Wellstone and electropulse gun conspiracies, prep schools bloat and the omniscient Friedman

Today's Star Tribune features a story on the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Paul Wellstone. Most likely it was a random accident, but as Ted Rall said, we can't ignore the remote possibility of a harsh government killing its most powerful liberal opponent. Was Wellstone worth assassinating? I think so. i think my favorite theory is the electromagnetic pulse assassination:

Discounting weather, pilot error or mechanical problems in Wellstone's flight, Fetzer's articles have seized on the possibility of sabotage brought on by a futuristic electromagnetic pulse weapon that he said could have disabled the plane's computerized components. Evidence for this, he said in an interview, was the absence of any distress call from the pilots and the odd cell-phone experience reported by St. Louis County lobbyist John Ongaro.

Ongaro, who was near the airport when Wellstone's plane went down, has dismissed the significance of his experience, in which he said his cell phone made "strange" sounds and then disconnected. "It's not unusual for cell phones to cut out, especially in northern Minnesota," he said.

The Democrats are conflicted, believe it or not. Kerry and Dean are dickering with each other, as Dean has been the most outspoken, grassroots oriented Democrat to run. Is there a conflict between the D grassroots, (Wellstone's bread and butter), versus the Democratic national leadership? (link Nick)

The contest for the 2004 Democratic nomination cannot be understood apart from two factors. One is the intense opposition to Bush at the Democratic grass roots. The other is the widely held sense that the party's older strategies and internal arguments are inadequate to its current problems. Candidates can't win if they address only one of these concerns. But addressing both at the same time will require a political magic that Democrats haven't seen yet.

Private schools in Minnesota are undergoing a growth spurt, according to an article in today's Strib. Would Mounds Park do something similar? Well, you gotta keep up with Blake and Minnehaha, dontcha?

Nick was happy with Thomas Friedman in the times yesterday, talking a big game about the whole theory of everything and generally disreputing the usual targets. Friedman is funny, I like to think of him as this guy from St. Louis Park, travelling about on an exciting personal journey to illuminate the whole everything (particularly the Middle East) for confused American liberals. Yet he seems to sugarcoat the corruption inherent in the way America has managed so much. Does he pull it off?

Why didn't nations organize militarily against the U.S.? Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," answers: "One prominent international relations school ? the realists ? argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. ? and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used."
There is another reason for this nonmilitary response. America's emergence as the hyperpower is happening in the age of globalization, when economies have become so intertwined that China, Russia, France or any other rivals cannot hit the U.S. without wrecking their own economies.
The only people who use violence are rogues or nonstate actors with no stakes in the system, such as Osama bin Laden. Basically, he is in a civil war with the Saudi ruling family. But, he says to himself, "The Saudi rulers are insignificant. To destroy them you have to hit the hegemonic power that props them up ? America."
Hence, 9/11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon ? a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally ? turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of us, a mood reinforced by the Bush team's unilateralism. With one swipe of our paw we smash the Taliban. Then we turn to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, "Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used." That is what the whole Iraq debate was about. People understood Iraq was a war of choice that would affect them, so they wanted to be part of the choosing. We said, sorry, you don't pay, you don't play.

Oh dear, the lack of weapons of mass destruction is blowing a mess all over the place. Paul Krugman is pounding away as usual today on the Bush crew and their addiction to 'spin.'

It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters ? a group that includes a large segment of the news media ? obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.

If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent ? who supported Britain's participation in the war ? writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."

Sounds like nothing but liberal excuses to me. Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken got in a huge argument over liberal media bias on CSPAN. However what was shown on TV was edited to provide its own perspective. (The fair and balanced Fox News story) I can't seem to find a transcript of the argument around, but here is a story about the whole book fair they were at, which seems to have been overtly political this year. (AP)

Sharon will evacuate 17 West Bank settlements

The speaker of the Knesset announced yesterday that Prime Minister Sharon intends to evacuate 17 settlements in the West Bank, including one inhabited by a government minister, Avigdor Lieberman of the National Union party bloc. Said Speaker Reuvin Rivlin (Likud),

"When Sharon talks of painful concessions, he is referring to a concrete plan that he has already discussed with some of the settlers. Sharon has accepted the fact that if we want to live within borders that enable the Palestinians passage that does not go through our territory, a number of settlements will have to be evacuated," Rivlin said.

Rivlin said that when Sharon became prime minister, and earlier, in talks he had with former prime minister Ehud Barak, he had earmarked 17 settlements for evacuation. "Arik made it clear a number of times that their evacuation is necessary if we are to reach some agreement. Today there are small territorial divisions. They will be united and joined. Joining them will require the evacuation of about 17 settlements," Rivlin said.

Rivlin said that after hearing of Sharon's plans, he decided he could not serve as a minister in his cabinet. "When he offered me a minister's portfolio, I preferred to be Knesset speaker. I told him openly: Arik, we are now on a course of inevitable collision. I cannot release myself from my faith. I will not convert my religion," Rivlin said.

So, on the face the settlement pullback seems positive (and you will see it as such on NBC News) and indeed, it represents a nudge towards reasonable peace, but, as the man says, the point of this is acheiving a semblance of territorial contiguity, not addressing one of the central Palestinian concerns (and justifications for armed action): the continuing process of annexing the West Bank, and legitimizing those annexations. "Temporary borders" could be a euphemism for "legitimizing annexation." Yes? Graham Usher suspects it's possible, because Sharon is still Sharon:

Strategically, Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap marks another stage in his protracted efforts to shift the destination of the conflict away from "an end to the occupation that began in 1967" (in Bush's words) to the establishment of a "provisional Palestinian state with certain aspects of sovereignty" (in Sharon's). According to the roadmap the provisional state is due to come into being in 2004 but more likely at the end of Sharon's watch in 2006. Nor is Sharon's commitment to Palestinian statehood rhetorical; it is practical and being built.

In early March -- when the world was distracted by Iraq -- Sharon quietly announced that the security barrier currently carving out chunks of Palestinian farmland near the northern West Bank border will go east, severing the central West Bank region from its Jordan Valley hinterland. In April he mused that mammoth Jewish settlements like Ariel that lie 20 kilometres within the West Bank would eventually be "on our side of the fence".

If so, these walls would cage the emerging "Palestinian entity" into three disconnected cantons in the north, centre and south of the West Bank, covering about 42 percent of its territory but hosting most of its two million or so denizens. This is the "occupation" Sharon wants to end: Israel's occupation of the Palestinian "people", not the occupation of the land and resources that is their patrimony.

"The provisional Palestinian state is a new term for Sharon's old strategy for achieving a long-term interim agreement," says PA Labour Minister Ghassan Khatib. "We know that if we get trapped in this phase we won't be able to move to the final status phase -- there is no chance Sharon will allow this. We also know that the provisional state will be autonomy in effect but occupation in practice. Only it won't be called autonomy -- it will be called statehood and Israel would be let off the hook."

Of the many reservations Palestinians have about the roadmap, the provisional Palestinian state idea is perhaps the gravest. They are aware from bitter experience that Israel's provisional arrangements have a habit of becoming permanent borders.

The big question, of course, is what Bush, a Christian, will do about the West Bank and its particular religious/social/security structure. Are we looking at a return to the 1948/67 border, or the attempted annexation of large swaths? Time will tell...