On any given night, I have the possibility of watching 6 different NHL games. MSG, FSNY, ESPN, ESPN2, and the channel the Isles are on that I can't recall the name. Here Bill Simmons, one of the most talented men on ESPN.com right now, writes why he's moved on from watching hockey. He, like me, grew up watching the Bruins and slowly became disillusioned in the 90's after we knew the B's should have won the cup in the early 90's, but didn't pony up the cash and never would.

Aside from his complaints about the speed of the league and the influx of Europeans, I agree with the entire column. The league itself is just terrible. I played hockey for 20 years and the various changes wrought by Gary Bettman have slowly torn the hockey heart out of my chest. I try to get back into it, but my team sucks and will never commit to winning. I like going to games, but it's too expensive to be more than an occasional event. The only thing that keeps my interest now is college hockey, but TV has yet to discover this gem and there aren't enough fans to make it at all national. Of course, these were the hurdles that the NHL tried unsuccessfully to jump but wound up falling flat in a puddle of its own filth.

Now I make an annual trek to Boston to watch the Hockey East championships. I call on the morning that tickets are released to get my favorite seats. I have a secret location (I humor myself that it's secret, I'm sure others know about it) where I want my seats as it is by far the best place to watch a game from. Jess humors me by coming along and I think she might start to look forward to it after a decade or so of attending. I echo Simmons hope that the pro league will get a wake-up call and turn it around. I'm not expecting much though, as long as Bettman is commissioner.
- posted by levinson @ 10/26/2001 02:32:00 PM

 
A somber but pointed memo from Thomas Friedman today in the Times. I think my thoughts on the situation are pretty clear. In the other Times (in London), we have a report that bin Laden has acquired nuclear materials. Of course, Debka had a more chilling report two weeks ago that bin Laden acquired nuclear suitcases from the Russian mafia years ago.

Jess and I figured out last night that your chances of contracting Anthrax in NYC are about .0001%. Jess said that if it were up to her, we'd move out of the city. I share her anxiety, but at this point, I'm willing to play it safe by staying since the odds are greater that we'd be killed driving out of the city.
- posted by levinson @ 10/26/2001 06:56:00 AM

 
An interesting and extremely informative op-ed from William Safire. An admitted old man of journalism nicely belittles his colleagues for doing nothing but take what they're given from the official sources on the various issues regarding both the war and the attack on the US. It will be interesting to see if anyone steps up to the plate.
- posted by levinson @ 10/22/2001 09:14:00 AM

 
Funny quote in an otherwise serious and pointed article from Salon:

• "The great unsolved mystery of the terror attacks of the past decades, whether sponsored by oil-rich Libya or the elite of Saudi Arabia, is why men of wealth are not content to simply be rich and instead turn crazy."

- posted by levinson @ 10/18/2001 06:54:00 AM

 
Susan Sontag talks with Salon about her piece in the New Yorker which upset a lot of people including me. I hadn't heard of her before her opinion piece and here she presents her views more lucidly than in her column which she wrote after taking in a tremendous amount of CNN coverage. I enjoyed the interview.
- posted by levinson @ 10/16/2001 09:22:00 AM

 
Some good food for thought from Safire this morning. As he points out, this will be a great reference in the months to come to see how the battle is playing out. Need to make my own "dunno sheet".
- posted by levinson @ 10/15/2001 07:46:00 AM

 
If the two anthrax cases are linked to terrorism, it appears they are targetting media sources. The question is why. There are several possibilities, but I haven't yet settled on one particular reason.
- posted by levinson @ 10/12/2001 09:59:00 AM

 
Jane's takes up the problems with an effort by the US to rebuild post-Taliban Afghanistan on the model of the Marshall Plan. Reading Marshall's speech shows similarities and profound differences between war ravaged Europe and Afghanistan. Marshall offered primarily financial aid, but included goods and services as needed to help the countries rebuild. This was done, as the first page states,

• "[t]o promote world peace and the general welfare, national interest, and foreign policy of the United States through economic, financial and other measures necessary to the maintenance of conditions abroad in which free institutions may survive and consistent with the maintenance of the strength and stability of the United States."

The challenge in Afghanistan today is far greater since there is no infrastructure to rebuild. There is literally nothing there. The country has been at war of one kind or another for 22 years. Any semblance of government, commerce, or social structure not related to making war disappeared long ago. It is these institutions that need to be built from the ground up. In my opinion, the basic infrastructure and commerce pieces need to be set up in an environment insulated from governmental corruption. While it would certainly have its own problems, I think the UN needs to draw up an act akin to the Marshall Plan to deal with Afghanistan that puts reconstruction before finding the most powerful politico of the moment to take over as dictator. Basic economic units such as roads and markets need to be established before we create a government that will do nothing but siphen off aid intended for the people to line its own pockets. Once there is a structure to govern, then one can be set up.

Significantly, the only way to ensure that this be started is to have a blanket international military presence in the country. Perhaps we could send Powell to the UN to build such a coalition.
- posted by levinson @ 10/12/2001 08:15:00 AM

 
Continuing on Krugman's op-ed from Wednesday. The Senate yesterday voted to federalize airport security 100-0. It's not clear how large the opposition in the House is, but we will find out just how freakishly estranged Delay, Barr and other House members are from the people of the US next week.
- posted by levinson @ 10/12/2001 07:11:00 AM

 
Krugman on making the federal government in charge of airport security and who's opposing it. One of the little ways that government is getting back to normal. Congressional republicans taking a hard line against increased federal spending. Doesn't matter what kind of spending. Any spending at all is bad. Another example (though they are waning) of the WTC attack showing how out of touch some of the mainstream members of our government and national discourse are. Hopefully their political opponents will oust them when their next term comes up.
- posted by levinson @ 10/11/2001 09:15:00 AM

 
Looks like the government is making good on its promises to get more than the bin Laden camp of terrorists. CNN reports that the government is once again trying to lay its hands on Imad Mughniyah. Hopefully we'll see more of this in the coming weeks even as we have the difficult task of extricating bin Laden from his mountain fortress (see story for October 9).
- posted by levinson @ 10/10/2001 09:26:00 AM

 
To be filed under "Understatement of the 21st Century":

• "It is a big family. There is a black sheep in every big family."
  -Abdullah Mohammed Binladin, one of Osama bin Laden's younger brothers

- posted by levinson @ 10/07/2001 07:32:00 AM

 
A little more on the Iraqi angle. It appears Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in June. While I've made clear the fact that I think Iraq was involved in the attack, this angle will be the most difficult to prove and nearly impossible to rally any support for action against Saddam. According to Joshua Hammer, there is increasing anxiety inside of Iraq.
- posted by levinson @ 10/07/2001 07:01:00 AM

 
Two quick snips on the terrorism front.

• An op-ed in the Concord Journal that is in line with my thinking on the motivation of bin Laden et al. Though this opinion carries more weight, in my eyes, than mine since Dr. El-Baz is an expert on the region.


• Stratfor on the possible connections between the terrorist networks and the Afghan drug traffick. An interesting issue in terms of money and gathering of resources. The drug trade is among the most lucrative and hunted industries in the world. While a chasm of ideology would seem to separate drug lords and fundamentalists, the Taliban's use of opium to finance itself shows that the leaders see no problem in dealing with narcotics to further their interests.

Finally, it seems the Israel/US situation is getting heated with Sharon not wanting to be left out in the cold. Hard to blame him when he sees the Rumsfeld meeting each of Israel's fiercest opponents on a grand tour, with no stop in Israel. My suspicion is that Sharon has been waiting for the strikes to start so he can attack the PLO and the terrorist organizations in his country without remorse. This will be a difficult story to follow in the US media, but hopefully other sources will report on it.
- posted by levinson @ 10/05/2001 04:08:00 PM

 
Conason makes some good points today regarding the fabricated threat to Air Force One on Sept. 11. Many will say that his lambasting the White House is ill-timed and unpatriotic during this time of national crisis. However, if the White House is going to lie to us, we need to call them on it and demand a credible and honest account of what really happened. It's one thing to not comment on any threats that may or may not have been made (which is now being done) against the President, but to fabricate them during a time of national emergency is unconscionable. Some will point out that in a time of war, the public can't expect to be told everything. Agreed. However, that still does not excuse lying about the safety of the President because it helps quell some belt-way gossiping. The press, at the very least, should extensively investigate for no other reason than to make sure we're not lied to in this way in the future.
- posted by levinson @ 10/05/2001 12:56:00 PM

 
Article on Salon from yesterday about the shelving of the results of the Florida recount. I must admit I don't mind it being delayed since it deserves appropriate coverage. It's a major story and should be treated as such. If the consortium can't devote the resources (which I doubt), or the space (which I do believe) since everything in the news is about terrorism, then a delay makes sense. When does the delay end? After the first major strike unless that doesn't materialize by the middle of next week. I'm interested in the report, but I want all the information when it is reported. Normally I can understand when stories aren't flushed out completely, but this is one that has taken time and can afford to be in the can a little longer.
- posted by levinson @ 10/05/2001 12:47:00 PM

 
In this week's New Yorker is a letter from Cairo. I think it is helpful in understanding the mindset of the soldier (but not the leaders) of the terrorist organizations to think on this quote:

• "It's very difficult to understand the machinery of hatred, because you wind up resorting to logic, but trying to understand this with logic is like measuring distance with kilograms. These are people who are afraid of America, afraid of life itself....These are people who are envious. To them, life is an unbearable burden. Modernism is the only way out. But modernism is frightening. It means we have to compete. It means we can't explain everything away with conspiracy theories...Bernard Shaw said it best...[i]n the preface to 'St. Joan,' he said Joan of Arc was burned not for any reason except that she was talented. Talent gives rise to jealousy in the hearts of the untalented."

- posted by levinson @ 10/04/2001 05:54:00 PM

 
An interesting exercise in spin done by columnist Robert Scheer on Salon. Scheer would like to make the point that trusting criminals to do the US government's dirty work for it doesn't work. To illustrate his point, he cites the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations' use of the Mafia to attempt the assination of Castro. He writes in rebuttal to Times columnist Thomas Friedman's suggestion that, "it takes a home-grown network to destroy a home-grown network." I find this to be an astute point given that our intelligence agencies are admittedly far behind in the war against terrorism. Further, Scheer's attempt to compare Friedman's "home-grown terrorists" with the 1950's US Mafia falls short. The US Mafia was not a Cuban organization. They had opened businesses there by cosying up to the very regime that Castro overthrew. Their knowledge of Castro's whereabouts and habits was as useless as the current US intelligence agencies' knowledge of the same about bin Laden. Intelligence experts have come out unanimously in asserting that one of the great failures of the CIA et al. over the past decade has been moving away from using criminals as informants. The criminals are the people that know the whereabouts of other criminals. Scheer makes a good point that the US should not entrust these criminal organizations to kill bin Laden for us, but I don't think that was Friedman's suggestion. "Something tells me Mr. Putin, the Russian president and former K.G.B. spymaster, has the phone number of the guy in the Russian mafia who knows the guy in the Afghan cartels who knows the guy who knows the guy who knows where Mr. bin Laden is hiding."

Friedman also says, "[t]hey know how to operate as a covert network and how to root out a competing network, such as Mr. bin Laden's. They can be bought and know how to buy others. And they understand that when we say we want someone 'dead or alive' we mean 'dead or dead.'" This could be interpreted to mean that Friedman advocates using those groups to do our killing for us. Scheer does not use this quote to back his argument. I think we need to buy off criminals to find bin Laden. We may then have to turn around and arrest our informants, but that's war; it's a dirty business. We may also attempt to buy off the wrong people and get burned a few times. We must accept that eventuality as well. One lesson we must learn from our past in Afghanistan is that we can't achieve our short-term goals and then pull up stakes in the middle east. The US must accept that it's in the region for the long haul and we're going to get dirty while we're there. Concurrently, we must be careful not to cross the line. Where is the line? Ask Kissinger.
- posted by levinson @ 10/04/2001 05:48:00 PM

 
Someone needs to post the litany of one-liners that the Taliban has issued since Sept. 11. Here's the latest:

• A Taliban envoy said Oct. 4 the group would not hand over Osama bin Laden even if shown proof of his links to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to Reuters. 1655 GMT, 011004

STRATFOR with this one again.
- posted by levinson @ 10/04/2001 02:31:00 PM

 
Two interesting snippets from STRATFOR's situtaion reports today:

• The Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar called on rich Muslims to fund the regime's defense, Reuters reported. "Merchants and owners of capital, your prime duty is to spend in the way of God," he said. 011003



• Saudi Arabia will reportedly provide free oil to Pakistan should it participate in the U.S.-led military strikes against Afghanistan, reported IRNA. 2136 GMT, 011003

Well Mohammad (by the way, the whole "mullah" title is not official, it's just what people call him out of respect (read: fear), the guy has little actual religious training) looks like the rich muslims are using their capital, but it's to destroy you. Got to be a bitch when your former allies start funding the opposition.
- posted by levinson @ 10/04/2001 09:00:00 AM

 
Now that the US has moved away from a mode of pure shock and is allowing the government to carry out its response and campaign, the issues confronting the interested (on this topic) citizen have evolved from merely interpreting the information as presented to finding our own information and evaluating it. An ongoing issue is, naturally, the investigation into who was behind the attacks. While the government's first moves have been against bin Laden, I am skeptical that he is truly the man behind the attacks. I don't doubt his involvement, I'm convinced (as I've said before) that there were others, including at least one state, involved. Today, Jane's profiles Ayman Al-Zawahiri and paints a portrait of not only a more sophisticated criminal than I believe bin Laden to be, but one who would have more connections to intelligence agencies in the middle east. As I've noted, I believe bin Laden's motivation to be destabilizing the region and the US's control of peace in Saudi Arabia so that he (bin Laden) can mount a coup and take control of the Saudi oil fields. I don't know enough about al-Zawahiri to yet deduce any future goal. My initial thought is that he may wish to overthrow the Egyptian goverment and for a religious state along the lines of Iran.
- posted by levinson @ 10/03/2001 10:24:00 AM