or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
April 02, 2008
Down In The Mass Grave With A Calculator*
Christopher Hitchens is very, very angry at Hillary Clinton:
[W]hat had happened to the 1992 promise, four years earlier, that genocide in Bosnia would be opposed by a Clinton administration?...Let me quote from Sally Bedell Smith's admirable book on the happy couple, For Love of Politics:
Taking the advice of Al Gore and National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Bill agreed to a proposal to bomb Serbian military positions while helping the Muslims acquire weapons to defend themselves—the fulfillment of a pledge he had made during the 1992 campaign. But instead of pushing European leaders, he directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher merely to consult with them...The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was Hillary...The United States took no further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was to continue for four more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 people.I can personally witness to the truth of this, too.
Whatever the truth of the Clintons' behavior, the actual number of people who died during the Bosnian War was about 100,000, or 40% of what Smith states.
I feel ill just bringing this up, but as the noted political writer Christopher Hitchens says:
It may be distasteful, even indecent, to argue over "body counts," whether the bodies are Armenian, Jewish, Cambodian, or...Timorese. But the count must be done, and done seriously, if later generations are not to doubt the whole slaughter on the basis of provable exaggerations or inventions.
On the other hand, it's not like Hillary Clinton can complain about Smith getting this wrong. Here's Clinton herself, in her speech justifying her 2002 Iraq vote:
We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s.
All those people in Bosnia were probably sad to die...at first. But later I bet they felt it would all be worth it if their deaths could provide fodder for American polemicists to bludgeon each other with.
*The phrase "Down in the mass grave with a calculator" (c) Dennis Perrin.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at April 2, 2008 10:47 AMI wonder how big a grave they will find out back of Abu Grahib.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at April 2, 2008 11:09 AMThose who are deceased are beyond all earthly cares - it is only those left behind who feel distress.
This is why thoroughness in population reduction operations is actually a kindness.
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at April 2, 2008 11:15 AMI kinda recall her Tuzla visit firsthand although I'm not too keen on congregating with political asskissers, so I missed the event proper.
Seems like a lot of hoopla over a politician exaggerating/lying about their creds. Frankly, there was a lot of funkiness going on over there on a constant basis -- between the arms embargo on some parties and not on others, the arming and training of Croats by the beltway mercenaries, and the two main media events that galvanized American action,
1. The Tuzla outdoor cafe shell attack (that supposedly originated from the Ozren salient, some 25+ kilometers away -- hell of a shot that one), and
2. The Markale market massacre in Sarajevo (also questionable on the basis of impact analysis)
her fibs on the runway snipers don't seem all that significant because they appear designed to demonstrate her risk-taking cajones for the US electorate.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that in the taxonomy of fibs, ones designed for direct geopolitical purposes and ones designed to smack Obama in an electability contest are two distinctly separate categories.
On the basis of comparative barbarism, I recall that the Serbs were singled out as ones to attack hospitals, mosques and the like. However, after watching the activities in Iraq vs-a-vis Shites and Sunnies, I'm thinking that type of barbarism shouldn't be reserved for them alone. The bombing of some of the shiite shrines seem to be the past domain of Serbs, and it's damn unfortunate that they couldn't have been brought into the mix over in Samarra and some of the other egregious attacks on civilians.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if the Serb practice of rape as a weapon is comparative to the US practice of sexual enslavement of Iraqis refugees wherever the refugees show up in the middle east. Not that I'm suggesting moral relativism or anything, because sexual enslavement has a market-based driver, while the Serbs did it apparently to get their jollies and strategic gains.
Calculators indeed.
Posted by: angryman@24:10 at April 2, 2008 11:36 AMA bunch of dead swarthy people in Bosnia years ago? Thousands of dead swarthy people in Iraq today? Yeah, yeah. Read what's really on the minds of NYT readers:
"Wall Street-Bound Graduates Watch, Wait and
Worry"
A Special Section--"Deal Book"--April 2, 2008, p.8
Feel the pain of our best and brightest.
Posted by: donescobar at April 2, 2008 01:51 PM
Look, for once, I agree, why not? Is a progressive essentially not a polemicist too given today's world situation?
Posted by: En Ming Hee at April 2, 2008 11:04 PMChristopher Hitchens makes my flesh creep for reasons I'm not sure I entirely comprehend.
Posted by: Jack at April 3, 2008 11:41 AM
