The artist known as Rowena admits her fantasy-art paintings - filled with snarling dragons, Fabio lookalikes and buxom damsels - can attract an offbeat clientele.
But Saddam Hussein?
The upstate painter was stunned to learn two of her campy, sexually charged artworks wound up at the tyrant's love shack in Baghdad.
And now she wants her '80s-vintage paintings back - taloned serpents, bare-breasted babes and all....
--New York Daily News
Damn, I wish I'd sprung for the high-priced blog so I could post the link's (regrettably tiny) reproduction of one of Rowena's paintings. You know, I really wouldn't blame any Iraq war fan who wants to snicker at Saddam for his art preferences -- the problem is, most pro-war types would probably see Rowena's work and say, "Hey, that Saddam was a bloodthirsty evildoer, but he had really, really good taste."
(Thanks to dutcher for the link.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard wants to reform the United Nations, saying the presence of France as a permanent member of the Security Council "distorts" the council....
Asking France or any other permanent member of the Security Council to voluntarily surrender their seat was "a major undertaking", he conceded....
--The Age
Angling for a seat on the Halliburton board after your political career is over, John?
Asking France or any other permanent member of the Security Council to voluntarily surrender their seat was "a major undertaking", he conceded....
--The Age
Angling for a seat on the Halliburton board after your political career is over, John?
It's getting harder and harder to be a right-winger these days -- so many people and institutions to boycott, so many moral crusades to mount, so many violations of conservative correctness to police....
Right-wingers who want everyone to cancel subscriptions to HBO because Bob Costas had Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon as guests on his show.
Right-wingers who want the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take Michael Moore's Oscar back.
How must it feel to be a conservative these days? Everywhere righties turn, there's something new that falls morally or patriotically short, some seemingly innocent thing they can't buy or rent or look at or listen to because evil will triumph if they do. This must be making them crazy.
Sure, we have a boycott or two going here and there on the left, but I don't know any lefty who's boycotting Dennis Miller or Ted Nugent or Charlie Daniels or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We certainly would never bother to boycott this many celebrities (scroll down). Who could be bothered? Well, the folks who are boycotting this many celebrities could. I count 97 -- and these people are boycotting them all. ("Will we go see or support ONE movie or television project by these people? HELL NO --- WE WON'T GO!!")
This kind of thou-shalt-not finger-wagging is going to be the death of the right. And I can't wait.
Right-wingers who want everyone to cancel subscriptions to HBO because Bob Costas had Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon as guests on his show.
Right-wingers who want the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take Michael Moore's Oscar back.
How must it feel to be a conservative these days? Everywhere righties turn, there's something new that falls morally or patriotically short, some seemingly innocent thing they can't buy or rent or look at or listen to because evil will triumph if they do. This must be making them crazy.
Sure, we have a boycott or two going here and there on the left, but I don't know any lefty who's boycotting Dennis Miller or Ted Nugent or Charlie Daniels or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We certainly would never bother to boycott this many celebrities (scroll down). Who could be bothered? Well, the folks who are boycotting this many celebrities could. I count 97 -- and these people are boycotting them all. ("Will we go see or support ONE movie or television project by these people? HELL NO --- WE WON'T GO!!")
This kind of thou-shalt-not finger-wagging is going to be the death of the right. And I can't wait.
The Muslim-hating mullah of America's all-but-officially-declared state religion is back in the news again...
Muslims at the Pentagon are incensed by what they say is an insensitive invitation to evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham, who has called Islam an "evil religion," to preach on Good Friday at the Defense Department.
In letters to the Pentagon chaplain's office this week, Muslim office workers complained strongly about Graham's plans to lead prayers on Friday, one of the most religious days in the Christian calendar.
The letters urged officials to find a "more inclusive and honorable" religious leader to take his place.
...The Pentagon was not immediately available to comment on the complaints, but a spokeswoman told The Washington Post that Christian employees had requested Graham as a guest preacher and the chaplain's office would not rescind the invitation.
"If a Jewish group wants to invite a particular speaker, they'll do that. Muslims hold services here too. The Army chaplains are absolutely nonjudgmental of any faith that soldiers want to follow," said Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd in Tuesday's Post.
--Reuters
So any preacher is OK? Fine. Then the Muslim office workers at the Pentagon ought to be able to invite Louis Farrakhan to preach if they want to -- or even if they just want to piss people off.
Muslims at the Pentagon are incensed by what they say is an insensitive invitation to evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham, who has called Islam an "evil religion," to preach on Good Friday at the Defense Department.
In letters to the Pentagon chaplain's office this week, Muslim office workers complained strongly about Graham's plans to lead prayers on Friday, one of the most religious days in the Christian calendar.
The letters urged officials to find a "more inclusive and honorable" religious leader to take his place.
...The Pentagon was not immediately available to comment on the complaints, but a spokeswoman told The Washington Post that Christian employees had requested Graham as a guest preacher and the chaplain's office would not rescind the invitation.
"If a Jewish group wants to invite a particular speaker, they'll do that. Muslims hold services here too. The Army chaplains are absolutely nonjudgmental of any faith that soldiers want to follow," said Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd in Tuesday's Post.
--Reuters
So any preacher is OK? Fine. Then the Muslim office workers at the Pentagon ought to be able to invite Louis Farrakhan to preach if they want to -- or even if they just want to piss people off.
Meanwhile, in the last Dodge City supposedly cleaned up by Sheriff Bush....
Last fall, schools for girls in Wardak province, near Kabul, were attacked. In the past two months in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold, seven schools were attacked and burned, including the one in Sheik Mohammadi, about 6 miles south of Kandahar. The schools have been accused of teaching Western thought and relying on Western money.
Such incidents are part of an increasing number of attacks in southern Afghanistan not only on Westerners but also on Afghans. The attackers are masked men with causes reminiscent of the Taliban....
--Baltimore Sun; link via Cursor
Last fall, schools for girls in Wardak province, near Kabul, were attacked. In the past two months in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold, seven schools were attacked and burned, including the one in Sheik Mohammadi, about 6 miles south of Kandahar. The schools have been accused of teaching Western thought and relying on Western money.
Such incidents are part of an increasing number of attacks in southern Afghanistan not only on Westerners but also on Afghans. The attackers are masked men with causes reminiscent of the Taliban....
--Baltimore Sun; link via Cursor
At least 10 people were killed and scores wounded in shooting in Mosul, a hospital doctor said, as other witnesses alleged US troops had opened fire.
"There are perhaps 100 wounded and 10 to 12 dead" following the shooting near the local government offices in a central square, Dr Ayad al-Ramadhani said Tuesday at the emergency department of the city hospital.
Three witnesses questioned by AFP and casualties who spoke to hospital staff said US troops had fired on the crowd which was becoming increasingly hostile towards the city's new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi, as he was making a pro-US speech....
--Yahoo News/AFP
Yahoo has this up among the top headlines on its home page. No sign of it on the title screens at MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, Fox News, The New York Times, or The Washington Post.
Most of those title screens do, however, feature Laci Peterson.
*********
UPDATE: The deep thinkers at Lucianne.com respond to a Sky News report on this incident. Here's Reply #4:
Good riddance! Most of those shot are not for a free Irag. Some are just misfortunate. Thoser who choose freedom must identify and eliminate those who stand in the way! LIVE FREE OR DIE!
One of the U.S. charges against Syria is that it's harboring members of Saddam's regime. But an Australian named Ishmael responds to that in this BBC online discussion:
Before the war who was being advised to leave his country by George Bush? So what's with this safe haven talk?
Good point.
Before the war who was being advised to leave his country by George Bush? So what's with this safe haven talk?
Good point.
In case you missed it:
New data also show a continuing shift of tax burdens away from businesses and onto individuals. Last year, corporations paid 10.5 percent of all the taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service, down from 16.4 percent in 1973.
Since 1973, corporate income taxes have risen 75 percent as fast as corporate profits. By contrast, individuals' income taxes rose 21 percent faster than adjusted gross incomes. Social Security taxes, which apply to the first $87,000 of pay, together with Medicare taxes, grew 82 percent faster than incomes....
After paying their federal income taxes, Americans had 3 fewer cents of each dollar to spend in 2000, the latest year for which detailed information is available, than they had in 1973. The overall individual income tax rate in 2000 was 18 cents on the dollar, up from 15 cents in 1973, the Syracuse report showed.
Add Social Security and Medicare taxes and the average effective tax rate was nearly 28 cents on each dollar of income in 2000, up from slightly more than 21 cents in 1973.
The opposite was true for corporations. Their effective income tax rates fell to 25.8 percent in 1999, from 32.4 percent in 1973, a decline of nearly 7 cents on the dollar.
That decline was concentrated among the largest corporations. Corporate profits are officially taxed at 35 cents on the dollar, but the 10,000 largest companies actually pay only about 20 cents of tax on each dollar of profit.
--New York Times, 4/14/03
New data also show a continuing shift of tax burdens away from businesses and onto individuals. Last year, corporations paid 10.5 percent of all the taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service, down from 16.4 percent in 1973.
Since 1973, corporate income taxes have risen 75 percent as fast as corporate profits. By contrast, individuals' income taxes rose 21 percent faster than adjusted gross incomes. Social Security taxes, which apply to the first $87,000 of pay, together with Medicare taxes, grew 82 percent faster than incomes....
After paying their federal income taxes, Americans had 3 fewer cents of each dollar to spend in 2000, the latest year for which detailed information is available, than they had in 1973. The overall individual income tax rate in 2000 was 18 cents on the dollar, up from 15 cents in 1973, the Syracuse report showed.
Add Social Security and Medicare taxes and the average effective tax rate was nearly 28 cents on each dollar of income in 2000, up from slightly more than 21 cents in 1973.
The opposite was true for corporations. Their effective income tax rates fell to 25.8 percent in 1999, from 32.4 percent in 1973, a decline of nearly 7 cents on the dollar.
That decline was concentrated among the largest corporations. Corporate profits are officially taxed at 35 cents on the dollar, but the 10,000 largest companies actually pay only about 20 cents of tax on each dollar of profit.
--New York Times, 4/14/03
Monday, April 14, 2003
Israel joined pressure on Syria on Monday, demanding it get Hezbollah guerrillas out of Lebanon and accusing it of supporting terrorism.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, visiting Turkey, accused Damascus of harboring terrorists and granting refuge to senior Iraqi officials.
President Bush on Sunday warned Damascus it must cooperate with the United States and deny help to Iraqi officials fleeing a post-Saddam Iraq....
--Washington Post/Reuters
This is piling on. Obviously it's been concluded that the U.S. is bulletproof now, and by extension Israel is as well, so there's no reason to make nice.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, visiting Turkey, accused Damascus of harboring terrorists and granting refuge to senior Iraqi officials.
President Bush on Sunday warned Damascus it must cooperate with the United States and deny help to Iraqi officials fleeing a post-Saddam Iraq....
--Washington Post/Reuters
This is piling on. Obviously it's been concluded that the U.S. is bulletproof now, and by extension Israel is as well, so there's no reason to make nice.
Several times (here, here, here, here, and here) I've expressed skepticism about President Bush's State of the Union promise of a serious U.S. program to help fight AIDS in Africa. An article in the May American Prospect confirms some of my suspicions. On dollars allocated:
According to an analysis by the Open Society Institute (OSI), only $8.5 billion of the $15 billion pledge is actually "new money." The rest of the nearly $10 billion that Bush promised consists of funds previously committed by the administration in June for a multiyear program to prevent pregnant women from giving HIV to their babies, as well as continued funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria that the United States began financing two years ago.
More significantly, $6.8 billion of the new $8.5 billion is not slotted to come up for appropriation until the fiscal year 2006-2008 period, according to the OSI. After that, says Dr. Paul Zeitz, the executive director of the Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance and a former United States Agency for International Development (USAID) worker in Zambia, it could take up to a year for the funds to wend their way from the halls of Congress into the hands and lives of Africans afflicted with HIV. That means about 80 percent of the new money Bush is proposing in his "Emergency Plan" will not reach African hands until around the 2007-2009 period. By then, according to the United Nations Joint United Programme on HIV/AIDS, most of the 21 million Africans projected to contract HIV by 2010 will have already become infected.
And on fitting the AIDS program into the religious right's straitjacket:
In February the administration announced that it hoped to extend to international AIDS care and prevention groups the so-called Mexico City policy -- or global gag rule -- of prohibiting groups or programs that promote or perform abortions from receiving U.S. funding....
Because the trend in many African nations is toward integrated health services, the administration's push for centers to separate their services into AIDS and abortion-discussing programs could profoundly delay implementation of any AIDS programs using the new funds -- and also throw programs accustomed to receiving U.S. AIDS dollars into disarray.
Bastards.
According to an analysis by the Open Society Institute (OSI), only $8.5 billion of the $15 billion pledge is actually "new money." The rest of the nearly $10 billion that Bush promised consists of funds previously committed by the administration in June for a multiyear program to prevent pregnant women from giving HIV to their babies, as well as continued funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria that the United States began financing two years ago.
More significantly, $6.8 billion of the new $8.5 billion is not slotted to come up for appropriation until the fiscal year 2006-2008 period, according to the OSI. After that, says Dr. Paul Zeitz, the executive director of the Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance and a former United States Agency for International Development (USAID) worker in Zambia, it could take up to a year for the funds to wend their way from the halls of Congress into the hands and lives of Africans afflicted with HIV. That means about 80 percent of the new money Bush is proposing in his "Emergency Plan" will not reach African hands until around the 2007-2009 period. By then, according to the United Nations Joint United Programme on HIV/AIDS, most of the 21 million Africans projected to contract HIV by 2010 will have already become infected.
And on fitting the AIDS program into the religious right's straitjacket:
In February the administration announced that it hoped to extend to international AIDS care and prevention groups the so-called Mexico City policy -- or global gag rule -- of prohibiting groups or programs that promote or perform abortions from receiving U.S. funding....
Because the trend in many African nations is toward integrated health services, the administration's push for centers to separate their services into AIDS and abortion-discussing programs could profoundly delay implementation of any AIDS programs using the new funds -- and also throw programs accustomed to receiving U.S. AIDS dollars into disarray.
Bastards.
From an AFP/Yahoo News story:
For the first time since the city came under American control, Iraqi police cars escorted by US forces started joint patrols of Baghdad's streets, the scene of widespread violence and looting after last week's collapse of Saddam's regime.
Great -- er, isn't it?
Five Iraqi police cars, accompanied by two US marine Humvees, left the east Baghdad headquarters of the Iraqi police academy at 4:00 pm (1200 GMT) to patrol different areas of the capital, an AFP correspondent reported.
Five police cars. Five. Maybe not so great.
Accoding to my (2001) copy of The World Almanac, Baghdad's population is 4,797,000. The population of New York City is 7,322,564 -- about one and a half times the population of Baghdad.
I can assure you that policing New York City requires more than seven and a half police cars
For the first time since the city came under American control, Iraqi police cars escorted by US forces started joint patrols of Baghdad's streets, the scene of widespread violence and looting after last week's collapse of Saddam's regime.
Great -- er, isn't it?
Five Iraqi police cars, accompanied by two US marine Humvees, left the east Baghdad headquarters of the Iraqi police academy at 4:00 pm (1200 GMT) to patrol different areas of the capital, an AFP correspondent reported.
Five police cars. Five. Maybe not so great.
Accoding to my (2001) copy of The World Almanac, Baghdad's population is 4,797,000. The population of New York City is 7,322,564 -- about one and a half times the population of Baghdad.
I can assure you that policing New York City requires more than seven and a half police cars
The Bushies did not curse, either. Early in my White House stint, somebody asked me at a meeting whether I was sure of something. I said I was. He pressed me: "Are you sure?” Irritated, I replied emphatically: “Yes, I am damn sure.” The temperature in the room suddenly seemed to drop about a dozen degrees. There was a prolonged silence as I tried to figure out my mistake. I got it. “Er -- I mean, yes indeed, I am quite sure.”
--from The Right Man, David Frum's White House memoir
The next person to buttonhole me was the Centcom uber-civilian, a thirty-ish Republican operative. He was more full-metal-jacket in his approach (although he was a civilian he was, inexplicably, in uniform - making him, I suppose a sort of para-military figure): "I have a brother who is in a Hummer at the front, so don't talk to me about too much fucking air-conditioning." And: "A lot of people don't like you." And then: "Don't fuck with things you don't understand." And too: "This is fucking war, asshole." And finally: "No more questions for you."
I had been warned.
--from "I Was Only Asking," Michael Wolff's column about what happened after he had the nerve to ask a slightly impolite question at a CentCom press briefing in Doha
No surprise, really. In high school, the jocks sometimes try to intimidate by means of trash talk, and other times by posing as enforcers of moral rectitude. Either way, they expect everyone else to toe the line.
--from The Right Man, David Frum's White House memoir
The next person to buttonhole me was the Centcom uber-civilian, a thirty-ish Republican operative. He was more full-metal-jacket in his approach (although he was a civilian he was, inexplicably, in uniform - making him, I suppose a sort of para-military figure): "I have a brother who is in a Hummer at the front, so don't talk to me about too much fucking air-conditioning." And: "A lot of people don't like you." And then: "Don't fuck with things you don't understand." And too: "This is fucking war, asshole." And finally: "No more questions for you."
I had been warned.
--from "I Was Only Asking," Michael Wolff's column about what happened after he had the nerve to ask a slightly impolite question at a CentCom press briefing in Doha
No surprise, really. In high school, the jocks sometimes try to intimidate by means of trash talk, and other times by posing as enforcers of moral rectitude. Either way, they expect everyone else to toe the line.
President Bush suggested yesterday that the U.S.-led military defeat of Iraq had spurred concessions by North Korea, and he said he sees increasing chances for nuclear-control talks that include Pyongyang.
--from today's Washington Post
In Baghdad, three girls died in a missile strike weeks ago, but family members are still struggling to tell their father. It is becoming clear that several hundred Iraqis died in coalition attacks.
--from today's New York Times
In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, children were tortured in front of their parents, as a way of compelling the parents to accept Saddam's total dominance of the country. The U.S. war against Iraq is, of course, not comparable in any way: We would never harm children to motivate adults (even though innocent children were killed and maimed and now we boast that the carnage has cowed a regime halfway around the world). We would not keep the brutality up for years (even though we now suggest that we may wage similar wars in Syria, North Korea, and Iran). And we would never bring harm to innocent young people in a naked attempt to cling to power (even though we specifically describe these overseas wars as wars of self-defense and national security). So it's obvious that our wars are nothing whatsoever like the brutality of Saddam -- isn't it?
--from today's Washington Post
In Baghdad, three girls died in a missile strike weeks ago, but family members are still struggling to tell their father. It is becoming clear that several hundred Iraqis died in coalition attacks.
--from today's New York Times
In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, children were tortured in front of their parents, as a way of compelling the parents to accept Saddam's total dominance of the country. The U.S. war against Iraq is, of course, not comparable in any way: We would never harm children to motivate adults (even though innocent children were killed and maimed and now we boast that the carnage has cowed a regime halfway around the world). We would not keep the brutality up for years (even though we now suggest that we may wage similar wars in Syria, North Korea, and Iran). And we would never bring harm to innocent young people in a naked attempt to cling to power (even though we specifically describe these overseas wars as wars of self-defense and national security). So it's obvious that our wars are nothing whatsoever like the brutality of Saddam -- isn't it?
Sunday, April 13, 2003
It appears that only one member of Congress has a child in military service who's gone to Iraq -- Democratic senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota. (This, of course, did not prevent Johnson's Republican opponent from shamelessly comparing Johnson to Saddam Hussein in a TV ad because Johnson voted against missile defense.) Being the child of a politician wasn't always a near-automatic exemption from service -- here's part of the publisher's description of a biography of Teddy Roosevelt's son and namesake:
During World War I, Ted (as he was known) was the youngest American regimental commander to see combat.... Early in 1941, Ted petitioned the army to return him to active duty. In April of that year, despite his advanced years, poor eyesight, weak heart, and arthritis so bad he had to use a cane, Colonel Roosevelt was back in uniform. Promoted to brigadier general, Ted fought with the 1st Infantry Division and served with distinction in North Africa and Sicily.
At Normandy, General Roosevelt was the oldest American and only general to land with the first wave on Utah Beach. His valorous leadership on the beach saved the day for his troops and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor....When Gen. Omar Bradley was asked to name the bravest act he had ever known over his more than forty years of military service, he replied with four words: “Ted Roosevelt. Utah Beach.”
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. served in World War II. He was born in 1887. You do the math.
Say, what's President Bush's nephew George P. up to these days?
During World War I, Ted (as he was known) was the youngest American regimental commander to see combat.... Early in 1941, Ted petitioned the army to return him to active duty. In April of that year, despite his advanced years, poor eyesight, weak heart, and arthritis so bad he had to use a cane, Colonel Roosevelt was back in uniform. Promoted to brigadier general, Ted fought with the 1st Infantry Division and served with distinction in North Africa and Sicily.
At Normandy, General Roosevelt was the oldest American and only general to land with the first wave on Utah Beach. His valorous leadership on the beach saved the day for his troops and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor....When Gen. Omar Bradley was asked to name the bravest act he had ever known over his more than forty years of military service, he replied with four words: “Ted Roosevelt. Utah Beach.”
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. served in World War II. He was born in 1887. You do the math.
Say, what's President Bush's nephew George P. up to these days?
Over the weekend I had the radio on and was dial-switching when I hit a story, on a Christian radio station, about a program run by the Christian charity Feed the Children to provide food to needy families of troops on active duty away from home. According to the story, there's a great deal of demand now, particularly because a lot of reservists are serving in the Iraq war and their families don't have enough money to buy necessities.
I'm an anti-war atheist, but I applaud what Feed the Children is doing. I'm just pissed off that it's necessary.
The Iraq war is, according to our government, part of the major conflict of our time, the war on terrorism -- yet we're nickel-and-diming the soldiers and reservists who are fighting. Companies that employ reservists aren't required to pay those reservists while they're on active duty -- though a law passed during the Clinton era says they can't be fired. (As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, it appears that at least one big company may have violated that law since the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, here's a list of companies that do more than the legally required minimum for reservists who are called up. I found it via this thread at Free Republic. For once I agree with the Freepers -- these companies are doing the right thing.)
Now, why isn't it mandatory for every company to continue to pay the full salaries of reservists -- or, conversely, why doesn't the government pick up the tab? Yes, it would come out of your paycheck and mine, but don't we support the troops? Opponents of the war are now being accused of treason -- not for doing any harm to the troops, but for opposing the policy that sent them to combat. Why not sling the charge of treason at anyone who dares oppose a government-funded full replacement of reservists' paychecks? If the conservatives really want the U.S. to play world's cop, then they ought to be willing to pay the price. I oppose the policy, but once it's set in motion I don't want to short-change the ordinary citizens who carry it out.
I'm an anti-war atheist, but I applaud what Feed the Children is doing. I'm just pissed off that it's necessary.
The Iraq war is, according to our government, part of the major conflict of our time, the war on terrorism -- yet we're nickel-and-diming the soldiers and reservists who are fighting. Companies that employ reservists aren't required to pay those reservists while they're on active duty -- though a law passed during the Clinton era says they can't be fired. (As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, it appears that at least one big company may have violated that law since the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, here's a list of companies that do more than the legally required minimum for reservists who are called up. I found it via this thread at Free Republic. For once I agree with the Freepers -- these companies are doing the right thing.)
Now, why isn't it mandatory for every company to continue to pay the full salaries of reservists -- or, conversely, why doesn't the government pick up the tab? Yes, it would come out of your paycheck and mine, but don't we support the troops? Opponents of the war are now being accused of treason -- not for doing any harm to the troops, but for opposing the policy that sent them to combat. Why not sling the charge of treason at anyone who dares oppose a government-funded full replacement of reservists' paychecks? If the conservatives really want the U.S. to play world's cop, then they ought to be willing to pay the price. I oppose the policy, but once it's set in motion I don't want to short-change the ordinary citizens who carry it out.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Armed men roamed the streets of Baghdad on Friday as the Iraqi capital descended deeper into anarchy, Reuters correspondents in the city said.
Khaled Yacoub Oweis saw a young man wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle shoot the driver of a passing pickup truck in central Baghdad, drag him from the vehicle and drive it away. It was not clear whether the driver was killed or only wounded.
Oweis said armed men were swarming through a children's hospital in the upscale Mansur district in the west where the bodies of civilians and dead fighters have been collected. They appeared to be looting it, he said.
"The situation has become worse since yesterday. It is anarchy," Oweis said....
--Reuters
But ... but ... but that's impossible! An armed society is a polite society ... right?
Khaled Yacoub Oweis saw a young man wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle shoot the driver of a passing pickup truck in central Baghdad, drag him from the vehicle and drive it away. It was not clear whether the driver was killed or only wounded.
Oweis said armed men were swarming through a children's hospital in the upscale Mansur district in the west where the bodies of civilians and dead fighters have been collected. They appeared to be looting it, he said.
"The situation has become worse since yesterday. It is anarchy," Oweis said....
--Reuters
But ... but ... but that's impossible! An armed society is a polite society ... right?
Friday, April 11, 2003
Look! Another fancy-pants entertainer has said something overseas that's outrageous and insulting to all Americans! This one had the nerve to insult 9/11 widows! We have to do something about these sick celebrities! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT!
...Whoops -- sorry. This one's a Republican. So I guess it's OK.
Comedian Joan Rivers, no stranger to controversy, has stunned British audiences by mocking the relatives of firefighters killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In her new stand-up show, Broke And Alone In London, British audiences were shocked to hear Rivers making fun of widows, whose firefighting husbands were killed in the attacks on New York. An audience member says, "She said that they got paid $5 million each, and how disappointed they'd be if they were told, after all, that their husbands had been found alive."
Despite the controversy, Rivers' spokesman says she plans to continue to use the line when she takes her show to America....
--Tabloid Column
(Oldsters like me will remember Joan as a suck-up to the Reagans and then a boilerplate Clinton hater. Those seeking proof of her politics can see this interview from The Women's Quarterly, a publication of the Independent Women's Forum:
TWQ: You live in a world of celebrities where it's simply taken for granted that everybody is a staunch Democrat. Yet, you are working for Steve Forbes. What are your politics? RIVERS: As the saying goes, the first half of your life if you're not a Democrat, it's wrong because you should be an idealist, and the second half of your life, if you are a Democrat, it's wrong because you should use your head. If you've worked hard enough to acquire something, you don't want the bastards to take it from you. So, I am very much a conservative. I believe in order and law. I believe in people working and getting to keep something for their hard work. I believe that no one should automatically feel that this country "owes" them something. People in our business are such bleeding hearts. It's ironic because they worked hard to get where they are. I think it's all about feeling guilty over their success.
The Tabloid Column link is courtesy of Jeff at the disturbingly link-free Anti-Antiphrasist.)
...Whoops -- sorry. This one's a Republican. So I guess it's OK.
Comedian Joan Rivers, no stranger to controversy, has stunned British audiences by mocking the relatives of firefighters killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In her new stand-up show, Broke And Alone In London, British audiences were shocked to hear Rivers making fun of widows, whose firefighting husbands were killed in the attacks on New York. An audience member says, "She said that they got paid $5 million each, and how disappointed they'd be if they were told, after all, that their husbands had been found alive."
Despite the controversy, Rivers' spokesman says she plans to continue to use the line when she takes her show to America....
--Tabloid Column
(Oldsters like me will remember Joan as a suck-up to the Reagans and then a boilerplate Clinton hater. Those seeking proof of her politics can see this interview from The Women's Quarterly, a publication of the Independent Women's Forum:
TWQ: You live in a world of celebrities where it's simply taken for granted that everybody is a staunch Democrat. Yet, you are working for Steve Forbes. What are your politics? RIVERS: As the saying goes, the first half of your life if you're not a Democrat, it's wrong because you should be an idealist, and the second half of your life, if you are a Democrat, it's wrong because you should use your head. If you've worked hard enough to acquire something, you don't want the bastards to take it from you. So, I am very much a conservative. I believe in order and law. I believe in people working and getting to keep something for their hard work. I believe that no one should automatically feel that this country "owes" them something. People in our business are such bleeding hearts. It's ironic because they worked hard to get where they are. I think it's all about feeling guilty over their success.
The Tabloid Column link is courtesy of Jeff at the disturbingly link-free Anti-Antiphrasist.)
Chris at Interesting Times wonders if guards upset at the outcome of the Iraq war might have helped the Cole bombing suspects escape. Interesting theory.
Southern Iraq 2003 = Iran 1979? The people at the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran say that's what the killers of the pro-U.S. cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei are hoping. Here's SMCCDI's press release:
Assassination of Iraqi cleric opens way for Islamic republic in S. Iraq
The assassination of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, elder son of the late Ayatollah Khoei, opens the way for the Islamic regime to increase its influence in any future equation related to the Iraqi Shi-ites.
Al Khoei family is know for rejecting the Islamic republic regime policies and ideology and the funeral ceremony of the late Ayatollah Khoei [Abdul Majid al-Khoei's father], organized 2 years ago, turned into a mass protest and demonstration against the Iranian regime as he was opposed to both dictatorships in Iran and in Iraq.
The Islamic republic regime supports Ayatollah Hakim and has armed and trained hundreds of its extremist Iraqi Shia militiamen with the hope of bringing Iraq under its influence after the fall of Saddam Hussein regime.
Hakim is a machiavelical being who is known for looking for power and establishing an Islamist government based on the backwarded Sharia laws.
I don't know what to make of this. I found it via Free Republic, for what that's worth -- but I'm no fonder of the mullahs of Iran than the Freepers are.
Assassination of Iraqi cleric opens way for Islamic republic in S. Iraq
The assassination of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, elder son of the late Ayatollah Khoei, opens the way for the Islamic regime to increase its influence in any future equation related to the Iraqi Shi-ites.
Al Khoei family is know for rejecting the Islamic republic regime policies and ideology and the funeral ceremony of the late Ayatollah Khoei [Abdul Majid al-Khoei's father], organized 2 years ago, turned into a mass protest and demonstration against the Iranian regime as he was opposed to both dictatorships in Iran and in Iraq.
The Islamic republic regime supports Ayatollah Hakim and has armed and trained hundreds of its extremist Iraqi Shia militiamen with the hope of bringing Iraq under its influence after the fall of Saddam Hussein regime.
Hakim is a machiavelical being who is known for looking for power and establishing an Islamist government based on the backwarded Sharia laws.
I don't know what to make of this. I found it via Free Republic, for what that's worth -- but I'm no fonder of the mullahs of Iran than the Freepers are.
YEAH, IT'S ALL ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG
In a departure, the United States has decided against introducing a resolution criticizing rights abuses in China at the annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a State Department official said Friday.
The decision comes two weeks after the annual State Department human rights report had cited continuing abuses in China.
The official, asking not to be identified, said progress is being made on protection of human rights in China. The Bush administration will press for more progress despite setbacks, the official added.
Among them it mentioned "instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention and denial of due process."
--CBS/AP
Torture of prisoners? Extrajudicial killings? Forget resolutions -- why aren't we invading? Are these things not really "evil" when they're done by countries that really do have nukes? Or when they're done by a country that's doing the heavy lifting for us vis-Ã -vis North Korea?
In a departure, the United States has decided against introducing a resolution criticizing rights abuses in China at the annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a State Department official said Friday.
The decision comes two weeks after the annual State Department human rights report had cited continuing abuses in China.
The official, asking not to be identified, said progress is being made on protection of human rights in China. The Bush administration will press for more progress despite setbacks, the official added.
Among them it mentioned "instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention and denial of due process."
--CBS/AP
Torture of prisoners? Extrajudicial killings? Forget resolutions -- why aren't we invading? Are these things not really "evil" when they're done by countries that really do have nukes? Or when they're done by a country that's doing the heavy lifting for us vis-Ã -vis North Korea?
I don't have much to add to what others have already said about the Baseball Hall of Fame's decision to cancel an event featuring Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, but I am struck by this sentence from the obnoxious, self-righteous letter sent to the actors by the Hall's Reaganite president, Dale Petroskey:
We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important -- and sensitive -- time in our nation's history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger.
Really? How precisely? The holdout forces in Iraq apparently don't even know Saddam's regime has collapsed. You think they're checking their Palm Pilots for the latest from E! Online entertainment news while deciding whether or not to join forces with stray feyadeen?
We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important -- and sensitive -- time in our nation's history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger.
Really? How precisely? The holdout forces in Iraq apparently don't even know Saddam's regime has collapsed. You think they're checking their Palm Pilots for the latest from E! Online entertainment news while deciding whether or not to join forces with stray feyadeen?
British forces shot and killed five men trying to rob a bank who opened fire on them in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the scene of looting over the past week, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday.
--Reuters
But we shouldn't really pay attention to that, of course -- as Andrew Sullivan says, it might "erode the impact and power of April 9."
--Reuters
But we shouldn't really pay attention to that, of course -- as Andrew Sullivan says, it might "erode the impact and power of April 9."
PRIORITIES STRAIGHT
U.S. troops in Baghdad should try harder to bring order to the Iraqi capital and make its hospitals safe, the head of Britain's aid agency said Friday.
''There must be a much bigger effort to stop all this looting and violence,'' international aid minister Clare Short told BBC radio. ''We need a massively bigger effort. It should focus on hospitals.''
The collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime has led to mass looting in Baghdad, a city of 5 million occupied by thinly stretched U.S. forces, and in Basra, where British forces are in charge. Looting also was reported Friday in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
U.S. battalion commanders have pledged patrols to at least stop the looting of hospitals, which Short said lacked electricity, drugs and water supplies.
''An occupying power has a duty to make sure that civilians are cared for, to keep order and to keep civilian administration ticking over,'' Short said.
--Boston Globe/AP
OK -- just as long as we don't have to divert troops from this critical, life-and-death mission:
The Pentagon began moving ground-based equipment into Baghdad last night to allow round-the-clock programming throughout Iraq. Officials said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, took a personal interest in the project and has ordered that a mobile television production studio be delivered to Baghdad as soon as possible so the station can begin carrying local news stories.
--Washington Post
Surely you understand that this has to be a top priority:
Soon a TV-radio studio trailer will be flown to Iraq from London, and then fourteen transmission packages, including towers and transmitters, will be shipped, providing, officials say, coverage to nearly all of Iraq within the next 45 days, all part of the effort to convince the Iraqis that the U.S., and George W. Bush in particular, are friends.
--Terry Moran on last night's ABC World News Tonight (transcript mine)
Mission-critical -- obviously.
U.S. troops in Baghdad should try harder to bring order to the Iraqi capital and make its hospitals safe, the head of Britain's aid agency said Friday.
''There must be a much bigger effort to stop all this looting and violence,'' international aid minister Clare Short told BBC radio. ''We need a massively bigger effort. It should focus on hospitals.''
The collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime has led to mass looting in Baghdad, a city of 5 million occupied by thinly stretched U.S. forces, and in Basra, where British forces are in charge. Looting also was reported Friday in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
U.S. battalion commanders have pledged patrols to at least stop the looting of hospitals, which Short said lacked electricity, drugs and water supplies.
''An occupying power has a duty to make sure that civilians are cared for, to keep order and to keep civilian administration ticking over,'' Short said.
--Boston Globe/AP
OK -- just as long as we don't have to divert troops from this critical, life-and-death mission:
The Pentagon began moving ground-based equipment into Baghdad last night to allow round-the-clock programming throughout Iraq. Officials said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, took a personal interest in the project and has ordered that a mobile television production studio be delivered to Baghdad as soon as possible so the station can begin carrying local news stories.
--Washington Post
Surely you understand that this has to be a top priority:
Soon a TV-radio studio trailer will be flown to Iraq from London, and then fourteen transmission packages, including towers and transmitters, will be shipped, providing, officials say, coverage to nearly all of Iraq within the next 45 days, all part of the effort to convince the Iraqis that the U.S., and George W. Bush in particular, are friends.
--Terry Moran on last night's ABC World News Tonight (transcript mine)
Mission-critical -- obviously.
HEAR NO EVIL. SEE NO EVIL. BLOG NO EVIL.
THE COMING SPIN: You can see it now. Chaos. Looting. Disorder. Losing the peace. It's not that there won't be some truth to these stories; and real cause for concern. The pent-up fury, frustration and sheer anger of three decades is a powerful thing, probably impossible to stop immediately without too much force. And the last thing we want is fire-power directed toward the celebrating masses. The trouble is that they could become the narrative of the story, especially among the usual media suspects, and erode the impact and power of April 9. By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who will probably have a front-page "news analysis" that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches.
--Andrew Sullivan in his blog shortly after midnight last night
Yes, God forbid the narrative should turn to what's actually happening in Iraq right now. Fortunately, right-thinking Americans -- and Americans manqué like Sullivan -- will do their patriotic duty and ensure that the narrative focuses, as it should, on Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Perle and their glorious triumph over Howell Raines, Susan Sontag, and the BBC (Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation).
THE COMING SPIN: You can see it now. Chaos. Looting. Disorder. Losing the peace. It's not that there won't be some truth to these stories; and real cause for concern. The pent-up fury, frustration and sheer anger of three decades is a powerful thing, probably impossible to stop immediately without too much force. And the last thing we want is fire-power directed toward the celebrating masses. The trouble is that they could become the narrative of the story, especially among the usual media suspects, and erode the impact and power of April 9. By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who will probably have a front-page "news analysis" that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches.
--Andrew Sullivan in his blog shortly after midnight last night
Yes, God forbid the narrative should turn to what's actually happening in Iraq right now. Fortunately, right-thinking Americans -- and Americans manqué like Sullivan -- will do their patriotic duty and ensure that the narrative focuses, as it should, on Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Perle and their glorious triumph over Howell Raines, Susan Sontag, and the BBC (Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation).
"No Saddam! No U.S. puppet regime! We want freedom!"
--chant of Iraqi demonstrators at Iraq's embassy in Iran, as reported by AP
Hey, that works for me.
--chant of Iraqi demonstrators at Iraq's embassy in Iran, as reported by AP
Hey, that works for me.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Thanks to SullyWatch for the recent link -- if the link isn't working, scroll down to my post dated Wednesday, April 9, 9:43 A.M.
Yahoo had this grim story last night:
A radical right-wing Jewish group claimed responsibility for an explosion which injured 29 Palestinian children in a school in the northern West Bank.
The group, calling itself "Revenge of the Babies," said in a message sent to the beeper of one of the radio's journalists that the blast was "to avenge the Jewish children killed by the Palestinians."
The blast occurred in a school in the village of Al-Jarba, 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Jenin. Four of the injured were in serious condition, Palestinian medics said Wednesday....
Great.
This today, from Reuters:
Two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israelis in the West Bank's Jordan Valley before being shot dead on Thursday in a fresh surge of Middle East violence ahead of an anticipated U.S.-led peace drive....
And on and on...
(First link from Phil F.)
A radical right-wing Jewish group claimed responsibility for an explosion which injured 29 Palestinian children in a school in the northern West Bank.
The group, calling itself "Revenge of the Babies," said in a message sent to the beeper of one of the radio's journalists that the blast was "to avenge the Jewish children killed by the Palestinians."
The blast occurred in a school in the village of Al-Jarba, 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Jenin. Four of the injured were in serious condition, Palestinian medics said Wednesday....
Great.
This today, from Reuters:
Two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israelis in the West Bank's Jordan Valley before being shot dead on Thursday in a fresh surge of Middle East violence ahead of an anticipated U.S.-led peace drive....
And on and on...
(First link from Phil F.)
I love this nugget from a Toronto Globe and Mail story about evangelicals who claim they understand that they should go easy on the proselytizing ("We are not there to preach; we are on a predominantly humanitarian mission") when dealing with Iraqis:
In one major project, Baptist families have been asked to put together "gift of love" food boxes designed to provide a month's worth of basic nourishment to a family of five. "Please do not place any additional items/literature inside the box," the families are told. Mr. Porter, who runs the program, explained that this is to prevent them from being seen as missionary packages.
However, on the outside of each box will be a label bearing an Arabic translation of John 1:17: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
(Jim Carrey voice: "I CAN'T LIE!")
(Thanks to T.D. for the link.)
In one major project, Baptist families have been asked to put together "gift of love" food boxes designed to provide a month's worth of basic nourishment to a family of five. "Please do not place any additional items/literature inside the box," the families are told. Mr. Porter, who runs the program, explained that this is to prevent them from being seen as missionary packages.
However, on the outside of each box will be a label bearing an Arabic translation of John 1:17: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
(Jim Carrey voice: "I CAN'T LIE!")
(Thanks to T.D. for the link.)
Top four stories on the Yahoo title screen as I type this:
• Marines in fierce firefight at mosque
• Bodies litter streets of Baghdad suburb
• Iraqi Shiite leader, aide murdered in Najaf
• ICRC: Baghdad hospital looted, others shut
(A previous story reported that a pro-Saddam cleric was killed in addition to the pro-U.S. cleric and his aide.)
Things are not looking good in the 51st state today....
(Subtle-as-a-flying-mallet irony department: In a more innocent time -- i.e., a few hours ago -- MSNBC.com headline writers put up this headline: Reveling in new freedoms: With coming of U.S. troops, Iraqis feel free to disagree.)
• Marines in fierce firefight at mosque
• Bodies litter streets of Baghdad suburb
• Iraqi Shiite leader, aide murdered in Najaf
• ICRC: Baghdad hospital looted, others shut
(A previous story reported that a pro-Saddam cleric was killed in addition to the pro-U.S. cleric and his aide.)
Things are not looking good in the 51st state today....
(Subtle-as-a-flying-mallet irony department: In a more innocent time -- i.e., a few hours ago -- MSNBC.com headline writers put up this headline: Reveling in new freedoms: With coming of U.S. troops, Iraqis feel free to disagree.)
Hey, quit bitching -- it's not called Operation Kurdish Freedom, is it?
US assures Turkey it will replace Kurdish forces in oil-rich Kirkuk
Turkey said it had won a pledge from the United States to send reinforcements to Kirkuk to replace Kurdish fighters who captured the strategic oil-rich city in northern Iraq.
The assurance came after Ankara threatened to send troops to the region if Kurds were allowed to take control of Kirkuk and northern Iraq's other major city Mosul, a move that could encourage them to declare independence.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave the pledge after US and Kurdish forces entered Kirkuk earlier Thursday following a popular uprising in the city, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
"He said they would send new US forces to Kirkuk in a few hours. They will take out those who have entered," Gul told reporters after speaking by telephone with Powell....
--Agence France-Presse
(Thanks to Leonard for the link.)
US assures Turkey it will replace Kurdish forces in oil-rich Kirkuk
Turkey said it had won a pledge from the United States to send reinforcements to Kirkuk to replace Kurdish fighters who captured the strategic oil-rich city in northern Iraq.
The assurance came after Ankara threatened to send troops to the region if Kurds were allowed to take control of Kirkuk and northern Iraq's other major city Mosul, a move that could encourage them to declare independence.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave the pledge after US and Kurdish forces entered Kirkuk earlier Thursday following a popular uprising in the city, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
"He said they would send new US forces to Kirkuk in a few hours. They will take out those who have entered," Gul told reporters after speaking by telephone with Powell....
--Agence France-Presse
(Thanks to Leonard for the link.)
The soldier who wrapped the Saddam statue's face with an American flag seems to have gotten the message about American triumphalism -- he removed the flag quickly.
Rupert Murdoch apparently hasn't gotten that message.
Does he think Arabs and Muslims don't use the Internet, so they won't see this? Does he think using one of his front pages to rub our flag in their faces is a good idea?
Rupert Murdoch apparently hasn't gotten that message.
Does he think Arabs and Muslims don't use the Internet, so they won't see this? Does he think using one of his front pages to rub our flag in their faces is a good idea?
PRIORITIES
Here are two paragraphs from an AP story on anarchy in Baghdad. I've left off the first sentence of the first paragraph:
...But the nine-story Ministry of Transport building was gutted by fire, as was the Iraqi Olympic headquarters, while the Ministry of Education was partially burned. Near the Interior Ministry, the office building of Saddam's son Odai stood damaged, its upper floors blackened.
A building on fire near the Interior Ministry was rocked by deafening explosions apparently caused by ammunition and rockets stashed inside. The blasts went on for more than 15 minutes. No immediate injuries were reported.
Here's the sentence I cut:
U.S. troops occupied the Oil Ministry.
Of course.
Here are two paragraphs from an AP story on anarchy in Baghdad. I've left off the first sentence of the first paragraph:
...But the nine-story Ministry of Transport building was gutted by fire, as was the Iraqi Olympic headquarters, while the Ministry of Education was partially burned. Near the Interior Ministry, the office building of Saddam's son Odai stood damaged, its upper floors blackened.
A building on fire near the Interior Ministry was rocked by deafening explosions apparently caused by ammunition and rockets stashed inside. The blasts went on for more than 15 minutes. No immediate injuries were reported.
Here's the sentence I cut:
U.S. troops occupied the Oil Ministry.
Of course.
A few days ago I linked a post in which a gentleman named Kim du Toit delighted in the facial injuries of an antiwar protester who'd been hit by rubber bullets. An e-mailer has pointed out to me that in another post Mr. du Toit calls for the murder of U.S. government officials -- and offers to knife them to death himself. The post is here.
Um, isn't it illegal to make such a threat?
Of course, the people Mr. du Toit threatens to kill are the limp-wristed internationalists at the State Department, not, y'know, anyone really important to the functioning of the U.S. government, so I guess it's OK. (Though the feds will probably come to my door and ask me why I linked the post.)
Um, isn't it illegal to make such a threat?
Of course, the people Mr. du Toit threatens to kill are the limp-wristed internationalists at the State Department, not, y'know, anyone really important to the functioning of the U.S. government, so I guess it's OK. (Though the feds will probably come to my door and ask me why I linked the post.)
Just bluster?
Palestinian militants vowed on Thursday to intensify attacks on Israel after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, saying they were the Arabs' last hope against American and Israeli military might in the Middle East.
Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, senior political leader of the Islamic militant faction Hamas, said he was shocked by the rapid U.S. conquest of the Iraqi capital but that there would be no knock-on collapse of the 30-month-old Palestinian uprising.
"There will be a change. Resistance will escalate and will become more violent. Resistance in Palestine will never stop because it is the last remaining hope for the whole Arab and Muslim nation," he told Reuters in Gaza City....
--Reuters
Palestinian militants vowed on Thursday to intensify attacks on Israel after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, saying they were the Arabs' last hope against American and Israeli military might in the Middle East.
Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, senior political leader of the Islamic militant faction Hamas, said he was shocked by the rapid U.S. conquest of the Iraqi capital but that there would be no knock-on collapse of the 30-month-old Palestinian uprising.
"There will be a change. Resistance will escalate and will become more violent. Resistance in Palestine will never stop because it is the last remaining hope for the whole Arab and Muslim nation," he told Reuters in Gaza City....
--Reuters
He's not at 90% yet -- or even close. Polling Report has Bush's approval rating actually dropping slightly in two recent polls 71% to 69% in a Pew Research Center and 71% to 70% in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. As Gulf War I ended, Bush senior's approval rating was a lot higher.
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Wow, that was fast.
Shi'ite Group to Boycott U.S. Talks on Iraq
The main Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group said on Wednesday it would boycott a political meeting the United States is trying to arrange in southern Iraq next week because of the U.S. military presence.
"We are not going to take part in this meeting in Nassiriya. We think this is part of General Garner's rule of Iraq and we are not going to be part of that project at all," said Hamid al-Bayati, the London representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
The Bush administration has appointed retired Lt. Gen Jay Garner to run civilian affairs in Iraq alongside the U.S. and British military presence.
...Analysts say the attitude of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority will be crucial to the success of U.S. plans in Iraq.
If Shi'ite clerics and politicians reject the U.S. military occupation, it could be hard for Garner and his future Iraqi allies to govern the country effectively, they say.
Bayati noted that Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has not endorsed the U.S. presence....
--Reuters
And in the north, are we still trying to keep the Kurds from seizing Kirkuk?
Shi'ite Group to Boycott U.S. Talks on Iraq
The main Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group said on Wednesday it would boycott a political meeting the United States is trying to arrange in southern Iraq next week because of the U.S. military presence.
"We are not going to take part in this meeting in Nassiriya. We think this is part of General Garner's rule of Iraq and we are not going to be part of that project at all," said Hamid al-Bayati, the London representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
The Bush administration has appointed retired Lt. Gen Jay Garner to run civilian affairs in Iraq alongside the U.S. and British military presence.
...Analysts say the attitude of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority will be crucial to the success of U.S. plans in Iraq.
If Shi'ite clerics and politicians reject the U.S. military occupation, it could be hard for Garner and his future Iraqi allies to govern the country effectively, they say.
Bayati noted that Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has not endorsed the U.S. presence....
--Reuters
And in the north, are we still trying to keep the Kurds from seizing Kirkuk?
I liked Hart Seely's "Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld" in Slate. Here's my attempt:
"He's either dead, or he's incapacitated, or he's healthy and cowering in some tunnel someplace trying to avoid being caught. What else can one say?" Rumsfeld said.
--CNN
He's either dead, or
he's incapacitated, or
he's healthy and
cowering in
some tunnel
someplace
trying to
avoid being
caught. What
else can
one say?
"He's either dead, or he's incapacitated, or he's healthy and cowering in some tunnel someplace trying to avoid being caught. What else can one say?" Rumsfeld said.
--CNN
He's either dead, or
he's incapacitated, or
he's healthy and
cowering in
some tunnel
someplace
trying to
avoid being
caught. What
else can
one say?
Yesterday, from the comfort of Tennessee, Glenn "InstaPundit" Reynolds airily dismissed concerns about Iraqi civilian casualties in his MSNBC blog:
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
These folks seem a tad less sanguine:
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday it had temporarily suspended humanitarian operations in Baghdad because the situation in the city was "chaotic and unpredictable." ...
ICRC spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin in Baghdad told CNN that ambulances had been unable to approach casualties in many parts of the city due to heavy crossfire as U.S. troops battled sporadic Iraqi resistance.
...The delay in reaching casualties in Baghdad could prove fatal in many cases, Huguenin-Benjamin said.
"The problem is not the lack of medicine in the hospitals. The problem is the lack of respect for ambulances and respect for casualties, to give a chance for a minimum of security for people to be evacuated," he said....
--Reuters
The Iraq Body Count, regarded as bogus by Reynolds, counts at least 961 Iraqi civilian casualties and as many as 1139 as I type this.
You know what? I don't care which side kills civilians. Iraq Body Count does (it lists only those casualties attributable to U.S. and allied military action), and so does Reynolds (he thinks Iraq Body Count inaccurately blames the U.S. and the coalition for some deaths) -- but I don't give a damn. We started this war. Every death or injury we prevented by toppling Saddam is on our ledger as a credit -- but all harm to noncombatants that wouldn't have happened if there'd been no war is our responsibility.
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
These folks seem a tad less sanguine:
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday it had temporarily suspended humanitarian operations in Baghdad because the situation in the city was "chaotic and unpredictable." ...
ICRC spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin in Baghdad told CNN that ambulances had been unable to approach casualties in many parts of the city due to heavy crossfire as U.S. troops battled sporadic Iraqi resistance.
...The delay in reaching casualties in Baghdad could prove fatal in many cases, Huguenin-Benjamin said.
"The problem is not the lack of medicine in the hospitals. The problem is the lack of respect for ambulances and respect for casualties, to give a chance for a minimum of security for people to be evacuated," he said....
--Reuters
The Iraq Body Count, regarded as bogus by Reynolds, counts at least 961 Iraqi civilian casualties and as many as 1139 as I type this.
You know what? I don't care which side kills civilians. Iraq Body Count does (it lists only those casualties attributable to U.S. and allied military action), and so does Reynolds (he thinks Iraq Body Count inaccurately blames the U.S. and the coalition for some deaths) -- but I don't give a damn. We started this war. Every death or injury we prevented by toppling Saddam is on our ledger as a credit -- but all harm to noncombatants that wouldn't have happened if there'd been no war is our responsibility.
The United States on Wednesday warned countries it has accused of pursuing weapons of mass destruction, including Iran, Syria and North Korea, to "draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq." ...
--Reuters
3rd Stray Rocket Hits Iran, Kills Teen
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran reacted angrily Tuesday after a stray rocket struck its territory near the Iraqi border, killing an Iranian teenager.
It was the third time Iranian territory has been hit by a rocket since U.S.-led troops went to war in Iraq.
The rocket had "apparently been fired by U.S.-led coalition planes," said Mohammad Kianoush-Rad, who represents Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province, in the Iranian parliament.
He said it landed outside Abadan, a port city about 30 miles east of the Iraqi city of Basra.
A 13-year-old boy was killed by the explosion, which left a 5-foot-deep crater in the road, state-run Tehran television said....
--AP; also at Fox
Coincidence?
--Reuters
3rd Stray Rocket Hits Iran, Kills Teen
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran reacted angrily Tuesday after a stray rocket struck its territory near the Iraqi border, killing an Iranian teenager.
It was the third time Iranian territory has been hit by a rocket since U.S.-led troops went to war in Iraq.
The rocket had "apparently been fired by U.S.-led coalition planes," said Mohammad Kianoush-Rad, who represents Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province, in the Iranian parliament.
He said it landed outside Abadan, a port city about 30 miles east of the Iraqi city of Basra.
A 13-year-old boy was killed by the explosion, which left a 5-foot-deep crater in the road, state-run Tehran television said....
--AP; also at Fox
Coincidence?
During the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999, as the senators signed their names in the oath book swearing they would be fair and impartial, Peter Jennings, who was anchoring ABC News’s live coverage, made sure his audience knew which senators were conservative—but uttered not a word about which ones were liberal.
--Bernard Goldberg, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, p. 57 quoted at the Daily Howler, 2/1/02
Number of times the word "conservative" appeared in George Gurley's profile of Ann Coulter in the 8/26/02 New York Observer: 6.
Number of times the word "liberal" appears in George Gurley's profile of Eric Alterman in the current New York Observer: 17.
--Bernard Goldberg, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, p. 57 quoted at the Daily Howler, 2/1/02
Number of times the word "conservative" appeared in George Gurley's profile of Ann Coulter in the 8/26/02 New York Observer: 6.
Number of times the word "liberal" appears in George Gurley's profile of Eric Alterman in the current New York Observer: 17.
It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when you're frightened. It's hard to say, "Thank you for liberating me," when liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard.
That was what I found when spending the day in Umm Qasr and its hospital, in southern Iraq. Umm Qasr was the first town liberated by coalition forces. But 20 days into the war, it is without running water, security or adequate food supplies. I went in with a Kuwaiti relief team, who, taking pity on the Iraqis, tossed out extra food from a bus window as we left. The Umm Qasr townsfolk scrambled after that food like pigeons jostling for bread crumbs in a park....
That's from Thomas Friedman's column in today's New York Times. Yes, he's the annoying Pangloss of globalization, and yes, he gave aid and comfort to the war party for most of the buildup. Read the column anyway.
That was what I found when spending the day in Umm Qasr and its hospital, in southern Iraq. Umm Qasr was the first town liberated by coalition forces. But 20 days into the war, it is without running water, security or adequate food supplies. I went in with a Kuwaiti relief team, who, taking pity on the Iraqis, tossed out extra food from a bus window as we left. The Umm Qasr townsfolk scrambled after that food like pigeons jostling for bread crumbs in a park....
That's from Thomas Friedman's column in today's New York Times. Yes, he's the annoying Pangloss of globalization, and yes, he gave aid and comfort to the war party for most of the buildup. Read the column anyway.
Andrew Sullivan has had great fun sneering at Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Said al-Sahaf (as have others), but it's not enough for Sullivan to chortle at Sahaf's rosy scenarios of Iraqi steadfastness -- he has to add this swipe at his hated BBC:
BBC UPDATE: A new low. The World Service just described this goon as "the public face of Iraqi resistance."
Why is this "a new low"? Is there or is there not "Iraqi resistance"? There certainly was at 5:41:43 P.M. yesterday, when Sullivan posted, and The Washington Post reports right now that "small formations of Iraqi fighters, some wearing uniforms, some in civilian clothes, continue to mount resistance in pockets." And Sahaf continues to try to buck up the holdouts, or at least he did as of 5:41:43 P.M. yesterday. So he is, in fact, "the public face of Iraqi resistance," or was as of late yesterday afternoon. So what's the problem?
Sullivan really needs to dial it down. He's become like one of those annoying hypersensitive car alarms that go off in a strong gust of wind.
BBC UPDATE: A new low. The World Service just described this goon as "the public face of Iraqi resistance."
Why is this "a new low"? Is there or is there not "Iraqi resistance"? There certainly was at 5:41:43 P.M. yesterday, when Sullivan posted, and The Washington Post reports right now that "small formations of Iraqi fighters, some wearing uniforms, some in civilian clothes, continue to mount resistance in pockets." And Sahaf continues to try to buck up the holdouts, or at least he did as of 5:41:43 P.M. yesterday. So he is, in fact, "the public face of Iraqi resistance," or was as of late yesterday afternoon. So what's the problem?
Sullivan really needs to dial it down. He's become like one of those annoying hypersensitive car alarms that go off in a strong gust of wind.
Well, this happened at a convenient time for the U.S.:
An American warplane mistakenly bombed a house, killing 11 civilians near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Wednesday....
--AP
Oh, and there's this:
Forces loyal to ethnic Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and those of his Tajik rival, Gen. Atta Mohammed, battled with automatic weapons for four hours Tuesday in Maimana, the capital of Faryab province, said Sayed Noor Ullah, one of Dostum's senior officials.
Weren't both these guys on our side in the war? These things are never as neat as we're told they are, are they?
*********
Hey, that's what I do in this blog -- I say, "Excuse me, on the other hand...." I've posted a lot of negative things about the Iraq war, and now it looks as if that war is really winding down and people are singing Bush's praises as they drag ministry-building furniture through the streets. Hey, I hope this worked. I hope their lives improve. And I hope the damn supplies get into the hospitals soon. I'd be happy if no one felt the need to fire another shot.
An American warplane mistakenly bombed a house, killing 11 civilians near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Wednesday....
--AP
Oh, and there's this:
Forces loyal to ethnic Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and those of his Tajik rival, Gen. Atta Mohammed, battled with automatic weapons for four hours Tuesday in Maimana, the capital of Faryab province, said Sayed Noor Ullah, one of Dostum's senior officials.
Weren't both these guys on our side in the war? These things are never as neat as we're told they are, are they?
*********
Hey, that's what I do in this blog -- I say, "Excuse me, on the other hand...." I've posted a lot of negative things about the Iraq war, and now it looks as if that war is really winding down and people are singing Bush's praises as they drag ministry-building furniture through the streets. Hey, I hope this worked. I hope their lives improve. And I hope the damn supplies get into the hospitals soon. I'd be happy if no one felt the need to fire another shot.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
I read a lot of lefty Web sites and blogs, and I haven't seen a single one that's mentioned the British army major who cheated his way to the top prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? If the cheating soldier had been French, can you imagine what the reaction would have been at Free Republic, Lucianne.com, InstaPundit, andrewsullivan.com, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?
Ariel Sharon has brushed aside an appeal by the White House to stop an unprecedented move by Jewish settlers into a Palestinian district of Jersualem which his critics say will further hinder a political settlement.
After more than two years of legal and political wrangling, Mr Sharon's office approved the plan last week and the first Jewish families have moved into new flats in the Ma'aleh Ha'zeitim settlement, beside the densely populated Arab district of Ras al-Amoud.
It is the first time a Jewish settlement has been built in a Palestinian area of Jerusalem since Israel seized control of the entire city in 1967...
--Guardian
Eric Alterman's gloss on this:
Sharon to Bush, Blair, “coalition”: Drop dead.
(Or does that naively assume that Bush gives a damn about the peace process?)
After more than two years of legal and political wrangling, Mr Sharon's office approved the plan last week and the first Jewish families have moved into new flats in the Ma'aleh Ha'zeitim settlement, beside the densely populated Arab district of Ras al-Amoud.
It is the first time a Jewish settlement has been built in a Palestinian area of Jerusalem since Israel seized control of the entire city in 1967...
--Guardian
Eric Alterman's gloss on this:
Sharon to Bush, Blair, “coalition”: Drop dead.
(Or does that naively assume that Bush gives a damn about the peace process?)
Pro-war celebrities (scroll down for full list).
Heather Locklear! Chad Everett! C.C. DeVille! Quite an assemblage of talent and gray matter there.
The folks who compiled this list whine that actors and rock stars shouldn't comment about politics, but clearly they think it's OK as long as the celebrities do it the, er, right way.
Heather Locklear! Chad Everett! C.C. DeVille! Quite an assemblage of talent and gray matter there.
The folks who compiled this list whine that actors and rock stars shouldn't comment about politics, but clearly they think it's OK as long as the celebrities do it the, er, right way.
I should have linked this a long time ago: Slate's 1999 compilation of anti-war statements by Republicans opposed to U.S. (read: Clinton) military involvement in the Balkans. (Example, from Tom DeLay: "The bombing was a mistake. ... And this president ought to show some leadership and admit it, and come to some sort of negotiated end.") Politics absolutely did not stop at the water's edge then. And Atrios has more quotes.
Do the Bushies simply not give a damn about Arab and Muslim public opinion?
President Bush has named controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace to the dismay of a major American Muslim organization, which described Pipes on Monday as a ``Muslim-basher'' with bigoted views....
Last year, Pipes aroused criticism when he launched Campus Watch, an organization that collects complaints against professors and academic institutions deemed to be biased in favor of Islam, Muslims and Palestinians.
In a commentary in the New York Post on March 25, Pipes wrote that a grenade attack on U.S. troops at a camp in Kuwait that killed two soldiers and for which an American Muslim has been charged, ``fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims.''
``There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks,'' he added.
--Reuters
Tarek at The Liquid List directs us to this statement by Pipes, in which he says that 10 to 15 percent of Muslims "must be considered potential killers." Elsewhere, Tarek links this rundown of statements by Pipes and reviews of his books (some statements: "I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews"; "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene....All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most").
Yeah, that ought to win a few hearts and minds in the Arab/Muslim world.
But there's more: Tarek also notes that, according to this Guardian story, Michael Mobbs "will supervise civil administration in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is removed." Who is Michael Mobbs? The Guardian explains:
In his role as a legal consultant to the Pentagon, Mr Mobbs has been working behind the scenes to help determine the legal fate of terror suspects and other detainees held by the US military in Cuba and Afghanistan.
He was also author of what has become known as the "Mobbs declaration", a document presented to the US courts on behalf of the Pentagon claiming that the US president has wide powers to detain American citizens alleged to be enemy combatants indefinitely.
Unbelievable.
President Bush has named controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace to the dismay of a major American Muslim organization, which described Pipes on Monday as a ``Muslim-basher'' with bigoted views....
Last year, Pipes aroused criticism when he launched Campus Watch, an organization that collects complaints against professors and academic institutions deemed to be biased in favor of Islam, Muslims and Palestinians.
In a commentary in the New York Post on March 25, Pipes wrote that a grenade attack on U.S. troops at a camp in Kuwait that killed two soldiers and for which an American Muslim has been charged, ``fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims.''
``There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks,'' he added.
--Reuters
Tarek at The Liquid List directs us to this statement by Pipes, in which he says that 10 to 15 percent of Muslims "must be considered potential killers." Elsewhere, Tarek links this rundown of statements by Pipes and reviews of his books (some statements: "I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews"; "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene....All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most").
Yeah, that ought to win a few hearts and minds in the Arab/Muslim world.
But there's more: Tarek also notes that, according to this Guardian story, Michael Mobbs "will supervise civil administration in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is removed." Who is Michael Mobbs? The Guardian explains:
In his role as a legal consultant to the Pentagon, Mr Mobbs has been working behind the scenes to help determine the legal fate of terror suspects and other detainees held by the US military in Cuba and Afghanistan.
He was also author of what has become known as the "Mobbs declaration", a document presented to the US courts on behalf of the Pentagon claiming that the US president has wide powers to detain American citizens alleged to be enemy combatants indefinitely.
Unbelievable.
'American Idol' Finalists Record Benefit Single
New York, 4/7/2003. The finalists in the second season of the U.S. talent show "American Idol" have now come out with their own benefit single. Its publisher, RCA Records, reports that 50 cents of every single sold will go to the American Red Cross. The CD contains the two American classics "God Bless the U.S.A" and "What the World Needs Now Is Love," which the finalists first presented in the "American Idol" show on Mar 26. The hit "What the World Needs Now Is Love" was written in 1967 by the famous songwriter/producer Burt Bacharach, who also produced the song now, 36 years later, with the "Idol" finalists. "It had meaning when we wrote it, but it has so much more meaning now at this time," declared Bacharach.
I guess if Saddam's not dead and we want to force him out of a building the way we did Noriega, we can just blast this CD at him until he surrenders.
New York, 4/7/2003. The finalists in the second season of the U.S. talent show "American Idol" have now come out with their own benefit single. Its publisher, RCA Records, reports that 50 cents of every single sold will go to the American Red Cross. The CD contains the two American classics "God Bless the U.S.A" and "What the World Needs Now Is Love," which the finalists first presented in the "American Idol" show on Mar 26. The hit "What the World Needs Now Is Love" was written in 1967 by the famous songwriter/producer Burt Bacharach, who also produced the song now, 36 years later, with the "Idol" finalists. "It had meaning when we wrote it, but it has so much more meaning now at this time," declared Bacharach.
I guess if Saddam's not dead and we want to force him out of a building the way we did Noriega, we can just blast this CD at him until he surrenders.
Brussels, April 8, IRNA -- The second round of political dialogue between the EU and Iran will be held in Brussels on Thursday, spokesman for the current Greek EU Presidency, Roussos Koundouros, told IRNA Tuesday.
...The spokesman said the aim of the political dialogue is to promote tactical contact between the EU and Iran.
He noted that the dialogue is being held in parallel with the trade and cooperation negotiations (TCA) between Tehran and Brussls.
...The third round of EU-Iran negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) begins in Brussels Tuesday afternoon.
The first round of TCA talks between the EU and the Islamic Republic of Iran was held in Brussels in December and the second round in Tehran in February.
--Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)
Tehran, April 5, IRNA -- Spainish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ana Palacio here Saturday stressed that although Iran and Spain may differ in their perspectives and approaches to certain issues, there was a need to continue the current dialogue.
"We have to work on our dialogue, the dialogue between the European Union and Iran and the dialogue between Spain and Iran, that is a full dialogue without having subjects that you do not touch upon," she said....
--also from INRA
Given the fact that Iran is one of the countries U.S. hawks are trying to cow into submission right now, I'm surprised these contacts aren't considered more newsworthy in the West -- the Iran-EU meetings were mentioned briefly on the "Marketplace Morning Report" that gets tucked into NPR's Morning Edition here in New York, but I can't find other mentions of the meetings in searches of various news sites. The EU's continuing dialogue with Iran suggests that the whole world is apparently not yet with the American neocons' program.
...The spokesman said the aim of the political dialogue is to promote tactical contact between the EU and Iran.
He noted that the dialogue is being held in parallel with the trade and cooperation negotiations (TCA) between Tehran and Brussls.
...The third round of EU-Iran negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) begins in Brussels Tuesday afternoon.
The first round of TCA talks between the EU and the Islamic Republic of Iran was held in Brussels in December and the second round in Tehran in February.
--Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)
Tehran, April 5, IRNA -- Spainish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ana Palacio here Saturday stressed that although Iran and Spain may differ in their perspectives and approaches to certain issues, there was a need to continue the current dialogue.
"We have to work on our dialogue, the dialogue between the European Union and Iran and the dialogue between Spain and Iran, that is a full dialogue without having subjects that you do not touch upon," she said....
--also from INRA
Given the fact that Iran is one of the countries U.S. hawks are trying to cow into submission right now, I'm surprised these contacts aren't considered more newsworthy in the West -- the Iran-EU meetings were mentioned briefly on the "Marketplace Morning Report" that gets tucked into NPR's Morning Edition here in New York, but I can't find other mentions of the meetings in searches of various news sites. The EU's continuing dialogue with Iran suggests that the whole world is apparently not yet with the American neocons' program.
Syria now top US target for 'regime change'
One of the main subjects on the agenda of the Belfast summit yesterday was Syria, the Pentagon's next likely target for "regime change" amid suspicions it allowed Saddam Hussein to transfer weapons of mass destruction within its borders.....
--Telegraph (U.K.)
The article goes on to say,
American officials stress, however, that regime change can be achieved without military action. There are strong hopes in Washington for a popular revolution in Iran by democratic opposition groups inspired by what has happened in Iraq.
I guess this is supposed to be reassuring. Never mind that the Bush White House was saying pretty much the same thing about Iraq even as everyone on the planet recognized that the Bushies were hell-bent going to war there.
One of the main subjects on the agenda of the Belfast summit yesterday was Syria, the Pentagon's next likely target for "regime change" amid suspicions it allowed Saddam Hussein to transfer weapons of mass destruction within its borders.....
--Telegraph (U.K.)
The article goes on to say,
American officials stress, however, that regime change can be achieved without military action. There are strong hopes in Washington for a popular revolution in Iran by democratic opposition groups inspired by what has happened in Iraq.
I guess this is supposed to be reassuring. Never mind that the Bush White House was saying pretty much the same thing about Iraq even as everyone on the planet recognized that the Bushies were hell-bent going to war there.
Monday, April 07, 2003
Current results of an online poll about the Georgia state flag at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site:
What's the best way to resolve the flag debate?
1. Adopt this latest design and be done with it? 19% 4503 [votes]
2. Adopt it and then ratify it in a March 2004 vote? 3% 709 [votes]
3. Keep the current flag? 5% 1199 [votes]
4. Go back to the flag with the Rebel emblem? 73% 16932 [votes]
Total Votes 23343
(Emphasis mine.)
Yeah, these things are unscientific, but really now...
(Thanks to Roger Ailes for the link.)
What's the best way to resolve the flag debate?
1. Adopt this latest design and be done with it? 19% 4503 [votes]
2. Adopt it and then ratify it in a March 2004 vote? 3% 709 [votes]
3. Keep the current flag? 5% 1199 [votes]
4. Go back to the flag with the Rebel emblem? 73% 16932 [votes]
Total Votes 23343
(Emphasis mine.)
Yeah, these things are unscientific, but really now...
(Thanks to Roger Ailes for the link.)
...in one measure of just how badly the city’s finances are being strained by the demands of civil defense, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has quietly undertaken a fund-raising drive designed to bring in money for the department from private benefactors.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that New York City’s police commissioner has to spend his time passing the tin cup for private contributions to support the technology, equipment and other needs associated with protecting the city from further acts of international terrorism," Mr. Kravis said. "New York City is at the highest risk, and our Police Department plays an important role in providing intelligence information and security for the country."
The Bush plan has been assailed in recent days by New York elected officials—Republicans as well as Democrats—who argue that it would provide New York with less federal security money per capita than every state except California.
That's from an article in the New York Observer. New York City, the most obvious target of any likely terrorist apart from D.C. itself, is still getting shortchanged, and things are so bad that even city plutocrats such as Henry Kravis, a co-founder of the Wall Street firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, are dissatisfied with the Bushies. Sorry if I seem like an NYC chauvinist for bringing this up, but we generate a hell of lot of wealth here, which you'd think would mean something to Bush. Apparently it doesn't, perhaps because we don't wear boots while doing it.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that New York City’s police commissioner has to spend his time passing the tin cup for private contributions to support the technology, equipment and other needs associated with protecting the city from further acts of international terrorism," Mr. Kravis said. "New York City is at the highest risk, and our Police Department plays an important role in providing intelligence information and security for the country."
The Bush plan has been assailed in recent days by New York elected officials—Republicans as well as Democrats—who argue that it would provide New York with less federal security money per capita than every state except California.
That's from an article in the New York Observer. New York City, the most obvious target of any likely terrorist apart from D.C. itself, is still getting shortchanged, and things are so bad that even city plutocrats such as Henry Kravis, a co-founder of the Wall Street firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, are dissatisfied with the Bushies. Sorry if I seem like an NYC chauvinist for bringing this up, but we generate a hell of lot of wealth here, which you'd think would mean something to Bush. Apparently it doesn't, perhaps because we don't wear boots while doing it.
Rubber bullets were fired at anti-war protesters in Oakland today. What does this high-minded American have to say about it?
"If this picture doesn't make you giggle, you have a heart of stone."
The picture is in the link. It won't make you wince like a battlefield-injury photo, but it's not pleasant.
"If this picture doesn't make you giggle, you have a heart of stone."
The picture is in the link. It won't make you wince like a battlefield-injury photo, but it's not pleasant.
More lead-footed right-wing wit....
THE WILLING COUNTRY
(With apologies to The Little Red Hen)
One day as the Willing Country was going about its business, she found a very mean man with lots of soldiers who so enjoyed killing his own people that now he wanted to kill the Willing Country's people, and the people of many other countries too.
"This evil man should be defeated," she said. "Who will defeat this evil man?"
"Not I," said France.
"Not I," said Germany.
"Not I," said the UN and Russia.
"Then I will," said the Willing Country. And her people and her friends went into harm's way to do it....
Gosh, I bet you can't imagine how it ends, can you?
If the suspense is killing you, the whole thing is here. (Favorite line: "Finally the dying was done, the evil man was no more, his countrymen could live in peace and a great danger to the world was past." Then again, this is a fairy tale, isn't it?)
THE WILLING COUNTRY
(With apologies to The Little Red Hen)
One day as the Willing Country was going about its business, she found a very mean man with lots of soldiers who so enjoyed killing his own people that now he wanted to kill the Willing Country's people, and the people of many other countries too.
"This evil man should be defeated," she said. "Who will defeat this evil man?"
"Not I," said France.
"Not I," said Germany.
"Not I," said the UN and Russia.
"Then I will," said the Willing Country. And her people and her friends went into harm's way to do it....
Gosh, I bet you can't imagine how it ends, can you?
If the suspense is killing you, the whole thing is here. (Favorite line: "Finally the dying was done, the evil man was no more, his countrymen could live in peace and a great danger to the world was past." Then again, this is a fairy tale, isn't it?)
Oh, those pesky Turks.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Iraqi Kurdish control of oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk would constitute grounds for Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq, Anatolia news agency reported....
--Yahoo News/Agence France-Presse
Turkey on Monday insisted that a flurry of contacts with Iran and Syria over the war in neighbouring Iraq did not mean it was forming a tripartite grouping with countries viewed with suspicion by the US....
--Financial Times
Nothing to worry about, right?
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Iraqi Kurdish control of oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk would constitute grounds for Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq, Anatolia news agency reported....
--Yahoo News/Agence France-Presse
Turkey on Monday insisted that a flurry of contacts with Iran and Syria over the war in neighbouring Iraq did not mean it was forming a tripartite grouping with countries viewed with suspicion by the US....
--Financial Times
Nothing to worry about, right?
AND PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS EITHER.
Taliban Reviving Structure in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Before executing the International Red Cross worker, the Taliban gunmen made a satellite telephone call to their superior for instructions: Kill him?
Kill him, the order came back, and Ricardo Munguia, whose body was found with 20 bullet wounds last month, became the first foreign aid worker to die in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster from power 18 months ago.
The manner of his death suggests the Taliban is not only determined to remain a force in this country, but is reorganizing and reviving its command structure.
There is little to stop them. The soldiers and police who were supposed to be the bedrock of a stable postwar Afghanistan have gone unpaid for months and are drifting away.
At a time when the United States is promising a reconstructed democratic postwar Iraq, many Afghans are remembering hearing similar promises not long ago.
Instead, what they see is thieving warlords, murder on the roads, and a resurgence of Taliban vigilantism.
``It's like I am seeing the same movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem,'' said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president and his representative in southern Kandahar. ``What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business.''...
--New York Times/AP
****
George W. Bush has given our soldiers something to be proud of, something they can understand and respect. He is, now, after all he's been through the past two years, Mr. Backbone. He has demonstrated to a seething and skeptical world that America can and will stand and fight for a cause, see it through, help the tormented and emerge victorious.
--Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal
(Thanks to Atrios for the Times/AP link and TBOGG for the Noonan link.)
Taliban Reviving Structure in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Before executing the International Red Cross worker, the Taliban gunmen made a satellite telephone call to their superior for instructions: Kill him?
Kill him, the order came back, and Ricardo Munguia, whose body was found with 20 bullet wounds last month, became the first foreign aid worker to die in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster from power 18 months ago.
The manner of his death suggests the Taliban is not only determined to remain a force in this country, but is reorganizing and reviving its command structure.
There is little to stop them. The soldiers and police who were supposed to be the bedrock of a stable postwar Afghanistan have gone unpaid for months and are drifting away.
At a time when the United States is promising a reconstructed democratic postwar Iraq, many Afghans are remembering hearing similar promises not long ago.
Instead, what they see is thieving warlords, murder on the roads, and a resurgence of Taliban vigilantism.
``It's like I am seeing the same movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem,'' said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president and his representative in southern Kandahar. ``What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business.''...
--New York Times/AP
****
George W. Bush has given our soldiers something to be proud of, something they can understand and respect. He is, now, after all he's been through the past two years, Mr. Backbone. He has demonstrated to a seething and skeptical world that America can and will stand and fight for a cause, see it through, help the tormented and emerge victorious.
--Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal
(Thanks to Atrios for the Times/AP link and TBOGG for the Noonan link.)
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS. EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL. REPEAT -- PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS.
Baghdad doctors overwhelmed by arrival of 100 patients an hour
Hospitals in Baghdad are in danger of being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of wounded people brought in for treatment, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned yesterday.
An average of 100 patients an hour had been taken to the Yarmouk hospital, one of about five in the city that can treat the war wounded, it said.
Medical staff working round the clock without breaks were also hampered by power cuts and the lack of clean water....
Some of the attacks were so close to the hospitals that the wounded were walking in for treatment. The ICRC said they had not kept figures for those injured because emergency admissions had kept coming in. One doctor, Osama Saleh al-Duleimi, 48, who has witnessed two previous wars, said: "I've been a doctor for 25 years and this is the worst I've seen in terms of casualty numbers and fatal wounds."...
--Independent (U.K.)
(Thanks to the Rational Enquirer for the link.)
Baghdad doctors overwhelmed by arrival of 100 patients an hour
Hospitals in Baghdad are in danger of being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of wounded people brought in for treatment, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned yesterday.
An average of 100 patients an hour had been taken to the Yarmouk hospital, one of about five in the city that can treat the war wounded, it said.
Medical staff working round the clock without breaks were also hampered by power cuts and the lack of clean water....
Some of the attacks were so close to the hospitals that the wounded were walking in for treatment. The ICRC said they had not kept figures for those injured because emergency admissions had kept coming in. One doctor, Osama Saleh al-Duleimi, 48, who has witnessed two previous wars, said: "I've been a doctor for 25 years and this is the worst I've seen in terms of casualty numbers and fatal wounds."...
--Independent (U.K.)
(Thanks to the Rational Enquirer for the link.)
I’ve been thinking recently that in the future people will look back at this moment in history with astonishment -- a moment when this country went to war with popular approval because the president successfully persuaded us to confuse one man with another.
But I realize I shouldn’t be surprised that most of the country fell for this nonsense, because back in the 1980s most of the country fell for stories of outrageous, baroque, often literally impossible attacks on children in day-care centers. A reporter who helped bring that period of mass hysteria to an end -- a right-winger I consider a hero, Dorothy Rabinowitz -- has written a book about that period, called No Crueler Tyrannies. The New York Times review is here.
The best-known of these cases might have been the McMartin preschool case in California. Here’s a partial list of what investigators said took placed at the preschool, based on interviews with children that were later shown to be coercive (The full list is here): that the children
* were required to participate in "major, major sacrifices" connected with the "Satanic Church."
* saw an AWOL Marine sodomize a dog.
*saw dead and burned babies, flying witches, movie stars and local politicians.
* were taken to the airport, traveled to Palm Springs either in an airplane or hot air balloon, sexually abused and returned.
* were flushed down toilets, traveled through sewers to a place where adults sexually abused them, cleaned them up and later returned them to the pre-school so they could be picked up by their parents.
In some cases, grotesque and brutal acts were said to have taken place in rooms without doors, and yet people in adjoining rooms saw and heard nothing. Acts that would have left blood, bones, or other forensic evidence (including corpses) left nothing behind, according to investigators, yet these acts were readily assumed to have taken place.
Anyone who doubted the stories was told, "Believe the children.” This was a rallying cry. The irony, of course was that, as the Times review notes, “crusading child-abuse investigators ... alternately hounded and coaxed children into accusations they did not appear even to understand” -- these investigators themselves did not, in fact, “believe the children” unless the children told them what they expected to hear.
Here’s a list of American ritual-abuse cases. Many people were sent to prison for decades for acts of abuse they didn’t commit (and that, in many cases, no one ever committed). Many of these people are free now, but not all of them.
As a nation, we believed this crap. So maybe it’s no surprise that we now believe Iraqis flew planes into the World Trade Center at Saddam’s behest.
*************
I should add a few words of criticism to my praise of Dorothy Rabinowitz. I think she’s a hero because the country began to rethink its acceptance of this nonsense when she published debunking articles in Harper’s and The Wall Street Journal. But Rabinowitz attributed the abuse witch hunts to “political correctness,” and apparently still does.
It’s true that a lot of the therapists who believed there was an epidemic of grotesque ritualized abuse were left-leaning -- their thinking on this was an unfortunate left offshoot that was not unlike the anti-porn, anti-heterosexuality extremism of Andrea Dworkin. But the “Believe the children” crusade was not left-wing -- it was a “family values” crusade, as they used to say in the '80s, with a tinge of that decade’s rage to imprison “human scum.”
The first article I ever read about this subject was by Debbie Nathan in The Village Voice -- an article Rabinowitz herself cites. A liberal magazine, Harper’s, published Rabinowitz’s breakthrough story on the subject. And liberals still care about this: In The Nation, Katha Pollitt wrote an outraged column last year about Gerald Amirault, who was convicted on abuse charges in Massachusetts and is still in prison.
Many '60s liberals were becoming Big Chill/thirtysomething-style yuppies in those days; maybe Rabinowitz met a few too many of these. But to anyone on the left who thought, these convictions were an outrage.
It also seems to me that the tide should have turned for the people who were wrongly convicted in these cases when the Village Voice article appeared, rather than years later, when Rabinowitz began to write about the subject. At the time it appeared that no one took the subject seriously until a conservative wrote about it. As the saying goes, what liberal media?
But I realize I shouldn’t be surprised that most of the country fell for this nonsense, because back in the 1980s most of the country fell for stories of outrageous, baroque, often literally impossible attacks on children in day-care centers. A reporter who helped bring that period of mass hysteria to an end -- a right-winger I consider a hero, Dorothy Rabinowitz -- has written a book about that period, called No Crueler Tyrannies. The New York Times review is here.
The best-known of these cases might have been the McMartin preschool case in California. Here’s a partial list of what investigators said took placed at the preschool, based on interviews with children that were later shown to be coercive (The full list is here): that the children
* were required to participate in "major, major sacrifices" connected with the "Satanic Church."
* saw an AWOL Marine sodomize a dog.
*saw dead and burned babies, flying witches, movie stars and local politicians.
* were taken to the airport, traveled to Palm Springs either in an airplane or hot air balloon, sexually abused and returned.
* were flushed down toilets, traveled through sewers to a place where adults sexually abused them, cleaned them up and later returned them to the pre-school so they could be picked up by their parents.
In some cases, grotesque and brutal acts were said to have taken place in rooms without doors, and yet people in adjoining rooms saw and heard nothing. Acts that would have left blood, bones, or other forensic evidence (including corpses) left nothing behind, according to investigators, yet these acts were readily assumed to have taken place.
Anyone who doubted the stories was told, "Believe the children.” This was a rallying cry. The irony, of course was that, as the Times review notes, “crusading child-abuse investigators ... alternately hounded and coaxed children into accusations they did not appear even to understand” -- these investigators themselves did not, in fact, “believe the children” unless the children told them what they expected to hear.
Here’s a list of American ritual-abuse cases. Many people were sent to prison for decades for acts of abuse they didn’t commit (and that, in many cases, no one ever committed). Many of these people are free now, but not all of them.
As a nation, we believed this crap. So maybe it’s no surprise that we now believe Iraqis flew planes into the World Trade Center at Saddam’s behest.
*************
I should add a few words of criticism to my praise of Dorothy Rabinowitz. I think she’s a hero because the country began to rethink its acceptance of this nonsense when she published debunking articles in Harper’s and The Wall Street Journal. But Rabinowitz attributed the abuse witch hunts to “political correctness,” and apparently still does.
It’s true that a lot of the therapists who believed there was an epidemic of grotesque ritualized abuse were left-leaning -- their thinking on this was an unfortunate left offshoot that was not unlike the anti-porn, anti-heterosexuality extremism of Andrea Dworkin. But the “Believe the children” crusade was not left-wing -- it was a “family values” crusade, as they used to say in the '80s, with a tinge of that decade’s rage to imprison “human scum.”
The first article I ever read about this subject was by Debbie Nathan in The Village Voice -- an article Rabinowitz herself cites. A liberal magazine, Harper’s, published Rabinowitz’s breakthrough story on the subject. And liberals still care about this: In The Nation, Katha Pollitt wrote an outraged column last year about Gerald Amirault, who was convicted on abuse charges in Massachusetts and is still in prison.
Many '60s liberals were becoming Big Chill/thirtysomething-style yuppies in those days; maybe Rabinowitz met a few too many of these. But to anyone on the left who thought, these convictions were an outrage.
It also seems to me that the tide should have turned for the people who were wrongly convicted in these cases when the Village Voice article appeared, rather than years later, when Rabinowitz began to write about the subject. At the time it appeared that no one took the subject seriously until a conservative wrote about it. As the saying goes, what liberal media?
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Jesus helps people get their priorities straight....
Every half-mile or so, a few Iraqis appeared like ghosts in the wasteland. Some put their thumbs and forefingers together and brought them to their mouths, the third-world sign language for please-give-me-food. Some rubbed their stomachs. Others tilted their heads back and cupped their hands, as though drinking one of the plastic bottles of Oasis mineral water that are stacked like howitzer shells in the backs of Humvees; they were thirsty, too. The smartest ones waved Iraqi dinars bearing images of Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the marines would extend charity in exchange for a war souvenir.
--Peter Maass, "Food, Too, Can Be a Weapon of the War in Iraq," New York Times Week in Review, 4/6/03
Last week, a missionary writing from Iraq on the International Bible Society's Web site described the scene this way: "I can hear jets flying over the town, and I hear explosions from the distance. There are still a few of us in town. We go out to visit and distribute tracts and the Jesus video. We are busy duplicating the video. We ran out of tracts and we need to print 10,000 more." The Bible society has published a Scripture booklet especially for Iraqi refugees. Christians in the United States are urged to spend 40 cents per booklet to print and ship them to Iraq.
--Deborah Caldwell, "Should Christian Missionaries Heed the Call in Iraq?," New York Times Week in Review, 4/6/03
********
From the same articles:
Civilians are suffering, and a debate has begun about who should control relief efforts. The Pentagon has said it wants to keep control over all humanitarian aid. But relief agencies, like Catholic Relief Services and Oxfam-America, have said they don't want to be part of a military effort, because they must be independent to do their jobs.
--Maass
Both Mr. Fleischer and a spokeswoman for the United States Agency for International Development, which coordinates humanitarian aid, said that the government could not control the work of private charitable organizations because it did not finance them.
--Caldwell
Yeah? So which is it? Why is the government saying one thing about the non-evangelicals and another thing about the evangelicals? Why doesn't the Week in Review (which published both articles) know which is correct?
Every half-mile or so, a few Iraqis appeared like ghosts in the wasteland. Some put their thumbs and forefingers together and brought them to their mouths, the third-world sign language for please-give-me-food. Some rubbed their stomachs. Others tilted their heads back and cupped their hands, as though drinking one of the plastic bottles of Oasis mineral water that are stacked like howitzer shells in the backs of Humvees; they were thirsty, too. The smartest ones waved Iraqi dinars bearing images of Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the marines would extend charity in exchange for a war souvenir.
--Peter Maass, "Food, Too, Can Be a Weapon of the War in Iraq," New York Times Week in Review, 4/6/03
Last week, a missionary writing from Iraq on the International Bible Society's Web site described the scene this way: "I can hear jets flying over the town, and I hear explosions from the distance. There are still a few of us in town. We go out to visit and distribute tracts and the Jesus video. We are busy duplicating the video. We ran out of tracts and we need to print 10,000 more." The Bible society has published a Scripture booklet especially for Iraqi refugees. Christians in the United States are urged to spend 40 cents per booklet to print and ship them to Iraq.
--Deborah Caldwell, "Should Christian Missionaries Heed the Call in Iraq?," New York Times Week in Review, 4/6/03
********
From the same articles:
Civilians are suffering, and a debate has begun about who should control relief efforts. The Pentagon has said it wants to keep control over all humanitarian aid. But relief agencies, like Catholic Relief Services and Oxfam-America, have said they don't want to be part of a military effort, because they must be independent to do their jobs.
--Maass
Both Mr. Fleischer and a spokeswoman for the United States Agency for International Development, which coordinates humanitarian aid, said that the government could not control the work of private charitable organizations because it did not finance them.
--Caldwell
Yeah? So which is it? Why is the government saying one thing about the non-evangelicals and another thing about the evangelicals? Why doesn't the Week in Review (which published both articles) know which is correct?
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Atrios is understandably appalled that this L.A. Times poll shows that the vast majority of Americans think Saddam Hussein has close ties with al-Qaeda, amnd most think he was involved in 9/11. But there's more grim news:
...substantial portions of the public are willing to consider military action against other potential threats in the area...
Americans are divided almost in half when asked whether the United States should take military action against Syria, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has accused of providing Iraq with military supplies. Syria has denied the accusation. But 42% said the United States should take action if Syria, in fact, provides aid to Iraq, while 46% said no.
...Exactly half said the United States should take military action against Iran if it continues to move toward nuclear-weapon development; 36% disagreed....
Yesterday Tony Blair said the U.S. has no plans to attack Iran or Syria. In an interview published today, Colin Powell said the same thing.
I hope they know. I hope they're still in the loop. I suspect they aren't. This, from The New York Times, doesn't exactly reassure me....
Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work....
...substantial portions of the public are willing to consider military action against other potential threats in the area...
Americans are divided almost in half when asked whether the United States should take military action against Syria, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has accused of providing Iraq with military supplies. Syria has denied the accusation. But 42% said the United States should take action if Syria, in fact, provides aid to Iraq, while 46% said no.
...Exactly half said the United States should take military action against Iran if it continues to move toward nuclear-weapon development; 36% disagreed....
Yesterday Tony Blair said the U.S. has no plans to attack Iran or Syria. In an interview published today, Colin Powell said the same thing.
I hope they know. I hope they're still in the loop. I suspect they aren't. This, from The New York Times, doesn't exactly reassure me....
Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work....
I guess there's a fairly good chance that some of the people mentioned in this story will be better off six months from now than they were a month ago or a year ago. Others, surely, will be dead or dying -- some undoubtedly are dead now. None, however, are apparently dancing around GIs and strewing them with rosewater...
NEAR BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Worn out by days of bombing, thousands of Iraqi civilians fled Baghdad on Saturday, trudging to relative safety behind U.S. military lines or else heading north away from the relentless American advance.
Men, women and children walked for hours through the fierce heat of an early summer's day, carrying at most the odd plastic bag, blankets or tin kettle between them.
"We are very tired, " said one bearded man, with a young girl in his arms. "I need rest," he sighed, explaining that he was escaping round-the-clock bombing of the Iraqi capital....
One woman dressed in black held up a blue plastic cup, the only thing she was carrying. "Water, water," she pleaded from passers-by as the temperature hit 35 Celsius (95F), then frowned when she saw there was none on offer.
U.S. Marines peered down from the gun turrets of their armored vehicles as the grim-faced families traipsed past. One serviceman offered a bottle of water to an Iraqi, but was immediately rebuked for his generosity.
"We're here for a war, not a humanitarian mission, OK?" a gunnery sergeant yelled at him.
Several women carried yellow plastic packages of U.S. humanitarian rations, but Marines said the bulk of the food aid was 10 km (six miles) further south, where the military had set up a distribution station far from the front lines.
"We don't have any means to help them. All the humanitarian supplies are behind us," said first sergeant Matthew Brookshire, standing by his Humvee all-terrain vehicle.
"If we started giving it out then we'd be swarmed by civilians. We don't know who's friendly and who's not," he said....
NEAR BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Worn out by days of bombing, thousands of Iraqi civilians fled Baghdad on Saturday, trudging to relative safety behind U.S. military lines or else heading north away from the relentless American advance.
Men, women and children walked for hours through the fierce heat of an early summer's day, carrying at most the odd plastic bag, blankets or tin kettle between them.
"We are very tired, " said one bearded man, with a young girl in his arms. "I need rest," he sighed, explaining that he was escaping round-the-clock bombing of the Iraqi capital....
One woman dressed in black held up a blue plastic cup, the only thing she was carrying. "Water, water," she pleaded from passers-by as the temperature hit 35 Celsius (95F), then frowned when she saw there was none on offer.
U.S. Marines peered down from the gun turrets of their armored vehicles as the grim-faced families traipsed past. One serviceman offered a bottle of water to an Iraqi, but was immediately rebuked for his generosity.
"We're here for a war, not a humanitarian mission, OK?" a gunnery sergeant yelled at him.
Several women carried yellow plastic packages of U.S. humanitarian rations, but Marines said the bulk of the food aid was 10 km (six miles) further south, where the military had set up a distribution station far from the front lines.
"We don't have any means to help them. All the humanitarian supplies are behind us," said first sergeant Matthew Brookshire, standing by his Humvee all-terrain vehicle.
"If we started giving it out then we'd be swarmed by civilians. We don't know who's friendly and who's not," he said....
Yeah, the Dixie Chicks still have the #1 country album, so maybe they're not suffering too much. But this little detail, tucked into an article on Pearl Jam, is a bit disturbing:
Things have apparently gotten so bad that Chick Martie Maguire said the musicians now fears for their safety.
"We've gotten a lot of hate mail, a lot of threatening mail," Maguire told reporters in Australia. "Emily [Robison] had the front gate of her ranch smashed in. We have to have security when we get back to the States. It puts my well-being in jeopardy."
The Chicks kick off their mostly sold-out U.S. tour May 1 in Greenville, South Carolina, where a protest is already planned.
That's why I'm still concerned -- they've been out of the country and they're coming back in a month, a fat target. If the Iraqis gas U.S. troops between now and then (using weapons that wouldn't have been used if there were inspectors in the country and troops outside, rather than the other way around), what happens to the Dixie Chicks?
This is the kind of thing I fear could happen again in this country:
People's Artists booked a major concert for August 27, 1949 at Lakeland Picnic Grounds, a former golf course north of Peekskill, New York. [Pete] Seeger and other People's Artists were tapped to warm up the crowd for its featured act, Paul Robeson. Some questioned the wisdom of holding such an event in Peekskill, a notoriously reactionary community that harbored an active Ku Klux Klan chapter. Soon after the concert was announced, the local paper launched a vitriolic attack on Robeson and his political views. The Joint Veterans Council of Westchester County immediately began planning a parade just prior to the concert; most residents knew it was a setup.
Several hours before the show was to begin, novelist Howard Fast arrived at the resort to help set up the public address system. From out of nowhere, about 300 vigilantes brutally pelted Fast, his assistants and other early arrivers with rocks. Fighting its way to the stage, the mob broke chairs and burned songsheets. Police met other concertgoers up the road. telling them the program was cancelled.
Eager to stand its ground, People's Artists boldly rescheduled the concert for the following week. Expecting more potential for violence, People's Artists hired guards from several left-wing unions to protect the grounds. Between 20,000 and 25,000 persons came to Peekskill for the rescheduled concert: most came to show solidarity in the face of local hostility. It was probably the largest audience Seeger and Robeson had faced since the October 1948 Yankee Doodle Rally for Henry Wallace in New York's Madison Square Garden. The concert was held without incident; at its conclusion Westchester County deputies began directing departing traffic to a little-used access road away from the main entrance. It was a trap. Hundreds of angry residents viciously showered the cars with rocks; the police did nothing to stop them. More than 150 concertgoers were injured during the riot, many from flying glass.
Francis Dellorco, a Philadelphia artist who formerly produced filmstrips for People's Songs, captured the angry mob on a primitive wire recorder. "You can hear the crowd say. 'Hey, you white niggers, get back to Russia' and 'Jews, Jews, Jews'," Mario Casetta recalled....
****
And on the subject of Pearl Jam: Eddie Vedder famously scrawled "PRO-CHOICE" on his arm during the group's MTV Unplugged concert. Vedder contributed a song to the soundtrack of the anti-death-penalty film Dead Man Walking. Vedder campaigned for Ralph Nader. And the new Pearl Jam album has an anti-Bush song, "Bushleaguer." Were the fans who walked out of the show surprised that Vedder was impassioned in the way he expressed his opposition to Bush?
Things have apparently gotten so bad that Chick Martie Maguire said the musicians now fears for their safety.
"We've gotten a lot of hate mail, a lot of threatening mail," Maguire told reporters in Australia. "Emily [Robison] had the front gate of her ranch smashed in. We have to have security when we get back to the States. It puts my well-being in jeopardy."
The Chicks kick off their mostly sold-out U.S. tour May 1 in Greenville, South Carolina, where a protest is already planned.
That's why I'm still concerned -- they've been out of the country and they're coming back in a month, a fat target. If the Iraqis gas U.S. troops between now and then (using weapons that wouldn't have been used if there were inspectors in the country and troops outside, rather than the other way around), what happens to the Dixie Chicks?
This is the kind of thing I fear could happen again in this country:
People's Artists booked a major concert for August 27, 1949 at Lakeland Picnic Grounds, a former golf course north of Peekskill, New York. [Pete] Seeger and other People's Artists were tapped to warm up the crowd for its featured act, Paul Robeson. Some questioned the wisdom of holding such an event in Peekskill, a notoriously reactionary community that harbored an active Ku Klux Klan chapter. Soon after the concert was announced, the local paper launched a vitriolic attack on Robeson and his political views. The Joint Veterans Council of Westchester County immediately began planning a parade just prior to the concert; most residents knew it was a setup.
Several hours before the show was to begin, novelist Howard Fast arrived at the resort to help set up the public address system. From out of nowhere, about 300 vigilantes brutally pelted Fast, his assistants and other early arrivers with rocks. Fighting its way to the stage, the mob broke chairs and burned songsheets. Police met other concertgoers up the road. telling them the program was cancelled.
Eager to stand its ground, People's Artists boldly rescheduled the concert for the following week. Expecting more potential for violence, People's Artists hired guards from several left-wing unions to protect the grounds. Between 20,000 and 25,000 persons came to Peekskill for the rescheduled concert: most came to show solidarity in the face of local hostility. It was probably the largest audience Seeger and Robeson had faced since the October 1948 Yankee Doodle Rally for Henry Wallace in New York's Madison Square Garden. The concert was held without incident; at its conclusion Westchester County deputies began directing departing traffic to a little-used access road away from the main entrance. It was a trap. Hundreds of angry residents viciously showered the cars with rocks; the police did nothing to stop them. More than 150 concertgoers were injured during the riot, many from flying glass.
Francis Dellorco, a Philadelphia artist who formerly produced filmstrips for People's Songs, captured the angry mob on a primitive wire recorder. "You can hear the crowd say. 'Hey, you white niggers, get back to Russia' and 'Jews, Jews, Jews'," Mario Casetta recalled....
****
And on the subject of Pearl Jam: Eddie Vedder famously scrawled "PRO-CHOICE" on his arm during the group's MTV Unplugged concert. Vedder contributed a song to the soundtrack of the anti-death-penalty film Dead Man Walking. Vedder campaigned for Ralph Nader. And the new Pearl Jam album has an anti-Bush song, "Bushleaguer." Were the fans who walked out of the show surprised that Vedder was impassioned in the way he expressed his opposition to Bush?
Friday, April 04, 2003
InstaPundit thinks something might be up in Iran. He links the visual clue.
Y'know, I've been worried about this ever since I saw the following on page 276 of David Frum's Bush White House memoir, The Right Man:
The war on terror, by its very nature, yielded few spectacular victories. For the most part it looked like a combination of police work and counterinsurgency in remote corners of the earth: Mindanao, Yemen, Kurdistan. Yet Bush kept at it. As he promised in his September 20 speech to Congress, he did not relent -- and neither did he succumb to the temptation to lunge into rash adventures in pursuit of a triumph for the cameras. His strategy in Iraq and Iran was judicious, deliberate, unhasty -- and certain. (emphasis mine)
"In Iran"? What does that refer to? What did Frum know (he published his book in January) that we don't?
Y'know, I've been worried about this ever since I saw the following on page 276 of David Frum's Bush White House memoir, The Right Man:
The war on terror, by its very nature, yielded few spectacular victories. For the most part it looked like a combination of police work and counterinsurgency in remote corners of the earth: Mindanao, Yemen, Kurdistan. Yet Bush kept at it. As he promised in his September 20 speech to Congress, he did not relent -- and neither did he succumb to the temptation to lunge into rash adventures in pursuit of a triumph for the cameras. His strategy in Iraq and Iran was judicious, deliberate, unhasty -- and certain. (emphasis mine)
"In Iran"? What does that refer to? What did Frum know (he published his book in January) that we don't?
Readers of multiple blogs have undoubtedly read this story about William Bennett pal James Woolsey's speech, but for anyone who hasn't....
Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV'
...the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
Woolsey told the audience of about 300, most of whom are students at the University of California at Los Angeles, that all three enemies have waged war against the United States for several years but the United States has just "finally noticed."
"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous."
It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East that will bring about this sense of unease, he said.
"Our response should be, 'good!'" Woolsey said....
Of course, Tony Blair says there's no plan for a war against Syria. Billmon is filling in at the Daily Kos and Blair's recent actions reminds him of a certain movie....
Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV'
...the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
Woolsey told the audience of about 300, most of whom are students at the University of California at Los Angeles, that all three enemies have waged war against the United States for several years but the United States has just "finally noticed."
"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous."
It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East that will bring about this sense of unease, he said.
"Our response should be, 'good!'" Woolsey said....
Of course, Tony Blair says there's no plan for a war against Syria. Billmon is filling in at the Daily Kos and Blair's recent actions reminds him of a certain movie....
More fun in the new world....
Turkey Denies Shelling Northern Iraq
Iraqi Kurdish officials on Friday accused Turkey of repeated shelling over the border into Iraq, a charge Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied.
The charges came as the United States works to defuse tension and deep mistrust between Turkey and the Kurdish groups that run northern Iraq.
...Rostaki called the shelling "a provocation aimed at creating instability" but he said he did not think the Turkish forces planned to move into northern Iraq....
--Reuters
Turkey Denies Shelling Northern Iraq
Iraqi Kurdish officials on Friday accused Turkey of repeated shelling over the border into Iraq, a charge Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied.
The charges came as the United States works to defuse tension and deep mistrust between Turkey and the Kurdish groups that run northern Iraq.
...Rostaki called the shelling "a provocation aimed at creating instability" but he said he did not think the Turkish forces planned to move into northern Iraq....
--Reuters
They still haven't found any WMDs...
American officials have admitted that the thousands of boxes of white powder they seized north of Baghdad are explosives.
The US military and various media outlets had suggested that they may have made the first discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq.
The claim that the Latifiyah complex was "a suspicious site" was made by a US colonel....
--Ananova, via AP
A check of Google News shows that WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina, has this story, but I can't find it anywhere else. Curious, no?
(Ananova link from Atrios.)
American officials have admitted that the thousands of boxes of white powder they seized north of Baghdad are explosives.
The US military and various media outlets had suggested that they may have made the first discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq.
The claim that the Latifiyah complex was "a suspicious site" was made by a US colonel....
--Ananova, via AP
A check of Google News shows that WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina, has this story, but I can't find it anywhere else. Curious, no?
(Ananova link from Atrios.)
We should have seen this coming...
The White House said on Friday it would consider military action in Iraq a success even if U.S. forces failed to find President Saddam Hussein....
While finding Saddam -- either dead or alive -- would be "helpful," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush 's "definition of victory" was removing the current government from power and eliminating the country's alleged weapons of mass destruction....
If Saddam eludes U.S. forces, he could join the ranks of America's most wanted, a list now topped by al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden...
--Reuters
In the world that Bush and most of his top advisers come from -- the business world -- the CEOs rarely go to jail, even if their companies are hopelessly corrupt. Why should Bush's current world be any different?
The White House said on Friday it would consider military action in Iraq a success even if U.S. forces failed to find President Saddam Hussein....
While finding Saddam -- either dead or alive -- would be "helpful," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush 's "definition of victory" was removing the current government from power and eliminating the country's alleged weapons of mass destruction....
If Saddam eludes U.S. forces, he could join the ranks of America's most wanted, a list now topped by al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden...
--Reuters
In the world that Bush and most of his top advisers come from -- the business world -- the CEOs rarely go to jail, even if their companies are hopelessly corrupt. Why should Bush's current world be any different?
Roger Ailes (the good one) pointed this out, but I want to add a few words.
In his column in The Washington Times today, Andrew Sullivan wrote this:
Daschle's new low
Not only does he send out a pathetically self-pitying fundraising e-mail the week war broke out. He turned up to celebrate and toast the back-stabbing, privacy-wrecking, truth-stretching poison of David Brock — now in paperback. In war time.
Do you grasp the point of the last three words? I don't.
If fund-raising in wartime offends Sullivan's sensibilities, perhaps he'd like to explain why the National Republican Congressional Committee has two fund-raising events going on today, while our troops are struggling to take Baghdad.
And if his problem is with David Brock, I need a further clarification. In Brock's book, he takes himself and allies to task for attacking the character of Anita Hill and Bill Clinton -- a witness in a Supreme Court hearing and a peacetime president.
Is there a war or national security connection I'm missing here?
I wish Sullivan would come out and say what he so clearly believes -- that it is treasonous not to be a Republican and a Bush supporter.
In his column in The Washington Times today, Andrew Sullivan wrote this:
Daschle's new low
Not only does he send out a pathetically self-pitying fundraising e-mail the week war broke out. He turned up to celebrate and toast the back-stabbing, privacy-wrecking, truth-stretching poison of David Brock — now in paperback. In war time.
Do you grasp the point of the last three words? I don't.
If fund-raising in wartime offends Sullivan's sensibilities, perhaps he'd like to explain why the National Republican Congressional Committee has two fund-raising events going on today, while our troops are struggling to take Baghdad.
And if his problem is with David Brock, I need a further clarification. In Brock's book, he takes himself and allies to task for attacking the character of Anita Hill and Bill Clinton -- a witness in a Supreme Court hearing and a peacetime president.
Is there a war or national security connection I'm missing here?
I wish Sullivan would come out and say what he so clearly believes -- that it is treasonous not to be a Republican and a Bush supporter.
Pay no attention to this. Paying attention to this = treason:
Afghanistan bombing intensifies after firefight
Thursday, April 3, 2003 Posted: 9:20 AM EST (1420 GMT)
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An intense air campaign was under way Thursday near southern Afghanistan's Tor Ghar Mountains after forces believed to belong to the Taliban opened fire on a U.S. Special Forces unit and an Afghan militia force, according to a U.S coalition statement.
The battle started Wednesday afternoon when about 40 anti-coalition troops began shooting at U.S. and Afghan soldiers.
Special Forces radioed for air support, which arrived and dropped 35,000 pounds of munition during the night.
There were no reports of U.S. or coalition casualties as of early Thursday, but an Afghan soldier had to be medically evacuated to Kandahar after being shot in the abdomen. Doctors performed surgery, and the soldier remains in stable condition, the coalition statement said.
--CNN
(Thanks to Kath F.)
Afghanistan bombing intensifies after firefight
Thursday, April 3, 2003 Posted: 9:20 AM EST (1420 GMT)
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An intense air campaign was under way Thursday near southern Afghanistan's Tor Ghar Mountains after forces believed to belong to the Taliban opened fire on a U.S. Special Forces unit and an Afghan militia force, according to a U.S coalition statement.
The battle started Wednesday afternoon when about 40 anti-coalition troops began shooting at U.S. and Afghan soldiers.
Special Forces radioed for air support, which arrived and dropped 35,000 pounds of munition during the night.
There were no reports of U.S. or coalition casualties as of early Thursday, but an Afghan soldier had to be medically evacuated to Kandahar after being shot in the abdomen. Doctors performed surgery, and the soldier remains in stable condition, the coalition statement said.
--CNN
(Thanks to Kath F.)
From Publishers Lunch, regarding the Random House building:
All Clear At Bantam Dell
Though the 24th floor offices of Bantam Dell remained shuttered yesterday and many Random House employees were still working from home, at about 5:30 yesterday the company informed its people that after "waiting for results that we could share with everybody," the company was told "that the results of all preliminary lab reports (including tests for anthrax) are negative." The 24th floor has reopened today, and all employees are expected back at work.
Sorry for the false alarm yesterday.
All Clear At Bantam Dell
Though the 24th floor offices of Bantam Dell remained shuttered yesterday and many Random House employees were still working from home, at about 5:30 yesterday the company informed its people that after "waiting for results that we could share with everybody," the company was told "that the results of all preliminary lab reports (including tests for anthrax) are negative." The 24th floor has reopened today, and all employees are expected back at work.
Sorry for the false alarm yesterday.
If you like war, I think you're going to love the next six Bush years. More confirmation in this story Drudge is linking:
What's next? U.S. set sights on Iran, North Korea
The Bush administration has pledged to end the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea after concluding its campaign against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Administration officials said the White House sees the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea as the next imminent threats.
"In the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program," Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton said. "This is going to be a substantial challenge."
Bolton told a conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee that the Iranian nuclear weapons program would receive "extremely high priority" under the Bush administration, Middle East Newsline reported....
--World Tribune.com
What's next? U.S. set sights on Iran, North Korea
The Bush administration has pledged to end the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea after concluding its campaign against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Administration officials said the White House sees the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea as the next imminent threats.
"In the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program," Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton said. "This is going to be a substantial challenge."
Bolton told a conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee that the Iranian nuclear weapons program would receive "extremely high priority" under the Bush administration, Middle East Newsline reported....
--World Tribune.com
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