Everything so cordial and convivial:

In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions - New England and the South - are sitting down to talk.

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Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.

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If allowed to go their own way, New Englanders “probably would allow abortion and have gun control,” [president of the League of the South] Hill said, while Southerners “would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now.”

No! We’re surprised at such a pronounced distaste for migrant labourers on the part of states which were previously so partisan to illegally indentured labour.

The League of the South says it is not racist, but proudly displays a Confederate Battle Flag on its banner.

Not that they are racists, oh no sirree Bob. They merely display the standard of those who fought to maintain and prolong the system which forcibly abducted millions of Africans from their homes, sold them as livestock into abject misery, and which system’s modern adherents are craven, vile scum who have the bare-faced audacity to suggest that the descendants of those same Africans should be fucking deported whence their ancestors were abducted!

Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, said the League of the South “has been on our list close to a decade.”

“What is remarkable and really astounding about this situation is we see people and institutions who are supposedly on the progressive left rubbing shoulders with bona fide white supremacists,” Potok said.

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Harry Watson, director of the Center For the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it was a surprise to see The Middlebury Institute conferring with the League of the South, “an organization that’s associated with a cause that many of us associate with the preservation of slavery.”

He said the unlikely partnering “represents the far left and far right of American politics coming together.”

Middlebury Institute and League of the South, your starter for ten, no conferring. Which ethnic-religious minority is in control of United States foreign policy?

This could be interesting to follow and see what develops…

This new article by Hitchens really is a must read (all of it).

I was having an oppressively normal morning a few months ago, flicking through the banality of quotidian e-mail traffic, when I idly clicked on a message from a friend headed “Seen This?” The attached item turned out to be a very well-written story by Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. It described the death, in Mosul, Iraq, of a young soldier from Irvine, California, named Mark Jennings Daily, and the unusual degree of emotion that his community was undergoing as a consequence. The emotion derived from a very moving statement that the boy had left behind, stating his reasons for having become a volunteer and bravely facing the prospect that his words might have to be read posthumously. In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:

“Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … “

Read on…

Bartle Bull has a remarkable essay in this month’s Prospect. He argues that Iraq is well on its way toward political reconciliation — indeed, most of the “fighting” now taking place does so in salon bull sessions and cabinet meetings — and that the military conflict is dwindling to a containable level.

As difficult as it has been, especially given the follies of the current administration, to take the long view on Iraq, even veteran war critics have grudgingly conceded the unexpected good news of late: from the Anbar Awakening to the precipitous drop in civilian casualties in the last few months, to the almost superhuman stoicism of the Kurds, who at any time could declare their own independent state but choose instead to abide by the federalist model enshrined in Iraq’s constitution. A “civil war” is not attended by a stalled but still legitimate national government going about its business.

Bull’s most insightful comment, I think, is that the Sunni insurgency has realized it cannot possibly win in battle against 85% of the population (more, if you count those Sunnis completely disillusioned by their IED-wielding co-sectarians.)  Instead, the insurgency has focussed its efforts on winning the headlines in the New York Times, in which it now competes for our despondency against the murder-by-numbers mercenaries of Blackwater USA.

The world held its breath after Samarra: here, we thought, comes the cataclysm, the civil war that many had feared and that others had sought for three years. But it never happened. The Shia backlash in parts of Baghdad was vicious, and the Sunnis were more or less kicked out of much of the city. But over 18 months later, it is clear that the Shias were too sensible to go all the way. It was never a civil war: no battle lines or uniforms, no secession, no attempt to seize power or impose constitutional change, no parallel governments, not even any public leaders or aims. The Sunnis rolled the dice, launched the battle of Baghdad and lost. Now they are begging for an accommodation with Shia Iraq.

What is the evidence for this? This summer, Maliki’s office reached out to Baathist ex-soldiers and officers and received 48,600 requests for jobs in uniform; he made room for 5,000 of them, found civil service jobs for another 7,000, and put the rest of them on a full pension. Meanwhile leading Baathists have told Time magazine they want to be in the government; the 1920 Revolution Brigade—a Sunni insurgent group—is reportedly patrolling the streets of Diyala with the 3rd infantry division, and the Sunni Islamic Army in Iraq is telling al Jazeera it may negotiate with the Americans. The anecdotes coming out of Baghdad confirm the trend. The drawing rooms of the capital’s dealmakers are full of Baathists, cap in hand. They are terrified of the Shia death squads and want to share in the pie when the oil starts flowing. Both Izzat al-Douri, the more prestigious of the two main Baathist leaders, and Mohamed Younis al Ahmed, the more lethal, have been reaching out from neighbouring countries to negotiate an accommodation. Since the summer, the news coming out on the Sunni front has consistently been in this one, inevitable direction.

If you think any of this is shocking, by the way, you should check out the reader discussion of the piece in First Drafts, Prospect’s blog. Compare the cool-headed sophistication — even in disagreement with the author — against the upset tummies that daily disgorge themselves in the Guardian’s comment threads.

That old diplomatic mindset and those well known diplomatic habits…

The same ritualised, practiced response, the speaking about ‘process’ and ‘bargaining’ and the stressing of the horrible fate of those who have been ‘caught in the middle’ — when of course, there is no middle — of a ’summit collapse’ or an end to ‘dialogue’. From Sudan to Zimbabwe to Burma … so it goes …always the same symbolic, liturgist excrement.

US to Admit More Iraqi Refugees

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That is, if there are any civilians left that Blackwater absurdist and repugnant stupid macho rambo morons haven’t killed yet:

“The acting ambassador at the United States Embassy in Baghdad suggested that Blackwater apologize for the shooting and pay the dead Iraqi man’s family $250,000, lest the Iraqi government bar Blackwater from working there, the report said. Blackwater eventually paid the family $15,000, according to the report, after an embassy diplomatic security official complained that the “crazy sums” proposed by the ambassador could encourage Iraqis to try to “get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”

Update: Extra link …wor Michael at Jewcy has something to add…

Popular and consumable images and narratives follow below…yes — a Utube moment.

What does?

Apparently, this does.

I have been among those few on the Left who opposed such self-serving moral crusades, from Bosnia to Darfur, because turning these crises into moral melodramas can only make matters worse for those on the receiving end of compassionate militarism.

Says Mick Hume, RCP’er and former editor of Living Marxism.

This attitude towards humanitarian intervention is becoming more common from other areas of the left. Rather than suggesting how future interventions can be improved, and how our obligations to our fellow man can be conducted, the response is to throw our arms up in despair and suggest that because something is complicated, nothing can be done. To paraphrase Kennedy, they do not do these things if they are easy, and certainly not if they are hard.

There are some on the left who use current difficulties to beat other sections of the left, rather than engaging in the issue itself. Take Conor Foley. He no doubt cares deeply about Afghanistan, but his latest piece is just typical of modern day isolationist leftism.

If the Taliban are welcomed back to Afghanistan’s government it will represent an extraordinary political defeat for the liberal interventionists.

I do hope that the RCP have a stock of sharp black suits in stock. In 2000 they were at a low point, but these days they could probably go a recruitment drive to collect all the leftists who abandoned their critical faculties in the wake of the Iraq war (It’s illegal you know!) and now find themselves touting Daily Mail reader-style isolationism disguised as leftism “internationalism”.