Innocent abroad

Tipping point

2009-06-26T07:14:06Z

There comes a time in every expatriate's life when he can't explain what the hell is going on with The Old Country.

That moment the last time out for me was when I failed to understand a Far Side cartoon. A cow orker (also a Merkin expat but basically grew up here) had a Far Side daily calendar. The lo cal cow orkers would peruse it each day and attempt to decipher it. I was often consulted in cases of non-comprehension. I was utterly unable to explain "The Life and Times of Baby Jessica" being unable to recall who Baby Jessica was and why her travails should be particularly funny.

So, who are Kate and Jon? And why does Gmail think I would be interested?

Lo cal news

2009-04-17T10:41:04Z

I guess Lewis Hamilton has a get-out-jail-free card:

British expat and Formula One driving champion Lewis Hamilton reportedly runs a stop sign and crashes his Mercedes into a Peugeot driven by a woman, accompanied by her child, in the Geneva [Switzerland] suburb where he lives. The car struck is a write-off but Geneva police say they have no report of the incident, although a newspaper columnist says officers managed to obtain the McLaren driver’s autograph after investigating the case.

From Swisster

That poor woman is going to have a hell of time getting the insurance company to pay up with no ticket issued to Mr. "traffic laws are optional" Hamilton.

On this day in lo cal history...

2009-04-07T10:19:34Z

From Martin Gilbert's "D-Day":

On April 7 [1944], German troops moved against French Resistance fighters in the hills around Gex and Oyonnax, in the Jura Mountains. Code-named Operation Spring, the sweep involved six German regiments and a regiment of Cossacks - Soviet citizens who, having been taken prisoner of war in southern Russia in 1941 and 1942, had volunteered to fight for the Germans.

On the first day of the sweep, five members of the Resistance were killed and thirteen captured.

Gex is about five miles from our house. We hike and ski in the mountains where Operation Spring was carried out. It is strange to think the border a couple of hundred yards from our home was so fraught, a dividing line between safety and mass murder, beyond which the distinction between soldier and civilian, combatant and non-combatant, traitor and patriot was so blurred.

Five dead is a minuscule toll in the tens of millions dead in World War II. But if you look around, you see small reminders of the guerrilla war in France that broke out in 1944: the war monuments in small towns that list the civilian dead of June 1944 in addition to the soldiers sacrificed in 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945. You see it in a small monument commemorating an atrocity by the side of the road to a ski station. Do they still speak to us?

A voice in the wilderness

2009-04-03T10:56:42Z

Sarah Palin is back in the news again.

After Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich called for Senator Mark Begich to step down and a special election be held for his (rightfully won - ed.) seat, Sarah Palin weighed in:

In an email to POLITICO, Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton confirmed the governor’s position. “She absolutely agrees that there should be a special election,” Stapleton wrote. “Stepping down to hold the special election would be the right thing to do.”

State party chairmen are supposed to be partisan attack dogs so I'd expect Ruedrich to throw bombs like this:

“A special election will allow Alaskans to have a real, non-biased, credible process where the most qualified person could win, without the manipulation of the Department of Justice,” he added.

But why would Governor Palin chime in?

Maybe she figures that getting a shot at clawing back another Senate seat will buy her some political cred with the Republican voters in 2012. Maybe she was upset at the Republican machine taking a hit. Maybe she is just a loony.

Dispatches from a small country

2009-04-01T15:35:47Z

Nude hiking in Switzerland is enough of a problem that Appenzell is trying to pass a law against it. Legal complications ensue because there are no laws against public nudity and the mooted laws may not pass constitutional muster.

Note: the print edition of this story in the International Herald Tribune did not include the photo illustration shown in the Web version above.

A Saudi prince staying in Geneva rents 66 luxury cars in Munich for his transportation needs. Lo cal car rental businesses are outraged, lo cal chauffeurs are somewhat mollified that most of the drivers are to be locals.

In other lo cal news, there has been a Buggati Veyron parked in front of the Hôtel des Bergues off and on over the past couple of weeks. I just thought you would like to know.

The Swiss Peoples Party (SVP/UDC) has decided to take action against "the rampant Islamization" of Switzerland by proposing legislation banning minarets. In an inexorable march of logic, the UDC explains that minarets will be followed by muezzins and the imposition of Sharia law in Switzerland.

Check out the debate between Tariq Ramadan and UDC rabble rouser Oskar Freysinger on the lo cal public affairs TV show "Infrarouge."

Re Tariq Ramadan: Ramadan is somewhat of a lo cal gadfly. An Islamic intellectual, Ramadan has labored to define an "European Islam" which seems to please nobody. Europeans are suspect him of being of a crypto-Islamic radical and Islamic fundamentalists scorn him for his flirtation with secularism. The US gummamint suspects him of being a crypto-terrorist and refused him a visa to take up an appointment at the University of Notre Dame because he had contributed money to two Palestinian charities between 1998 and 2002 which the US deemed as Hamas fronts in 2003.

Crash and burn

2009-01-22T13:08:27Z

The Daily Beast had an account from Mark McKinnon who tagged along with Bush on his return home.

Apparently it offered little in the way of irony or drama and was all in all a hearty gathering good old guys and gals.

And it’s nice to see that while some partisans have yet to sheath their swords, Obama too has warmed to President Bush during this period of peaceful, diplomatic, and graceful transition. He now believes, as does anyone who knows President Bush, that he is a “good guy” and that “he made the best decisions that he could at times under some very difficult circumstances.”

Aboard the Bush Plane

So this is the reductio ad absurdem of the George's claim to power. Decisions don't matter. Consequences don't matter. All that matters is that one be dubbed a "good guy" and it all comes out in the wash.

Since McKinnon uses quotes, I assume that they are not his words but the words of someone else on the plane. How can he miss the left handed compliment of "he made the best decisions that he could?"

So exits a President born to privilege ("born on third base, thought he hit a triple") who treated the country and his office as another plaything.

Guess the Inaugural VIP

2009-01-20T18:04:48Z

What VIP at the Inauguration does this remind you of?

Three guesses and the first two don't count.

The view from abroad

2008-11-05T09:57:41Z

I stayed up late last night waiting for some whiff of exit polls or results but went to bed disappointed.

My clock radio woke me up this morning with Obama's acceptance speech so I knew it would be A Good Day.

This is my third Presidential election seen from afar and it has been astounding, amazing and moving in ways I would never have expected.

Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Kerry in 2004, all drew mild curiosity from those jaded Yurpeans. This time it was different.

There was live coverage last night on French TV and Swiss TV, kind of odd when since they had absolutely no results to discuss until the wee hours of the morning here. But the images they ran of ecstatic voters reduced me to tears. Mailing an absentee ballot just doesn't have the emotion resonance of going down to the local precinct and pulling the metaphorical lever.

This morning French and Swiss TV was all about Obama.

Some of coverage was cynical (some lefty French socialist speculating that Obama would be a protectionist) but most of the coverage was astonishment that American Democracy was as good as its word that anyone could grow up to be President.

Here's a sampling from a correspondent of the lo cal paper:

Les huit ans du règne immonde de Deubeulyou Bush sont donc achevés. Et pour la première fois, un fils de l’Afrique va présider la puissance numéro un de la planète. Etonnante Amérique. On la savait capable du pire – Abou Ghraib, Guantánamo, la torture officialisée, le Patriot Act. Barack Obama nous rappelle qu’elle l’est aussi du meilleur. Alors, laissons éclater notre joie devant cette victoire historique d’un métis démocrate sur une vieille culotte de peau républicaine flanquée d’une Calamity Palin qui vient du froid et qui ferait bien d’y retourner pour ne plus le quitter.

The President of Switzerland, Michelline Calmy-Rey, proclaimed:

En élisant un président noir et un vice-président catholique, «l'Amérique a montré qu'elle était capable d'ouvrir de nouvelles frontières», a déclaré le président de la Confédération sur les ondes.

Not to be picky, but we got over the whole Catholic thing with JFK but that's Old Europe for you.

There will be disappointment, both in the USA and abroad. The expectations for Obama are impossibly high (put yourself in Obama's shoes, think how daunting that would be).

But I can't escape feeling that the US has turned some kind of corner yesterday. We won't have a President that publically scoffs at outrages on human dignity. Maybe we have a President that will do something about the various gathering dooms of economic calamity, wars and global warming.

Today I am OK with being an American abroad.

Channeling my inner hippie

2008-10-13T06:50:21Z

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Actually, I am a believer in American exceptionalism and the judicious application of US military, diplomatic and economic power.

Going Negative

2008-10-07T09:57:57Z

The Slate Gabfest discussed McCain's strategy in response to Obama's widening lead in the polls. The Gabfest thought McCain would get personal and get negative. They also thought that McCain was holding the Rev. Wright and Williams Ayers issues in reserve as ammunition for their attacks.

Now that Palin has accused Obama of befriending terrorists (an oblique reference to Ayers), I am sure that Wright won't be far behind.

But throwing Wright and Ayers at Obama feels like a desperation move to me.

First, it is too early. The Wright flap lasted all of a week or two in its incarnation in the news cycle. It will get a lot less in its reincarnation. While the Ayers connection has not gotten the exposure that Wright did, there is also a lot less there.

I would have expected Wright and Ayers to have been trotted out ten days before the election if McCain was within the margin of error in the polls not a month before with McCain falling farther behind. To mix metaphors. it looks like McCain is trying to stop the bleeding instead of saving something for the final sprint.

Second, Wright and Ayers would have worked best early in the election when Obama was unknown to some significant fraction of the electorate. With a month to go, that fraction is a lot smaller.

Third, Obama has some ammunition of his own: McCain was one of the Keating Five. It is old news but the parallels between the S&L meltdown and the current economic implosion are compelling. Throw McCain's Keating Five history on top of the beating that McCain's antics in the bailout and his weakness on the economy and Obama could put the election out of McCain's reach.

There are other signs that both McCain and the Republicans are in big trouble. Several high profile Republican senators are in tight races - Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina for example - and they will compete for TV time and money with McCain. McCain pulling out of Michigan shows that McCain is still suffering from tight money and manpower.

McCain has done himself a lot of damage the last couple of weeks. The campaign suspension stunt backfired badly. The revolt of the House Republicans revealed his weak grasp on his party. I wonder if yet another McCain campaign shakeup is coming.

The chattering classes have criticized Obama for not making sufficient electoral hay with the economic turmoil but he has played it exactly right. McCain looked impulsive and ineffective in the bailout faceoff while Obama was steady and reassuring.

And then there is Palin. McCain's campaign is trumpeting the fact that they have exceeded the levels of volunteer campaign worker turnout set by Bush. Palin certainly has fired up the Christian Right and boosted McCain's GOTB (get out the Base) efforts. But by other measures, Democrat vs. Republican voter registration, fundraising and the raw numbers, the Republicans are still not the majority party, show whatever Palin brings to the ticket will be outmatched by Obama grassroots organization.

So I'm reasonably confident of an Obama victory at this point and I am secretly entertaining hopes of a blowout in the House and Senate that could give Obama a workable majority in Congress.

Honest Abe

2008-10-01T09:41:31Z

I like this one, I really do:

see Sarah Palin pictures

Geronimo!

2008-09-27T15:19:19Z

Pull the ripcord on that golden parachute!

It emerged last night that Alan H Fishman, the Washington Mutual chief executive on the job since September 8, is entitled to more than $13m in severance and bonus pay, according to a company filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

From The Herald

That works out to $27083/hour if he was on the job 24/7 or $116071/hour if he worked banker's hours.

Nice work if you can get it.

warinner @ 2008-09-26T15:38:00

2008-09-26T14:02:07Z

Foods I have indulged in after the cut

1. Venison
2. Nettle Tea
3. Huevos Rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese Fondue Hell, there are a lot more kinds of fondues.
8. Carp
9. Borscht Borscht is considered an exotic food?
10. Baba Ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black Truffle
18. Fruit wine made with something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio Ice Cream
21. Heirloom Tomatoes
22. Wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and Beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de Leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi
32. Clam chowder
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Cottage Cheese
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth Â£60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken Tikki Masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea Urchin
51. Prickly Pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle What, no rosti?
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob Chips
61. S'mores
62. Sweet Breads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Churro
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe Beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam Fried spam no less.
92. Soft Shell Crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole Poblano
96. Bagel and Lox
97. Lobster
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Dang, I'm hungry now.

Holey cow!

2008-09-25T07:18:37Z

more music charts

Never better than late

2008-09-24T15:43:39Z

From the International Herald Tribune:

NEW YORK: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska met her first foreign heads of state as she crisscrossed New York City receiving foreign policy tutorials in advance of her vice presidential debate next week with Senator Joseph Biden Jr., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

...

"Her primary purpose was to develop a relationship and to listen," said [Steve Biegun, a former staff member of President George W. Bush's National Security Council], who quickly added, "I think she's already fully prepared to be vice president."

My country, right or wrong

2008-09-04T10:47:54Z

Sez Mitt Romney taking a cheap shot at Michelle Obabma:

"Just like you [the True Blue Republicans, not the dastardly Michelle Obama], there has never been a day when I was not proud to be an American,"

There have been a few days when I have not been proud to be an American:

- The days of the post Rodney King verdict LA riots
- The day of the release of the Abu Ghraib photos
- Every time George W. Bush says "we don't torture."
- The day the US invaded Iraq.

I'd love to ask Mitt how he felt about those and a few others.

American as apple pie

2008-09-04T06:46:40Z

In French, a pie chart is a "camembert."

This makes me laugh.

The Obvious Choice

2008-09-01T12:39:18Z

So why did McCain pick Palin? Theories abound:

- To attract disgruntled PUMAs to go McCain
- To energize "values" voters (or to be less charitable, fundies)
- To attract "soccer moms"
- To step on Obama's "change" cred
- To step on Obama's acceptance speech media moment
- To better define a reform ticket

Palin does shore up McCain's weakness with the Christian Right. In a race that appears to be tight every constituency counts. Fundies provide another important campaign asset: feet on the street. There is a lot of volunteer work done in a campaign and the fundies have been reliable foot soldiers for the Republicans. But McCain could have picked someone like Mike Huckabee and gotten a lot more.

Beyond that, McCain picking Palin is not at all obvious.

The electoral justifications for picking Palin are dubious. Palin's anti-abortion position is not going to siphon off a lot PUMAs and will limit her appeal to soccer moms.

In the standard measures of electoral clout, the number of electoral votes a state commands or its dominance in a region, McCain could not picked a VP with less.

I've hard the conservative punditry (David Brooks and Tony Blankley for example) justify Palin as being a kindred reformer just like McCain. How Palin's twenty months of gubernatorial experience prepares her for pushing through a national reform program they did not explain.

It was funny to hear the conservative talking heads touting the few nuggets of reform agenda that could be gleaned from her very thin resumé.

It was even funnier to hear the pundits talk up McCain and Palin as reforming kindred spirits and when at best they have talked only a couple of times before she being considered for VP.

Yes, McCain did steal the media spotlight from Obama coming out of his convention apothesis. That's not a bad move for a candidate short on money. But now the spotlight is on Palin, not McCain. Like it or not, McCain is going to have to share that spotlight all the way to November, which is a bad move for a candidate short on money. He is going to have to spend a lot of his free media time explaining and defending his choice.

The problem McCain with picking Sarah Palin as his VP is that it is Not Obvious. If you have to go searching for justification for why she is on the ticket, the choice was bad.

Palin is a bad pick. Somewhere, Dan Quayle is pleased that he will no longer be cited as a "what were they thinking?" example of VP choices.

It's the economy, stupid.

2008-09-01T08:07:26Z

Hey, Obama! There are some ready-made campaign issues right here.

Are you better off than you were eight years ago?

The median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years.

Sure, it would take a little judicious dressing up and refining but it'll work.

Tanks for the memories

2008-08-20T14:57:23Z

NPR's "Fresh Air" did a segment on TV campaign ads a couple of days ago.

Not one, but two, ads from the 1988 campaign were discussed: Bush's attack ad featuring Dukakis riding around in a tank "looking like Rocky the Flying Squirrel" in Lee Atwater's famous characterization and Dukakis's counterattack ad.

Listening to TV attack ads seems kind of pointless but some work both visually and aurally, Johnson's "Daisy" ad works both ways.

Bush's tank ad doesn't. The voiceover attacking Dukakis's positions on defense is unmemorable. They are just window dressing for the images.

I do remember Dukakis's counterattack ad, but only vaguely. Dukakis angrily shuts off his TV and goes into an extended whine about Bush dragging the campaign into the gutter framed with some populist claptrap.

It is clear which ad won. Youtube has the tank ad but I could not turn up Dukakis's riposte.

So here we are again with a relatively unknown Democratic candidate with a funny name and a non-standard WASP appearance going up against the Republican campaign machine.

Dukakis came out of the Democratic convention with a double digit lead in the polls. That lead quickly evaporated and Bush won easily.

Is history going to repeat itself. Will the Republican machine turn Obama lampoon into a characture like Dukakis the Flying Squirrel? I sure hope not.

I think Obama is a far better politician than Dukakis ever was. Dukakis never had to worry moving his acceptance speech to a larger venue. Dukakis never raised the kind of money Obama has.

I have no doubt that McCain will try to do a Dukakis on Obama. The question is, will it work?

FAIL

2008-08-11T07:58:24Z

If I told you more about the job I'd have to kill you.

A cut-n-paste error, templating error or a bid to get everyone to reply immediately?

Dear Andrew

We are currently searching for a JOB TITLE to work in CITY, COUNTRY for DURATION plus extensions. This is a fantastic contract opportunity for a large multi-national client.

The ideal candidate must have the following skills: SHORT JOB DESCRIPTION.

If you are interested in this role, please reply immediately and we will be happy to send you an in-depth job specification.

Alternatively, if you have any colleagues who may be interested in this contract opportunity; please forward this email to them. If they are successfully placed at our client site, we will award you with £150.00 (220 Euros).

MBA would like to apologise if this requirement does not match your profile.

Thank you for your time and we hope to hear from you soon,

Regards

Lxxxxx Bxxx
Recruiting Team

Local boy makes good

2008-07-10T12:28:55Z

I haven't visited any part of Italy where when where we are from ("Chicago") that did not prompt a mention of Al Capone from the native.

Last week we were in Sicily when the "where are from" question came up.

The answer prompted an animated discussion amongst the natives (in Italian, of course). I was able to discern that Al Capone was under discussion and confirmed that, yes, Al Capone was a famous resident of Chicago, and, yes, he did hail from Sicily and he had a colorful career exploring the limits of US legal system. The natives weren't too clear on where Chicago is, but they did know of Al.

Bomb Iran, Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Bomb Iran

2008-07-10T12:17:45Z

Excuse me, I was just doing my John McCain impression.

So Seymour Hersh came out with another investigation of the coming attack on Iran. Terry Gross devoted a whole hour to interviewing Hersh about his New Yorker piece.

I have a hard time with Hersh. There are not many, maybe even no other, investigative journalists that have a record like his: Pulitzer Prize for breaking the My Lai massacre, KAL 007, Israeli nukes, Project Jennifer, doing a lot of the initial reporting on Abu Ghraib (but not all), to name a few scoops.

Lately Hersh has made US saber rattling against Iran his beat.

Hersh's scoop this time was that Congressional and Senate leaders had green lighted Presidential Finding authorizing spending up to 400 million dollars to destabilize Iran and allowed US operatives to use deadly force on the ground in Iran in capturing "high-value targets" and remove them to Iraq for detention and interrogation.

For Hersh, it all looks a lot like the march to war against Iraq, another attempt to hoodwink the U.S. into another disastrous war. But is it?

There a lot of different ways to look at the inauguration of clandestine campaign against Iran:

- It is angling for a casus belli.

- It is just business as usual in the War on Terror and they are just going after The Bad Guys.

- It is trying to turn up the pressure on Iran to back off its support of Iraqi insurgents.

- It is trying to turn up the pressure on Iran to negotiate on the nuclear impasse.

- It is trying to obtain information on Iran's nuke program.

- All of the above more or less.

But Hersh has not really nailed down what the Bushies are trying to do. While the "lethal force" clauses of the finding, Cheney cranking out lists of Iranian "high value targets" are juicy, from a journalistic point of view, they aren't the same as figuring out what Bush and Cheney are after.

While Hersh got wind of the finding and some of contents, he didn't dig up much on what the actual operations are, much less what objectives they are meant to achieve.

Hersh buries not one, but two leads in the article.

The first lead is that the Presidential finding is just another end run around Congressional oversight. The finding and approval process applies only to skulduggery involving the CIA but not to skulduggery carried out by the military, so the White House argues. The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is immune from Congress looking over its shoulder since Bush is the Commander in Chief.

The cloak and dagger ops in Iran are a joint CIA and DOD (and who knows what other agency) operation. So the $400 million budget presumably doesn't fund the whole campaign. And nobody, including Hersh, has any clear idea what the JSOC operatives are getting up to either.

The second lead is that the Bushies gave the heave-ho to yet another uppity senior military officer.

This time it was Admiral William Fallon, former head of Central Command, the military area responsible for that fun-filled part of the world including Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Fallon had the temerity to ask questions about what kind of JSOC operations where being carried under his command and tangled with the Prince of Darkness, Dick Cheney. Fallon lost and got the consolation prize of early retirement.

Has there ever been an Administration so actively hostile to its senior military? How many general officers have they shunted off into obscurity for not following the party line? Bush has done outdone Truman sacking MacArthur several times over.

Hersh has always got himself in trouble with his public statement and his writing. Hersh's article is measured and meaty. His performance on Fresh Air was alarmist. Hersh drops the qualifications and specifics when speaking. When I listen to Hersh, I have a mental image of Jason Robards in "All the President's Men" saying "It feels thin." Hersh needs a verbal editor.

And another thing...

2008-06-13T15:56:15Z

I seen with my very own eyes a billboard advertising "family night" at the lo cal Hooters franchise in Teaneck, New Jersey. "Kids under 8 eat free!"

So many questions, so few answers.

Boogle du jour

2008-06-13T15:46:27Z

One US Marine is drummed out of the Corps and a second is disciplined for throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq.

The marines real crime was filming the incident and then letting it out into wild where it ultimately made its way to YouTube.

It would be interesting to know how many US military personnel have been expelled or disciplined for killing Iraqi civilians for comparison.

Of course the animal rights advocates once again astound:

In a statement, the Humane Society of the United States applauded the Marine Corps' decision to punish those involved.

"The bad actors in this case have been dealt with by the Marine Corps, which rightly recognizes that harming animals is unacceptable conduct," said Dale Bartlett, the group's deputy manager for animal cruelty issues. "Now, the Department of Defense and the Congress must step up protection from cruelty for all animals under the law governing military conduct."

Call me an anthropocentric bigot, but I would rather see human rights take priority over animal rights. The US should step up protection from cruelty to humans in Iraq and adhere to national and international law governing military conduct and the puppies will take care of themselves.