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May. 28th, 2005 01:08 amI am so into this laptop-finding Orwellocity the US Gov. has got going. When I first heard about The Capture of Al-Zarqawi's Laptop, I totally had a deja-boo (like deja-vou, but when caused by this administration) to last spring, distictly remembering a very similar story, and for a moment I thought we had a Weekend At Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's on our hands again, but no. Googling and going through my old emails revealed that what I had been thinking of was a piece in the Atlantic by Alan Cullison, the Moscow correspondent for Wall Street (and I am linking to a website that considerately reposted it after Atlantic online went into full-subscription mode), where he wrote about buying Al-Zawahiri's desktop computer in Kabul. The computer was very, very informative (although the story was downplayed by Faux et al, presumably because "The computer did not reveal any links to Iraq or any other deep-pocketed government; amid the group's penury the members fell to bitter infighting. The blow against the United States was meant to put an end to the internal rivalries, which are manifest in vitriolic memos between Kabul and cells abroad.").
But still, I would not be surprised if more and more members of that musical-chair-phenomenon of Al-Qaeda Top Five! didn't escape by the skin of their teeth, leaving behind laptops. Laptops are very useful concepts, much more useful than, say, an intercepted letter, much more plausible than, say, a filing cabinet where the drawers go "Usama," "USA," etc. Laptop can contain/"contain" any cluster of nodes, of knowledge, of information, everything necessary for the PR model of reporting. The only other way you could get/"get" as wide a range of information would be from, like, outsourcing a prisoner to, say, Uzbekistan, and there are all sorts of pesky ethical issues with that, and HRW tends to make a stink. It is so much easier when there just happens to be a laptop filled with the sort of crap found in that car in the Logan Airport parking lot on 9/12 and porn featuring 88 virgins languishing between two rivers marked, respectively, MILK and HONEY in ARABIC font.
I'm just saying.
You've got Schrodinger's Zarqawi and here you have a CIA operative describing the process of production of Emmanuel Goldstein, brought to you by FOX News, as playful with alliterations as your golden retreiver is with your kids.
Zarqawi Laptop Treasure Trove of Terror Info
"He's becoming the new bin Laden. He's the man out there carrying out attacks on Americans every day while bin Laden, who is heavily pressured and having difficulty communicating on a regular basis, is in the shadows and becoming more of a symbolic figure," former CIA counterterrorism director Vincent Cannistraro told the Post.
Yesterday I was watching a rough cut of a piece called "Fallujah" made by Jacquie Soohen (of Big Noise Films) and a couple of Deep Dish People [and if you are in NYC, it's going to screen at the Brecht Forum on June 1st, and you should go see it, because most of it is never-before-seen footage from Iraq, shot by Iraqis and you probably won't see it anywhere else], and the interviewed refugee Iraqis came to the same conclusion. "Is al-Zarqawi in Fallujah?" was the question. "We are all al-Zarqawi," was the answer. "Anywhere there is resistance to the occupation, that's al-Zarqawi. Arab dignity anywhere--that's Zarqawi to them."
In the meantime, Donald Rumsfeld the poet over in Fort Bragg composed one of his cryptic poems:
"Like Hitler in his bunker,
this violent extremist,
failing
to advance
his political objectives
now appears committed
to
destroying
everything and everyone around him"
He was subsequently arrested by the Godwin police. [Godwin Police, arrest this ma-an, he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fri-idge!]
In more good news, Saddam Exhibit Includes Lifelike Mannequin
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - When U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein from the hole in which he was hiding, the dictator was gaunt, dirty and disheveled, with a bushy beard, matted hair and a glazed-over look. It was not Saddam's best look, but it is how he will be remembered by the soldiers who collared him.
A lifelike mannequin of a beaten-down Saddam anchors a new exhibit at the 4th Infantry Division Museum that recounts his capture in Iraq in December 2003.
Um, yeah. Except for how the whole capture WAS STAGED
I mean, whatevs, I know how this History with a capital H gets made, History that is painted in mime makeup and sent To The People in sentiments such as ‘History will judge us’ or ‘History will redeem us,’ it is made through historical revisionism, promiscuity of metonymic links, and the semiotic blitz of iconic clusters organized according to thematic analogy, rather than temporal relationships. But seriously, does anyone remember this shit, or is there a rabbithole drug in the American water supply for real?
On an unrelated note, may I just say that the New York Post has been outdoing itself in the last week or so? While they will never top the time they photoshopped weasel heads onto the bodies of the United Nations Representatives on their front page*, in the last week their cover story achievements have included HOLY SHIITE (that you just know they were saving for the Koran-in-the-toilet story) and JEER-USALEM, apropos of the protests. OMG, like, did you know you can't spell JERUSALEM without spelling USA? But wait, you also can't spell USAMA without spelling USA? Can I buy another vowel??? Seriously. JEER-USALEM? Come on, people. This is not a Sinead O'Connor song. And people say *I* make bad puns.
Also, who knew? Trent Reznor can be funny!
"We were set to perform 'The Hand That Feeds' with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," Nine Inch Nails' leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site.
You may consider this a guest entry in my ever-growing Fuck You CNN collection because:
MTV said in a statement: "While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards."
MTV is owned by Viacom Inc., the corporate parent of broadcast network CBS.
FUCK YOU, MTV, for Dan Rathering Trent Reznot.
*
But still, I would not be surprised if more and more members of that musical-chair-phenomenon of Al-Qaeda Top Five! didn't escape by the skin of their teeth, leaving behind laptops. Laptops are very useful concepts, much more useful than, say, an intercepted letter, much more plausible than, say, a filing cabinet where the drawers go "Usama," "USA," etc. Laptop can contain/"contain" any cluster of nodes, of knowledge, of information, everything necessary for the PR model of reporting. The only other way you could get/"get" as wide a range of information would be from, like, outsourcing a prisoner to, say, Uzbekistan, and there are all sorts of pesky ethical issues with that, and HRW tends to make a stink. It is so much easier when there just happens to be a laptop filled with the sort of crap found in that car in the Logan Airport parking lot on 9/12 and porn featuring 88 virgins languishing between two rivers marked, respectively, MILK and HONEY in ARABIC font.
I'm just saying.
You've got Schrodinger's Zarqawi and here you have a CIA operative describing the process of production of Emmanuel Goldstein, brought to you by FOX News, as playful with alliterations as your golden retreiver is with your kids.
Zarqawi Laptop Treasure Trove of Terror Info
"He's becoming the new bin Laden. He's the man out there carrying out attacks on Americans every day while bin Laden, who is heavily pressured and having difficulty communicating on a regular basis, is in the shadows and becoming more of a symbolic figure," former CIA counterterrorism director Vincent Cannistraro told the Post.
Yesterday I was watching a rough cut of a piece called "Fallujah" made by Jacquie Soohen (of Big Noise Films) and a couple of Deep Dish People [and if you are in NYC, it's going to screen at the Brecht Forum on June 1st, and you should go see it, because most of it is never-before-seen footage from Iraq, shot by Iraqis and you probably won't see it anywhere else], and the interviewed refugee Iraqis came to the same conclusion. "Is al-Zarqawi in Fallujah?" was the question. "We are all al-Zarqawi," was the answer. "Anywhere there is resistance to the occupation, that's al-Zarqawi. Arab dignity anywhere--that's Zarqawi to them."
In the meantime, Donald Rumsfeld the poet over in Fort Bragg composed one of his cryptic poems:
"Like Hitler in his bunker,
this violent extremist,
failing
to advance
his political objectives
now appears committed
to
destroying
He was subsequently arrested by the Godwin police. [Godwin Police, arrest this ma-an, he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fri-idge!]
In more good news, Saddam Exhibit Includes Lifelike Mannequin
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - When U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein from the hole in which he was hiding, the dictator was gaunt, dirty and disheveled, with a bushy beard, matted hair and a glazed-over look. It was not Saddam's best look, but it is how he will be remembered by the soldiers who collared him.
A lifelike mannequin of a beaten-down Saddam anchors a new exhibit at the 4th Infantry Division Museum that recounts his capture in Iraq in December 2003.
Um, yeah. Except for how the whole capture WAS STAGED
I mean, whatevs, I know how this History with a capital H gets made, History that is painted in mime makeup and sent To The People in sentiments such as ‘History will judge us’ or ‘History will redeem us,’ it is made through historical revisionism, promiscuity of metonymic links, and the semiotic blitz of iconic clusters organized according to thematic analogy, rather than temporal relationships. But seriously, does anyone remember this shit, or is there a rabbithole drug in the American water supply for real?
On an unrelated note, may I just say that the New York Post has been outdoing itself in the last week or so? While they will never top the time they photoshopped weasel heads onto the bodies of the United Nations Representatives on their front page*, in the last week their cover story achievements have included HOLY SHIITE (that you just know they were saving for the Koran-in-the-toilet story) and JEER-USALEM, apropos of the protests. OMG, like, did you know you can't spell JERUSALEM without spelling USA? But wait, you also can't spell USAMA without spelling USA? Can I buy another vowel??? Seriously. JEER-USALEM? Come on, people. This is not a Sinead O'Connor song. And people say *I* make bad puns.
Also, who knew? Trent Reznor can be funny!
"We were set to perform 'The Hand That Feeds' with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," Nine Inch Nails' leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site.
You may consider this a guest entry in my ever-growing Fuck You CNN collection because:
MTV said in a statement: "While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards."
MTV is owned by Viacom Inc., the corporate parent of broadcast network CBS.
FUCK YOU, MTV, for Dan Rathering Trent Reznot.
*
