by hilzoy
Think Progress informs us that Vice President Cheney has gone stark raving mad:
"CHENEY: If you look at what’s transpired in Iraq, Chris, we have in fact made enormous progress."
Gosh. Wow. I mean, what to say?
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Back here on planet earth, "police in Baghdad found 40 bodies, many tortured and shot dead, in different parts of the capital in the past 24 hours."
And the smallest things can get you killed:
"Every time I try to convince myself that is still ok to work and live in iraq I find myself wrong … just a few days ago I was in top of my house roof trying to fix the water tank it was raining a bit and suddenly clashes broke in my neighborhood in western Baghdad. I was halfway done but felt the sound of the bullets just a few meters away from my face and I said to myself what if I die is it worth dieing because I was fixing my water tank instead of dieing bravely defending my house or my country. We are gradually forgetting the happiness that we had before and now all we remembers is the everyday sad news. Today one of my colleagues in the bureau was crying because one of his best friend was kidnapped by al QAIDA and I am afraid it will be my turn one day … and not to forget the unbelievable numbers of anonymous dead bodies that found in Baghdad which the average is 50 dead bodies daily."
And:
"once the police responded and took a pregnant woman to the hospital with her father and brother... an IED exploded killing the woman, her father and policemen.The family and neighbors headed to the nearby mosque (100 meters away) for help.
The Imam responded by turning the generators on and used the loudspeakers and asked for the help of the Iraqi police and army ... NO ONE RESPONDED ...
The family watched their father die without receiving any help from any one ..."
The government we seem to be counting on provokes reactions like this:
"The minister of electricity, in a press conference in Baghdad, said the citizens will notice a big difference in electricity supplies before summer of 2007.Mr. Minister I am wondering how you will be able to do so in summer when you can not do that in winter? (People need less power during winter).
People are suffering here they need fuel so they can operate generators and heating devices. The lack of fuel, electricity, security and income are all causing an endless circle of suffering.
Oh ... oh how stupid i am ...
I am sorry Mr. Minister I doubted your capabilities ... I realized now how you will solve the problem.
The government will decide that the day long in Iraq is 2 hours instead of 24. The ministry will provide 2 hours of electricity and that will mean it is all day long … What a brilliant idea?!"
But in Cheney's world, this is enormous progress. Just don't ask about our destination.
"Why they don't make it official in IRAQ. The government should make it official and the parliament must approve it immediately ... and the Iraqi people will dance and applause for it ... cancel the Constitution and replace it with Jungle Law ... WHY NOT???!!! ... it is already the active law in the country ... why lying to ourselves and to the others ... WE ARE the only country on earth that can not keep security in the capital for 2 hours without imposing a curfew. CURFEW ... CURFEW ... CURFEW ... every single incident the government will invent a new security plan ... and every time the security plan is imposing CURFEW and MORE checkpoints ... most of Baghdad's roads are blocked by concrete barriers and barb wires ... hundreds of checkpoints ... 40 thousands Iraqi army soldiers and thousands of American soldiers ... jet fighters, multinational forces, satellite images and dragon eye planes (surveillance).What do they need more to keep security?????????????? ANGELS to fight with them???? The government hold the citizen responsible for any security breech in his neighborhood ... the government hold the citizen responsible to provide electricity to himself ... the government hold the citizen responsible for providing fuel for himself ... the government ... the government ... long live the GOVERNMENT.
Any way we don't need the government. We have MILITIAS, we have TERRORISTS, we have RESISTANCE, we have enough CLERICS, we have GUN DEALERS, we have SMUGGLERS, we have bad NEIGHBORS, we have trained CRIMINALS, and even more all the above have many ways to make money THEY CAN KIDNAP any time they want and WHO EVER they want (for example more than 147 employee from a ministry that is no more than 3 miles away from the government and the MNFI head quarters), and above all, we have the government of MONKEYS ... and since all what we need to announce JUNGLE LAW is provided, then why waiting ... cancel it ... announce the Republic of Jungle Law ... pack your things and go back to Iran, Syria and London ... and leave us alone as you left us for the last 35 years"
If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the White House would be lost.
Posted by: Pops | January 14, 2007 at 01:59 PM
"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." --President Bush, 60 Minutes interview to air tonight.
I can't find the words.
Posted by: Katherine | January 14, 2007 at 02:09 PM
I got Nicola Tesla on the quiz. Somehow that fits.
Posted by: Dantheman | January 14, 2007 at 02:26 PM
I am Joshua Abraham Norton.
Posted by: Katherine | January 14, 2007 at 02:37 PM
Nah. You can claim to be His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton the Ist, but he'd never claim that other nomenclature.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 02:45 PM
Posted by: OCSteve | January 14, 2007 at 02:59 PM
Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad.
I can live with the mad bit – but France? That’s just wrong.
Posted by: OCSteve | January 14, 2007 at 03:03 PM
"Now Turkey is ready to get into the act, threatening to invade northern Iraq to put down the Kurds."
This has been an issue since 2003. (Not saying there aren't the current developments that there are; just saying that putting it as "now Turkey is ready to get into the act" is, ah, not the best description; one could go on and on and on about all the Iraq/Turkey/American developments in the past year alone, let alone four.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 03:03 PM
IIRC, both Turkey and Iran have fired across the border into northern Iraq at various Kurdish positions.
Posted by: Ugh | January 14, 2007 at 03:05 PM
There have been especially ominous rumblings from Turkey for a few months now.
That would be such a disaster.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 14, 2007 at 03:08 PM
The amount of damage done to the perception of America in Turkey, by our actions in Iraq, is so huge as to be almost unbelievable; and, of course, few Americans have a clue as to how hated we are there now.
It's become a http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/ turkey">huge cultural and political issue. Last week the Turkish foreign minister referred to us as "so-called allies."
Note that my post is almost a year old, and things have gotten a lot worse since then.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 03:11 PM
The amount of damage done to the perception of America in Turkey, by our actions in Iraq, is so huge as to be almost unbelievable; and, of course, few Americans have a clue as to how hated we are there now.
It's become a huge cultural and political issue. Last week the Turkish foreign minister referred to us as "so-called allies."
Note that my post is almost a year old, and things have gotten a lot worse since then.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 03:13 PM
Off topic and not very important, but how come John Cole/Balloon Juice has been dropped from Von's links to the left (not that Left)?
Posted by: John Thullen | January 14, 2007 at 03:43 PM
"...but how come John Cole/Balloon Juice has been dropped from Von's links to the left (not that Left)?"
Myself, I think whom one chooses to put, and not to put, on their blogroll, is an entirely personal choice, and asking people why they do or don't like someone... well, maybe other folks do that more than I do.
But I'm still unlikely to send out e-mails to endless bloggers asking why they don't blogroll me. Maybe it's just me to whom that would seem unspeakably rude.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 03:57 PM
Gary: Agreed. This just seems a little more explicit.
Posted by: OCSteve | January 14, 2007 at 04:09 PM
Gary: when I read John's question, for some reason (maybe because it was in fact me who did it) the interpretation 'why did von drop John Cole?', as opposed to 'what befell that entry in von's list?', didn't occur to me.
(And you, naturally, are in multiples, being omniappealing.)
Posted by: hilzoy | January 14, 2007 at 04:32 PM
More in the 'astonishing statements from the administration' department, via BitchPhD:
Posted by: hilzoy | January 14, 2007 at 04:56 PM
"'Surely the United States is not the one being threatening,' she said. "We are not the ones being meddlesome and troublesome in Iraq.'"
Doesn't everyone remember Iraq coming under the Monroe Doctrine?
(Actually, it would logically
be the semi-forgotten Carter Doctrine, ironically enough, that they'll claim to file this under.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 05:07 PM
John, Gary:
John Cole's Balloon Juice has NOT, in fact, been dropped from the shiny-new, reorganized ObWi blogroll, but has been moved up to the "Multiples" section.
Posted by: Jay C | January 14, 2007 at 05:25 PM
Umm, Hilzoy's first reaction was correct. I was just asking, not accusing Von of any wickedness. Then, of course when I pointed "left", I just had to add "Left", slyboots me.
It's like Beatles -- beetles with an "a" --one word meaning two things. For fun, not profundity, though they were more popular than Christ. Oops!
Thanks Hilzoy and Jay -- I looked under multiples, but like the man who mistook his wife for a hat, I couldn't see what was in front of me.
Posted by: John Thullen | January 14, 2007 at 06:52 PM
Also Charles Six. merci maman.
Posted by: Francis | January 14, 2007 at 08:50 PM
John: until you asked, you couldn't have seen it, since where the phrase 'Balloon Juice' should have been, there was nothing. Just a link with no text.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 14, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Caligula for me.
Posted by: KCinDC | January 14, 2007 at 08:55 PM
I spit out my coffee when I saw that picture of the Caligula statue. I'm thinking it's a sly dig at the posters at Redstate, many of whom have a fetish for things classical. For yucks per word, you can't beat the turgid prose of "Marcus Trainius".
I'm fixated on Redstate.
Posted by: julian | January 14, 2007 at 09:17 PM
Joshua Abraham Norton for me. I'm pretty pleased.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 14, 2007 at 09:17 PM
More on Emperor Norton here.
This part seems approriate:
The whole story makes me really want to visit San Francisco.
Posted by: Katherine | January 14, 2007 at 09:27 PM
"I'm fixated on Redstate."
Isn't life too short for that?
But, hey, far be it for me to advise people on that sort of thing; it's hardly as if my life isn't filled with things that many would fairly categorize as complete wastes of time.
Emperor Norton has long been beloved in the Bay Area; I first ran into friends extolling his history and virtues in 1975. Hell, one of the slightly more eccentric friends of mine more or less made the Emperor a major facet of his life (and spent decades thereafter referring to himself as a "Lhord"; I don't know if he's still doing it only because I've lost touch with him in the last decade).
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 14, 2007 at 09:37 PM
Another Charles VI here. Not my first choice, actually, that guy had a pretty crappy life.
I did have a friend in high school who built small Tesla coils in his basement. We were, in fact, all very impressed. That seems like a much more fun way to be nuts.
Emperor Norton would be my first choice, though. Sadly, I don't seem to be cut out for it.
CHENEY: If you look at what’s transpired in Iraq, Chris, we have in fact made enormous progress.
All measures of progress depend on what your goal is. The scary thing here is that Cheney may, by his own lights, be telling the truth.
Thanks -
Posted by: russell | January 14, 2007 at 09:52 PM
Another Norton here.
Obviously, if I ever have occasion to go to San Francisco and play dress-up, I must don imperial garb, and order the sea lions at Fisherman's Terminal to acclaim my august presence :)
Posted by: CaseyL | January 14, 2007 at 11:04 PM
FWIW, my Historical Loony Persona turned out to be the 19th-Century Duke of Portland: the one with the 900 wigs, and the wierd habit of playing "statues" with the help. I feel cheated: the old Duke was a classic cuckoo, of course, but it just didn't seem to have the cachet of a Caligula or Charles VI or Mad King Ludwig. (Or even the fascinating Emperor Norton - must be the titles!)
Posted by: Jay C | January 15, 2007 at 01:13 AM
Yet another Charles the Mad, along with OC Steve, russell, and francis! Quite a little fraternity we've got here.
Or are we (he madly asked) a radish?
Posted by: dr ngo | January 15, 2007 at 02:49 AM
Jay C,
I beg to differ! From Wikipedia
He created a complex of underground rooms with an army of hundreds of workmen. They included a large ballroom 174 by 64 feet (53 by 20 metres) wide, a library 250 feet (76 metres) long, an observatory with a large glass roof and a vast billiards-room. The ballroom had a hydraulic lift that could carry 20 guests from the surface and a ceiling that was painted as a giant sunset. However, he never organized any party in this ballroom.
The eight tunnels under his estate were reputed to have totalled 15 miles (24 km) and connected various underground chambers and above-ground buildings. The longest of these was even alleged to have emerged at Worksop railway station, though there is no evidence for this claim. A 1¼ mile (2 km) tunnel runs north-east from the coach house, emerging at South Lodge. This tunnel was supposedly wide enough for two carriages. It had domed skylights and by night it was illuminated by gaslight. This and other tunnels are shown on the Ordnance Survey Explorer map of the area, though only the largest can be readily seen on aerial photographs
(snip)
His workmen were given an order not to recognise his presence (one who saluted him was reputedly dismissed on the spot) and they received all instructions in writing. Otherwise he paid good wages, and his workmen received an umbrella and a donkey to come to work. Roads, farms and schools in his estate were kept in good condition and he created a large vegetable garden.
Good wages for the working man, engineering ability, I'd hoist a pint with him (assuming he would permit it of course)
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 15, 2007 at 03:41 AM
Cheney's statement is very likely literally and precisely true when you think in the way he seems to, with a detachment from humane concerns. I've commented on this before about some aspects of movement conservative and libertarian thought on some issues. Take health care - they can recite endless statistics about wait times for particular procedures, usage of particular pieces of hardware, and like that, but when you ask about nation-wide issues like how satisfied people are with their care, lifespan, percentage of life spent sick, and so on, then they just go blank. The whole has no meaning or at least no interest for them. Abstractions like per capita income are fine; real wages for any group smaller than the whole are not. And so on, on down the line.
I am quite sure that it doesn't take a whole lot of jiggering to produce many specific quantities one can point at and say "See how improved it is." And they only pale by comparison to the human experiences if you care about the human experiences. Cheney doesn't. Nor do a lot of the people around him.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | January 15, 2007 at 04:54 AM
Off topic - Interview of Chalabi just prior to the Iraq invasion.
Posted by: Ugh | January 15, 2007 at 01:51 PM