It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Irregular Times News Roundup Podcast for October 11, 2007 |
Where can you listen to political conversation about the recklessness of George W. Bush, the fecklessness of Democrats, two congressional candidates running insurgent campaigns from the left and a presidential candidate who’s been touched by an angel? We’re just betting you won’t get the touched-by-an-angel angle anywhere else.
Click here to listen to the Irregular Times News Roundup for October 11, 2007.
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One small detail: paying the family of an Iraqi killed by troop action is not hush money, it’s more like insurance. Or rather, insurance is like the wrongful death payment, only the risk is spread over more people. The payment is a way to try to forestall revenge killings. If you read the Viking sagas, there was a similar payment plan with exact amounts called out for killing free, thralls, etc. Failure to pay the settlement resulted in escalating revenge killings.
I once heard a story about Arab auto insurance–the informal kind. A girl was hit accidentally and the family of the person that hit her paid all the medical expenses, then went on and paid her way through university. I guess the point was to prove they found her life valuable, the mishap was indeed an accident, and they were willing to take responsibility on a personal (well, tribal family) level for the girl’s well-being.
Comment by Iroquois — 10/12/2007 @ 2:00 am
Oh, and chipotle is really hot here for group potluck parties. One person brings the tinga ( no, not chinga, that’s a bad word). Tinga is a sort of pulled chicken, looks like white meat, and seasoned with chipotle sauce which has a vaguely smoky flavor. Another person brings the shredded lettuce, another the stiff little round corn tortillas (high in fat, if you do this at home use soft tortillas), another tomatoes, then you take a tortilla and start piling the stuff on top of it. Our clerical staff goes nuts with this and so do my students. My students say use the canned chipotle, but I discovered chipotle sauce in a jar with less fat.
The other day I didn’t have any yogurt for a chicken BBQ marinade, so I did the basic Mike Royko sauce: some commercial BBQ sauce, crushed garlic, and a little bit of whatever you’re drinking (in this case Czech pilsner). Then I added some chipotle sauce. And threw some oak chips on the fire before covering it and letting it smoke. The result was just too incredible to believe.
Comment by Iroquois — 10/12/2007 @ 2:24 am
One small detail: When the State Department tells Blackwater to pay the money to keep the story quiet, it’s hush money.
Another small detail: When you’re dealing with the American government, you need to have American standards of law and ethics, not the standards of the Arab street.
Comment by Fruktata — 10/12/2007 @ 4:53 am
I seriously doubt we could impose the American insurance system on the Iraqi government, even if we wanted to.
Let me be more succinct about the payments. It is life insurance. It is not a payment to keep quiet. If you kill someone and don’t make restitution to their tribe, they will kill someone in YOUR tribe. Arabs just don’t get the idea that Americans are not all one big tribal family. If their family honor is not satisfied, they will go out and kill random Americans to even the score.
Comment by Iroquois — 10/12/2007 @ 8:47 am
I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I think you’re missing my point. To accept the American government’s descent to this level of killing people, then paying them money so that they don’t get upset - and don’t leak the story to the news media, is to accept that the US government is nothing more than the property of warlords.
The U.S. State Department should not be encouraging American mercenaries to pay hush money in order to prevent political problems here in the United States.
I judge the actions of the American government by American standards.
Comment by Fruktata — 10/12/2007 @ 9:14 am
Where does it say they were told not to speak to the media? Where does it say the money was not for wrongful death?
The military has paid out money for deaths before, but not for collateral deaths from military actions. Some Iraqis have tried to falsify massacres in order to try to get money, but after investigation money was not paid out. As I see it, the payment of money is an admission of wrongful death and something done improperly on the part of their employees, unless they’re just giving them money to shut them up and keep them from making false claims, which would be stupid way to deal with Arabs. Stupidity is of course not out of the realm of possibility.
Where is your link?
Comment by Iroquois — 10/12/2007 @ 10:03 am
Iroquois, Blackwater won’t even give out the NAME of the Blackwater mercenary who, in one of these instances, got drunk, then shot the bodyguard of the Iraqi Vice President. The State Department instructed Blackwater NOT to talk to Congress, much less the media.
You want a link? Go to the web site this very podcast suggests, for the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform - house.gov/oversight, which documents all this.
Comment by Fruktata — 10/12/2007 @ 10:39 am