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
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"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
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"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
January 07, 2008
New From Consortium News
(Consortium News still is $6,000 short on its end-of-year $50,000 fundraiser. If you have the means, I strongly encourage you to donate. Unless you're Chris Matthews or Colin Powell, it's in your self-interest for Consortium News to survive and thrive.)
Reagan's Bargain/Charlie Wilson's War
by Peter W. Dickson, former CIA analyst...surely the most glaring omission in the film is the fateful trade-off accepted by President Ronald Reagan when he agreed not to complain about Pakistan’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for Pakistani cooperation in helping the Afghan rebels...
The movie producers evidently concluded that scenes of Wilson’s desperate efforts to cover up Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions would not look too good in the film, so that part of the story disappeared from the cinematic version of history...
Unfortunately, the glaring omissions tend to reinforce the triumph of a false narrative about the dismal record of American involvement in the Middle East, including the Reagan-Bush administration’s indifference, almost blasé attitude about the emergence of a Muslim nuclear bomb.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Doggone, if Pakistan's got a "Muslim" bomb, are Israel's a- and h-bombs "Jewish?" Is there relatively less or more to worry about if nukes have religions?
Posted by: konopelli/wgg at January 7, 2008 12:42 PMRemember, the people it falls on don't much care what religion the bomb is.
Posted by: StO at January 7, 2008 12:57 PMI think "Muslim bomb" was actually the designation by Pakistan and also Saudi Arabia. (During the eighties the Saudis funded both the Pakistani and Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Although of course what they really meant was they wanted a Sunni bomb.)
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at January 7, 2008 02:12 PMalso we should classify bombs by more developed and less developed. the classic dilemma. we know that free trade helps lift radioactive isotopes out of poverty, but do we really want to enrich uranium?
Posted by: hapa at January 7, 2008 02:41 PM
