Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Operation Yellow Elephant

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Operation Yellow Elephant.

I am not making this up. (Someone else did.)

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on Operation Yellow Elephant

Does the Truth Matter?

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

As an academic, I'm very pro-Truth. I think trying to figure out what it is and then sharing it is a big part of my job. (Even if it's inherently an elusive sort of a concept. But there can be truths about that, too…)

Society, however, doesn't seem too excited about truth. Consider this depressing post by Digby at Hullabaloo:

During the campaign Bush repeatedly lied about the reasons for the Iraq war, even based upon the irrefutable public record, and as best I can tell the travelling press corp never bothered to comment upon it

Then he documents it at some length.

Depressed enough yet? Consider his next post about what the cable networks think is newsworthy. Hint: a lot involves someone named “Natalee Holloway”; not much involves the real issues of the day.

Update: The science version — for this administration reality is just an option….and not such an attractive one.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment

Iraq Rhymes With Vietnam

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

How is the Iraq War like the Vietnam war? Let us count the ways. Oh, wait, the Cunning Realist has done it for us, riffing off a Mark Twain line that “History doesn't repeat itself; at best it sometimes rhymes”:

S/he finds fifteen similarities between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq, and then issues a challenge:

If someone—-perhaps a supporter of this war—-can come up with fifteen ways in which the two conflicts differ materially, I look forward to reading your list in the comments section:

Well, let's see. I'm no supporter of the war, but I like a challenge.

1. It was wet in Vietnam, it's dry in Iraq.

2. There's much more oil in Iraq and more money to be made there.

3. In the case of Vietnam, the US government made up or exaggerated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in order to spook Congress and justify its actions. In the case of Iraq, the US government latched on to a real but irrelevant attack on the US to spook Congress and justify its actions.

4. In Vietnam the US fought against nationalists and a political ideology (Communism). In Iraq, the US fights against nationalism and a religious ideology (radical Islam). The Islamicists have more allies with less to lose who are thus more willing to help them.

5. I give up.

Posted in Iraq | 7 Comments

Classroom Perils — and Reliefs

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I've had the rare sleeping student but not, thank goodness, the Phantom Professor's starved and fainting student, nor the regularly scheduled sleeper.

And that intelligent woman who regularly scowled at me from the front row for a good chunk of the semester (what could I possibly have said to offend her, I used to fret) — turns out she wasn't scowling at me at all: she was fighting morning sickness.

Posted in Law School | 4 Comments

What He Said (Gen. Sanchez edition)

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I was going to fulminate about the trial balloon launched regarding promoting Gen. Sanchez. But Billion already did the job. So go see Whiskey Bar: Rewarding Failure.

One tiny footnote: as I understand it, Gen. Sanchez technically may not have perjured himself in front of Congress as he said he hadn't authorized highly coercive interrogation methods in the past year. It may have been just over twelve months since he'd done it.

That's very misleading, and certainly prevarication, but I'm not sure if it's technically perjury.

Posted in Iraq | 2 Comments

Snooper Nation

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Most employers read staff's email:

MORE THAN 55 per cent of US companies snoop on their staff's private email and over 60 per cent are planning to hire more spies, according to a 2005 survey by the American Management Association and Columbus, an Ohio-based training and consulting firm The ePolicy Institute.

Generally speaking, if the staff has advance notice this is legal. (In some cases it may be legal without the notice either.)

Think about what this means for the social compact.

And be warned.

Posted in Law: Privacy | 1 Comment