was taken to hospital when he began vomiting violently. His hair has also fallen out and it is understood his kidneys have been damaged by the effects of the dose of thallium. The heavy metal, which is hard to obtain in the UK, damages the nervous system and lungs. Colourless and odourless, it is used in rat poisons in the Middle East.

    Mr Litvinenko has told associates he became ill after lunching in a sushi restaurant in London on 1 November, the sixth anniversary of his arrival in Britain. He gained full British citizenship last month The defector’s lunch companion was an Italian information-peddler called Mario Scaramella, who is alleged to have links with Russian intelligence. He is said to have given Mr Litvinenko documents purporting to show that Russian agents were implicated in the murder of the Russian investigative reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in Moscow last month."

    The rest of the story here.

  • 9/11 And The American Atheist

    In the comments section of my recent post regarding the bloody game of religion and politics, I asserted that despite the common Abrahamic roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,  since the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, Islam is viewed with a more jaundiced eye in Judeo Christian America than the philosophically far removed, exotic eastern religions. A meditative Buddhist or a Hindu with his "more the merrier" pantheon of gods is probably now looked upon with more tolerance by the average American Christian and Jew than an observant Muslim with whom they share one book of the Bible and several prophets. So entrenched is the reverence for religion in the minds of most people, it is common for believers of all stripes to insist that it is better to be the faithful of any religion than not have faith at all.  Atheism and religious skepticism are according to believers, the equivalent of arrogance, untrustworthiness and wickedness, even if the skeptic leads an exemplary ethical life. "Godless" is an epithet of utter contempt in the lexicon of most organized religions. But 9/11 may have eased matters a bit for atheists.   

    Scott Adams, cartoonist of Dilbert fame, claims that Hindus and Buddhists are not the only beneficiaries of post 9/11 Judeo-Christian change of heart.  Atheists, the universally reviled group (in Saudi Arabia, atheism is punishable by death), may also have benefited  from the current acute Islamophobia of the average American. In fact, atheists may now come out of their godless closets and run for pubic office on the platform of rationality and win, says Adams. He already has a high profile candidate in mind.

    "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately.

    I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."

    The rest of Adams’ case for the improving status of American atheists here.