Segacs’s World I Know

In the next few hours, there will be a zillion opinions and analyses offered of tonight’s US Presidential Debate. Most will be partisan – clearly so. So I thought I’d offer my opinion, not as a Democrat or a Republican, but merely as an interested observer.

Overall, both Bush and Kerry came across much better in the debate than any of the Canadian candidates did in our election debates a couple of months ago… but unfortunately, that’s not saying much. Neither of them seemed like buffoons. Both were well-coached, and both were trying very hard to inspire the confidence of the American people. But neither is a true leader. Neither offers the type of inspired, straight, honest, and committed leadership that I believe the American people want and maybe even deserve.

Kerry is the better debater. Hands down. He had the luxury of speaking in generalities, because he doesn’t have to defend his record the way Bush does. Even at that, he sounded stiff, robotic, and hedged on most of the issues. Although he relaxed somewhat as the debate went on, he seemed on more solid ground while attacking Bush’s past decisions rather than laying out future strategies of his own. Bush’s strategy was to paint Kerry as indecisive, waffling, and lacking in true conviction, and Kerry played into his hands. By speaking endlessly about how he wants to bring fresh credibility to the US on the international scene, he was basically saying that his main basis for being elected is that he’s not Bush. Well, that’s not good enough.

Bush, if anything, sounded more relaxed than Kerry and relied heavily on the “aw-shucks” demeanour that he plays like a fine-tuned instrument. That said, many questions – which should have been anticipated by his team – left Bush looking like a deer caught in headlights. Despite throwing in a few 4-syllable words (I wonder if they were spelled out for him fo-ne-ti-cly) in rehearsed statements, Bush stumbled often and didn’t seem really comfortable unless he was repeating one of his talking points… over and over again. If I heard him use the words “mixed messages” one more time, I might have thrown something at the TV.

Kerry spent a lot of time attacking Bush but it’s difficult to ascertain what Kerry’s positions are. I was watching and really hoping that he would put forth some vision. Bush, on the other hand, spent a lot of time defending decisions and positions that were ill-advised or just plain wrong.

Watching Bush was more like watching a second-grader learn to read. He slipped up at one point, saying “Saddam Hussein – er – I mean, Bin Laden”, which of course, proved Kerry’s point – that Bush couldn’t tell the difference. Major wince. Oh, and I still maintain that anyone who can’t pronounce “nuclear” shouldn’t be allowed to have his finger on the button.

Kerry, for his part, scored points on the attack in the manner of a veteran debater. He quoted popular sayings quite often. He gave rehearsed answers to questions that weren’t quite asking for them. He spun a web of words. The problem was finding the substance behind the words. He criticized Bush at every turn but didn’t offer anything concrete in terms of his own plans or strategies, beyond merely stating that he has some. Does he? Beyond wanting to call in more allies and make multilateral decisions, I’ve yet to hear them. He may have wiped the floor with Bush in debate technique, but Bush might still retain the psychological edge.

On a personal note, some of Kerry’s positions – namely his continued faith in the UN to resolve international conflict, and his seeming thought that America can make the terrorists hate it less by being nicer – concern me. It’s hard to tell if these are his positions though, since he hasn’t been too clear. Bush, for his part, has always concerned me and continues to do so. He seems to show an appalling misunderstanding of the distinctions between different groups, preferring to paint them all as the generic “bad guys”.

Overall, I’m glad I’m not American and don’t have to vote in this election.

Update: For more in-depth coverage, see Damian Penny’s liveblogging of the debate.

With the daily news so dismal from Iraq, it’s hard for anything to shock us anymore. We dismiss bombings, shootings and kidnappings as routine. It’s like we’ve lost the capacity for outrage.

But stories about children still have the capacity to jolt even the most cynical among us. And today, 34 children are dead, because extremists are so opposed to progress, that they will pay any price to stop it:

Insurgents detonated three car bombs near a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad Thursday, killing 41 people, 34 of them children, and wounding scores.

In two other attacks, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a U.S. checkpoint outside the capital, killing two policemen and a U.S. soldier, and a car bomb killed four people in the restive northern Iraq (news – web sites) town of Tal Afar.

The Baghdad blasts coincided with crowds gathering to celebrate the opening of a new sewage plant. It was not clear if the event or a U.S. convoy passing nearby was the target.

The first explosion was followed by two more that struck those who rushed to the aid of the initial victims.

All these tactics – the follow-up bombing targeting the people rushing to help, the use of children as political weapons – have all been practiced and fine-tuned for years by the Palestinians in their ultimate testing ground, Israel. Israelis reading this today probably see it as nothing new. After all, they’ve been dealing with attacks like these for years, against the “Little Satan”. Now that the terror tactics have been perfected, the “Great Satan” is of course the new target.

The terrorists (I refuse to whitewash them as “insurgents”) in Iraq are not legitimate protestors of an occupation that is arguably very wrong. They are not innocent victims. They are opponents of freedom. They sense a power vaccum with Saddam’s Baathist regime gone, and they aim to fill it with their brand of extremist fundamentalism. To do that, they have to be able to point to a massive American failure in Iraq. And to point to a failure, they must create the failure… through bombings, kidnappings, and the like. It wasn’t an accident that today’s attack was carried out at the celebration of a new sewage system. It was a strong message that even the tiniest baby steps towards rebuilding and progress will be attacked.

The mistake that the US made in Iraq was not in pegging the Baathists as “bad guys”. No, it’s the mistake that the US has made in countless other situations: viewing the world in terms of “good guys” against “bad guys”. Not recognizing that, all too often, the reality is “bad guys” against “other bad guys”… sometimes briefly teaming up against a third or fourth set of “bad guys” but rarely uniting, except in hatred against Israel and America.

In the meantime, more innocent civilians continue to die, because the terrorists would prefer to see them all dead than free.

One of the reasons we know so little about the horrors that go on in North Korea is that hardly anyone escapes to tell the tales.

Today, a group from North Korea made it to the Canadian embassy in Beijing:

Forty-four North Korean men, women and children scaled the walls of the Canadian embassy in Beijing in a likely bid for political asylum, an embassy spokesman said.

It was one of the largest groups ever to burst into a diplomatic compound in the Chinese capital in a desperate attempt to escape poverty and oppression in their Stalinist home country.

Officials are still sorting out exactly who is in that group. Until then, it is unclear what their fate will be, as China has not been sympathetic to refugees from the People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps:

China treats North Koreans as illegal immigrants and has an agreement with Pyongyang to deport those it catches. But it has allowed Koreans who succeed in getting into foreign missions to leave for South Korea via a third country.

Those returned can face harsh punishment by the Stalinist government.

If it is determined that these people are legitimate political asylum-seekers, one hopes that they will be granted asylum someplace safe… and allowed to speak whatever tales they may have to tell, to provide even a tiny insight into the vast darkness that is North Korea.

We may have beaten them for the World Cup, but when it comes to hockey, the Europeans may have the last laugh:

While hockey has screeched to a halt many of the world’s best players are skating off to Europe where clubs in Russia and Sweden are wooing them with lucrative contracts and expensive perks.

Since the lockout began two weeks ago, close to 180 National Hockey League players have joined European clubs, the International Ice Hockey Federation said on Tuesday.

The figure represents 25 percent of the NHL’s skaters.

So this season, while we in Hockeyland cool our skates, Europeans will get to watch the likes of Markus Naslund, Ilya Kovluchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Joe Thornton, Jaromir Jagr, Patrick Elias, and most of the other league superstars in exciting, action-filled hockey games.

Makes me wonder who the real winners are.

BNL doing reality TV? On FOX?

C’mon guys, please tell me you won’t stoop to that level!

It’s the end of an era in Montreal.

There’s been speculation for years. Each season we assume it will be the last. But this time, the Expos are really leaving… for Washington DC, at the end of this season:

Major League Baseball will announce Wednesday that Washington will be the new home of the Montreal Expos, The Associated Press has learned.

A city official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington has been notified by Major League Baseball of the impending announcement that will return the national pastime to the nation’s capital for the first time in 33 years. The city is planning its own news conference at a downtown location Wednesday afternoon, the official said.

Of course, nothing’s final till it’s final. But if you’re betting on the ‘spos being back next season, it’s probably a waste of money.

The Expos are more likely to go out with a whimper than a bang. The team has never won a pennant. Most years, we’ve been more of a farm team for the league than a real competitor. The last time there was real excitement about the team was in 1993… and then the baseball strike happened. That led to the big fire sale, which, along with the Big Owe roof woes, the Jeffrey Loria sellout, and the Puerto Rico split schedule, pretty much nailed the coffin shut on major league baseball in Montreal.

Will anyone miss the team when they go? Games were not exactly attracting sellout crowds. Sure, anyone employed by the team or the surrounding industries will be hard-hit. And there were some ticketholders or die-hard fans who will be very disappointed to see the team go.

But the reality is, we’re a big enough city to support the team, and we didn’t. We didn’t buy enough season tickets or take enough interest to attract advertisers. Even though the games can be lots of fun, we didn’t go to them in enough numbers.

Montreal has pretty much always been a one-sport city, and that sport is hockey, which – lockout or no lockout – still holds the #1 spot in most people’s hearts. In the past couple of years, the Alouettes have overtaken the Expos for the distant #2 spot. We didn’t support baseball, and these past few years we’ve been expecting it to disappear. So now it will. And there’s nobody to blame but ourselves.

Goodbye, Expos.

A simple “the position has been filled” would have sufficed. But it seems that any opportunity to spew antisemitic nonsense these days must not be ignored if this rejection letter sent by a London company to a job applicant of Israeli background is any indication (via Damian Penny).

Absolutely disgusting. But the real question is, will the letter-writer be sacked for his opinion? What percentage of the general public in London these days secretly agrees with him?

Looks like I moved out of the suburbs just in time…

The latest statistics according to Shin Bet say that 1,017 Israelis have been killed since the beginning of the current intifada. 70% of them were civilians.

The civilian figure would probably be higher if off-duty soldiers were included as civilians. As virtually the entire country aged 18-21 is in the army, a fair number of soldiers were probably included in the statistics who died in pizza parlours or nightclubs or in other situations completely unrelated to their military service.

The report also tallies Israelis wounded by terrorism, targets Arafat for directly funding and authorizing terror attacks, and credits the security fence for a massive drop in suicide bombings and other attacks.

It’s hard to look at dry statistics and see the faces they represent. But consider this: 1,017 Israelis in a population of 6 million. On a per capita basis, that’s the equivalent of 9/11 in the USA… 14 times over.

In 5762, 408 Israelis fell victim to terrorism. 240 were killed in 5763 and 126 in 5764. Less than two weeks ago, we ushered in the New Year 5765. One of the most important prayers of the holiday was the Netaneh Tokef which includes the following questions:

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.

It’s quite common, during the recitation of this prayer, for people to reflect on loved ones who have passed away during the year, or on new babies who were born, or on how our lives – or the lives of our friends and loved ones – have changed in the past year. And to wonder what lies ahead for the coming year. Whether you believe that this is foreordained and decreed in the heavens at the New Year, or – like I do – that it is determined by the exercising of free will on the part of human beings, it’s only natural to reflect at New Year’s on the bigger picture.

This year, I couldn’t help but wonder how many more innocent victims will be claimed by senseless terorrism between this Rosh Hashanah and next. What will next year’s Shin Bet statistics show?