Ok, I promised a post on the talk last night from BU political science professors, historians, and my professor Bacevich on the upcoming election, but won't be able to write up anything detailed at the moment since I've spent all this evening 1) hearing a informational talk about careers in the State Department (which I'm not sure would be my top choice, but which I'm open to at this point) and 2) watching the debates.

I was going to take notes and maybe blog live while watching, but I decided to catch it with friends on cable instead of going to the university's big open presentation in the student union and so lost the chance to comment via wireless. I watched it on C-Span so I missed most of what I'm sure is yet another hurricane of spin descending on Florida at this moment that will continue throughout the week, but I might as well toss in a short reaction now before I try and quickly catch up on all the homework I've put off till this point in the evening. I don't own a tv at home myself and so miss out on a lot of the coverage of this campaign -- mostly I read about events and speeches, rather than hearing them live, which makes an obvious big difference in how I percieve the events.

This is the first time save the convention that I've heard Kerry speak extensively on tv and overall I think it was a reassuring experience; I found him measured, strong in his criticisms of the president and I think fairly effective at articulating himself.

That said, while Bush's repetition annoyed me at points and while there were one or two points where I just had to shake my head disbelievingly (I'll have to track down a transcript because I remember one part in particular where I felt Bush stumbled badly in trying to formulate an answer to one of Kerry's allegations -- but alas can't remember what that was, now without notes).

(Edit: Remembered. Bush's lamest attempt to respond to Kerry's criticisms I thought came when he gave a half-hearted jab back at Kerry's list of homeland security initiatives -- something about a "tax gap" and then kind of trailed off, not even bothering to take that anywhere. Circuitous answers come with the debates, but I thought Bush's performance on that particular question was particularly -- and visibly -- weak.)

I wouldn't call myself satisfied by the debate -- even as someone who will in all likelihood vote for Kerry come November, I'm not sure he has articulated a security strategy to counter Bush's own any more comprehensive than "I can do it better" (something I'm inclined to agree with and which should be as good a reason as any to vote for a change of administrations, I should note). The talk of expanding alliances is a nice goal, but I'm not necessarily sure it's a path to success -- but there is of course a limit on how much a challenger can promise without knowing what situation he will face upon taking office, anyways. Over-all I think both sides held up fairly well and reassured their respective partisans of their capabilities to carry out the office, but what took place in the eyes of these mythical undecided voters out there I have no way of imagining.

One thing off the top of my head that did bother me was the fact that Kerry failed to call out Bush on his plans for missile defense, a highly shaky plan in my mind that should be subjected to a lot more scrutiny than it's recieved thus far. Noahmax of Defense Tech (link found through praktike's blogroll -- interesting stuff there) has some thoughts and I've also written previously about some of the questions NMD raises.

There was much more raised in the speech, obviously, but it's late and I need to get some reading on the Civil War (as in, US Civil War) finished up before bed. Hopefully more over the weekend once I find a transcript and have more time to digest.

Edit: More on NMD here as well. I realize there's only so much time to rebut in a debate setting, but this is something that needs to be questioned.

Edit the second: Making the rounds before bed -- I'd say I agree with Jeralynn Meritt's reactions at Talk Left to the candidate's performance temperament-wise. I thought Bush, even when making what from his point of view may have been a decent rebuttal of Kerry's critiques, seemed, well, kinda exasperated throughout the whole thing. Kerry in contrast was pretty calm and confident throughout with only a few uncomfortable grins. Bush always seems to be talking to some particuarly slow seven-year old, but this time it was a seven-year old asking uncomfortable questions, and I think it showed with the repetitive answers (anyone who makes a drinking game for these had better put in a couple of shots for the phrase "hard work") and the somewhat testy responses even when trying to assert the strengths of his administration.

Also - the "flip-flopper" accusations pain me to no end, so I was happy to see Kerry give what to me was a pretty strong defense of his positions. I'd like to see this 87billion silliness nipped in the bud once and for all, which didn't happen, but "You can be certain and be wrong" -- that's good stuff.

From a letter to Romanesko by WSJ correspondent Farnaz Fassihi:

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals.

But where is Al Qaeda getting its cash and weapons? And what is the relationship of Tawhid wal Jihad to Al Qaeda?

(via Laura Rozen. The whole terrifying thing is here.)

Now this is some serious shrillery right here:

I would advise Kerry to reach into Bush's chest and pull out his beating heart and hold it up to the world if I didn't think it might upset some of the "Security Moms" whose votes could prove so decisive in the coming election.

Faisal Jawdat, call your office.

Since BD's Haiti story has moved off the front page at Tacitus, I thought I'd remind interested people that the immediate humanitarian crisis hasn't disappeared. The total numbers dead are now over two thousand if the missing are included, and famine is feared, given the extensive damage to crops and foodstores. Obviously, all the problems with unsanitary water are also emerging rapidly.

Establishing basic order, and preventing looting by desparate crowds, criminal gangs and armed rebels, is placing enormous strains on the UN peacekeepers. The Haitian police appear to be demoralized at best.   more »

The Annenberg Center's Online Jouralism Review has an interesting roundtable of "U.S. 'Milibloggers', Iraqi Bloggers Discuss War-Time Experiences." The Iraqi members of the discusion are the boys from Iraq the Model.

The focus of the discussion is somewhat more on the military bloggers, but Ali has an interesting comment that echoes my speculation yesterday about the reasons for the mixed signals being sent re the upcoming elections.

Ali: The elections should be held at the decided time throughout the entire country, and every effort should be made to clean areas like Fallujah and Ramadi from terrorists and Ba'athists. It won't be easy at all but I believe it can be done. I believe that talks about elections in safe areas are not what Iraqi and American administrations were thinking of. It's rather an attempt to put pressure on tribes in hot Sunni areas to put down guns or stop supporting "resistance," help the central government in its war against terrorists and join elections before the Shi'ites take it all.

For those of you in DC October 7, an event at the National Press Club looks interesting, sponsored by the Jamestown Foundation.

The Iraqi Insurgency and al-Qaeda

Thursday, October 7, 2004
12:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.
National Press Club - Zenger Room
529 14th Street NW, Washington DC

   more »

Okay, now Katherine over at Obsidian Wings has a post up decrying the possible Congressional endorsement of "extraordinary renditions"--the practice of outsourcing torture to friendly dictatorship that don't suffer from our surfeit of human rights. The general response in the blogosphere thus far has been to denounce this idea, and I'm inclined to agree that it's vile. Additional conventional wisdom seems to be that torture doesn't even work.

However.

Here is one instance in which torture achieved its intended purpose, but set in motion a chain of events eventually leading to the fall of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

What follows is a passage from The Road to Al Qaeda, written by Montasser al-Zayyat, an Egyptian human rights lawyer who is, to say the least, sympathetic to the Islamist cause. The book tells the story of Ayman al-Zawahiri, formerly of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and currently Osama bin Laden's deputy within Al Qaeda. Implicated in the 1979 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Zawahiri himself was convicted only of possessing a pistol and sentenced to three years in prison. He left Egypt soon after his release.

Al-Zayyat writes:

I visited him in the Ibn al-Nafees hospital, where he was working in Jeddah. He looked very sorrowful. The scars left on his body from indescribable torture he suffered caused him no more pain, but his heart still ached from it.

The torture he suffered was not proportionate to his comparatively minor role in the assassination of Sadat. The authorities were particularly harsh with him not because of his deeds, but because of his connections. They discovered after arresting him that he was in contact with a number of officers from the Egyptian Armed Forces. These included the martyr 'Esam al-Qamari, an Armed Forces officer. Qamari fled from the army when, in March 1981, the authorities discovered his Islamist orientations. Zawahiri was also incriminated by his links with Captian 'Abdel 'Azeez al-Gamal and First Lieutenant 'Awni 'Abdel Mageed. I met Gamal and 'Abdel Mageed only after the incident, during the proceedings of the Jihad case.

Despite all that he had suffered physically, what was really painful to Zawahiri was that, under the pain of torture, he was forced to testify against his fellow members in the case against 'Esam al-Qamari and other officers. Zawahiri was taken from the Tora prison to the Higher Military Court to give testimony against other jihadi members from the army. Under these conditions, he admitted that they formed a movement inside the army to topple the regime and institute an Islamic government.

After he was arrested on October 15, 1981, Zawahiri informed the authorities of Qamari's whereabouts. He had taken a refuge in a small mosque where he used to pray and meet Zawahiri and other members of the group. It was this painful memory which was at the root of Zawahiri's suffering, and which prompted him to leave Egypt for Saudi Arabia. He stayed there until he left for Afghanistan in 1987. During the three years following his arrival in Afghanistan, his leadership among jihadi Islamists became more prominent, as he worked to regroup the disoriented group members.

Among other reasons, Zawahiri's shame at ratting on his friends precluded him from returning to Egypt. Further radicalized by his prison experiences, there Zarqawi met such like-minded individuals as ... Osama Bin Laden. Al-Zayyat explains a shift in Zawahiri's thinking from a focus on the "near enemy," the Egyptian government, to the "far enemy," Israel and the United States. Zayyat attributes the change to the Egyptian's government's successful campaign against Islamic Jihad, and a corresponding lack of funds that were needed to retain members and finance terrorist activities. Out of necessity as much as out of ideology, in 1998 Zawahiri merged Islamic Jihad with Bin Laden's organization to form the International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, aka al Qaeda. The merger brought Zawahiri's jihadi ideology and expertise together with Bin Laden's ambition, money, political acumen, and rhetorical flair.

Not only did Zawahiri influence bin Laden, the latter impacted the philosophy of Zawahiri and of Islamic Jihad. For example, bin Laden adised Zawahiri to stop armed operations in Egypt and to ally with him against their common enemies: the United States and Israel. His advice to Zawahiri came upon their return to Afghanistan, when bin Laden ensured the safety of Zawahiri and the Islamic Jihad members under the banner of the Taliban, who at that time controlled 95 percent of the country.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Just in time to save our sanity from the spins, counter-spins, and dreadful press coverage. -- All of which will come together in agonizingly overwhelming fashion for the debates.

Opus Returns

Bill Moyers is shrill:

One of the biggest changes in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. How do we fathom and explain the mindset of violent exhibitionists and extremists who blow to smithereens hundreds of children and teachers of Middle School Number One in Beslan, Russia? Or the radical utopianism of martyrs who crash hijacked planes into the World Trade Center? How do we explain the possibility that a close election in November could turn on several million good and decent citizens who believe in the Rapture Index? That’s what I said—the Rapture Index; Google it and you will understand why the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the 'Left Behind' series that have earned multi-millions of dollars for their co-authors, who, earlier this year, completed a triumphant tour of the Bible Belt whose buckle holds in place George W. Bush’s armor of the Lord. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the l9th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative millions of people believe to be literally true.

According to this narrative, Jesus will return to earth only when certain conditions are met: when Israel has been established as a state; when Israel then occupies the rest of its 'biblical lands;' when the third temple has been rebuilt on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques; and, then, when legions of the Antichrist attack Israel. This will trigger a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon during which all the Jews who have not converted will be burned. Then the Messiah returns to earth. The Rapture occurs once the big battle begins. True believers 'will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation which follow.

From the horse's mouth:

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

As of September 27, 2004, the Rapture Index stands at 154.

Tonight I will be attending this event and will plan on bringing my laptop in hopes that there will be interesting things said worth blogging about. This Thursday, after attending an informational session on careers in the State Department, I'll also be watching the first debates, and might chime in along with everybody else and their brother with my reactions to that, either live via the magic of wi-fi or shortly afterwards. Also, my huge shipment of Islam in South Asia books from Amazon just arrived, so I have a lot of reading to get started on.