No More Mister Nice Blog

Tuesday, April 15, 2003   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.) posted by Steve M. | 11:42 PM |   [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? posted by Steve M. | 6:32 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 6:23 PM |   UPDATE: The New York Times Web site now leads with the story of the ten deaths at Mosul. posted by Steve M. | 4:15 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 3:44 PM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 1:09 PM |   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! posted by Steve M. | 11:52 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 10:35 AM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 7:25 AM | 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. posted by Steve M. | 6:37 PM |   Kurd vs. Kurds. Shi'ites vs. Shi'ites. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into? posted by Steve M. | 6:10 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 5:49 PM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 5:29 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 3:28 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 9:48 AM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 11:49 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 11:25 PM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 9:41 AM | 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.) posted by Steve M. | 11:25 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 11:00 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 5:19 PM |   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-à-vis North Korea? posted by Steve M. | 4:51 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 3:18 PM |   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." posted by Steve M. | 12:21 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 11:16 AM |   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). posted by Steve M. | 9:49 AM |   "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. posted by Steve M. | 9:40 AM | 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. posted by Steve M. | 6:06 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 5:50 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 1:50 PM |   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.)   posted by Steve M. | 12:36 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 11:20 AM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 9:39 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 9:32 AM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 9:22 AM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 7:29 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 7:27 AM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 6:09 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 5:53 PM |   "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." --ascribed to General Robert E. Lee Right now, for one country on the planet, war is not so terrible. Will we grow fond of it? posted by Steve M. | 2:11 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 1:28 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 11:48 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 10:05 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 9:52 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 9:43 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 7:32 AM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 11:03 PM |   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?) posted by Steve M. | 6:27 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 5:14 PM |   Re the attempt to kill Saddam: UK security sources believe the Iraqi leader escaped it --BBC  Iraqi rescue workers said three bodies had been pulled from the wreckage so far — those of a boy, a young woman and an elderly man. --MSNBC Lovely, huh? posted by Steve M. | 3:59 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 1:44 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 12:57 PM |   '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. posted by Steve M. | 10:14 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 9:45 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 9:34 AM | 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.) posted by Steve M. | 11:49 PM |   ...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. posted by Steve M. | 11:39 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 6:15 PM |   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?) posted by Steve M. | 5:38 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 4:54 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 10:30 AM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 9:33 AM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 7:26 AM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 2:42 PM | 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.... posted by Steve M. | 5:36 PM |   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.... posted by Steve M. | 4:22 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 2:09 PM | 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? posted by Steve M. | 5:36 PM |   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.... posted by Steve M. | 5:13 PM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 5:02 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 4:42 PM |   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? posted by Steve M. | 1:51 PM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 12:47 PM |   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.) posted by Steve M. | 11:39 AM |   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. posted by Steve M. | 11:34 AM |   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 posted by Steve M. | 10:33 AM |   I think Gallup buries the lead in its analysis of its latest poll: the key point, to me, is not that support for this war is much lower among blacks, liberals, and independents than support for Gulf War I, but that support in virtually every group is down from '91 -- still high, but lower across the board. Scroll down to the first table and check out the minus signs. posted by Steve M. | 9:43 AM | Thursday, April 03, 2003   Be careful what you wish for: NUMANIYAH, IRAQ - Nervous and angry, more than a dozen Iraqi officials met Thursday with the top U.S. Marine officer in this Tigris River town to ask for cooperation in re-establishing order a day after U.S. forces captured it. The complaints came fast and furious: Looters have been targeting government buildings. The electricity has been cut. The hospital's backup generator has failed. "No police, no government, the essential services are gone now," one of the leaders complained. All 13 men gathered in the government office agreed: Since Numaniyah fell Wednesday afternoon, the city of about 80,000 has been in chaos.... --AP posted by Steve M. | 6:07 PM |   Hold the champagne for a while. Nasiriya still not secure: Many of the patients in the main hospital in Nasiriya have fled the building following an attack on the complex by a group of armed men. Marines, who had been guarding the hospital, left last night. And another man has been shot dead after people tried to steal his vehicle.... There are varying reports as to who is behind the violence and the widespread looting.... Basra battle 'is on two fronts': UK soldiers are fighting soldiers from Iraq's armed forces as well as against the irregular militia troops.... Umm Qasr aid effort 'a shambles': "...The hospital has been without water for three days. Inside people were very angry with me because I was a westerner. They felt angry, frustrated and let down by the coalition. Many had come to Umm Qasr from Basra because they had been told in American radio broadcasts that they would be looked after. They now say the coalition lied to them...." (All from the BBC.) posted by Steve M. | 5:17 PM |   Good Lord ... did we really almost go after Saddam before bin Laden and the Taliban? US President George Bush was persuaded by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair not to attack Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, it has been claimed. According to a former British ambassador to Washington, the US president had come under intense pressure from some in his own military to attack Saddam Hussein in the days after the 2001 terrorist outrages in the US. But, said Sir Christopher Meyer, when Mr Blair met the US president at his Camp David retreat a few days later he succesfully argued for al-Qaeda and the Taleban regime in Afghanistan to be confronted first. "Tony Blair's view was: 'Whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand and the job at hand was get al-Qaeda, give the Taleban an ultimatum'," Sir Christopher said. The former ambassador was speaking on a documentary that will be screened on the PBS network in America on Thursday. Called Blair's War, it looks at the prime minister's attempts to try and maintain an alliance against Saddam Hussein. He said that after listening to Mr Blair's argument, Mr Bush decided to "leave Iraq for another day".... --BBC I said on January 27, "you have to wonder whether bloodthirsty courtiers are whispering in Bush's ear precisely what they think will motivate him to do what they want him to do" -- i.e., attack Iraq. Was I really right about this? posted by Steve M. | 4:42 PM |   Weapons? What weapons? From Tuesday, here's Forbes (via Reuters) weighing on in Slick Georgie's ever-shifting rationale for war: U.S. war priorities shift away from disarming Iraq When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spelled out the eight U.S. objectives in Iraq on day two of the war, he said the first was to topple Saddam Hussein and the second to locate and destroy Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. On day 10 of the war, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke restated those eight objectives "as Secretary Rumsfeld described just a week ago." Ending the Iraqi president's rule remained top of the list, but finding Saddam's suspected chemical and biological weapons had slipped to fourth place and destroying them to fifth. Objective No. 2 was "to capture or drive out terrorists sheltered in Iraq" and No. 3 was to "collect intelligence on terrorist networks," Clarke said. References to terror, terrorists and terrorism -- words that resonate with Americans since the Sept. 11 attacks -- now arise more often in the face of unexpectedly stiff resistance from Iraqi fighters using guerrilla-style tactics. President Bush now more frequently describes Iraq's leaders as evil, brutal and tyrannical and his supporters as thugs. "Freeing the Iraqi people" has replaced disarming Iraq as the main focus of his speeches. Some analysts see the re-ordering of priorities and shriller language as a response to the realities on the ground in Iraq. Saddam has not used non-conventional weapons and U.S. and British troops have so far not found any to justify a war which much of the international community opposes. "It's the customary pattern," said Michael Codner, an analyst at Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies. "There hasn't been much incremental return on the WMD side for the democracies to gloat over," he said.... Shameless. (Thanks to Susan M. for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 4:18 PM |   A retired Marine Corps colonel, Gary Anderson, writes in a The Washington Post op-ed piece that he suspects Iraq won't use chemical or biological weapons: Anwar Sadat of Egypt reclaimed a measure of Arab pride in 1973 in a war that, while lost tactically and operationally, was fought with enough skill to regain an Arab sense of honor and pride lost in 1967. The next precept is to make the conventional phase last as long as possible and be as bloody as possible for the American-British coalition. The final sub-phase will be to attempt to turn Baghdad into an Arab Alamo and make "Remember Baghdad" a battle cry, not just for future generations but also for the rest of this war. At this point Hussein would go into hiding or exile, portraying himself as having led a glorious struggle against imperialism and vowing to continue. If he uses chemical weapons, I am wrong. There will be no sanctuary. Anderson thinks Saddam has a long-range plan to try to wrest glory from this war that goes beyond the end of the war. By all means read the whole article -- Anderson's surmise seems plausible. posted by Steve M. | 2:13 PM |   They say a pit bull won't let go of something it's got in its jaws, even if you hit it in the head with a two-by-four. It seems to me that Republicans are a lot like pit bulls: The centerpiece of the Bush administration's national energy policy -- drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- was resuscitated on Wednesday when a House panel voted to allow energy exploration in the Alaskan wilderness. The House Resources Committee voted to give oil companies access to the refuge, whose potential 16 billion barrels of oil the Bush administration wants to use to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign crude imports.... --Reuters We're on the verge of making Iraq the 51st state and they still think we need to do this? posted by Steve M. | 12:37 PM |   Josh Marshall thinks the chemical weapons may be coming soon. Earlier this morning [CNN's Walt Rodgers] reported seeing many dead Iraqis that his armored column was leaving in its wake as it pushed ahead. According to Rodgers, they were all wearing gas masks -- if not actually donned than at least at their side. Presumably that means the Iraqis are prepared and ready to use chemicals at any moment. The question that arises is basically a political one for the Iraqis. Once they use chemicals, if they do, they will not only lose a lot of ground in the propaganda war in the Arab world and even more in Europe, they will also confirm a lot of the rationale for American action. So, for them, it must be a difficult calculation. If they have hopes of dragging this out in a guerrilla war or some urban fighting then you'd expect they wouldn't do it -- it would be counterproductive, since they believe they have some hope of eventually wearing America down and turning world opinion further against us. On the other hand, if they think they're on the verge of complete collapse -- which looks like a distinct possibility -- then they may be in 'go down in blaze of glory' mode. If this happens, there'll be a lot of pro-war schadenfreude. Those of us who opposed the war will be expected to hang our heads in shame. But part of the reason we opposed the war is that we felt there'd be no use of chem or bio weapons as long as Saddam was boxed in. Saddam's Iraq always seemed like a hostage situation to me. The SWAT team surrounds the bank where the robber is threatening to kill all the customers. When does the hostage team go in? When it seems that the risk of hanging back is greater than the risk of going in. No one says that the cops are "pro bank robbery" or "pro hostage taking" because they try to talk their way through the standoff. Yes, hostage teams frequently take action. But what if it seemed clear that a stateside hostage taker had biotoxins or chemicals that might be unleashed into the surrounding area? Wouldn't a typical police force want to do a lot more talking? If Iraq uses WMDs, 99 out of 100 people will say it proved the war was justified. I think I'll still be a holdout. posted by Steve M. | 11:27 AM |   The antiwar side sneered when Halliburton (which is still paying Dick Cheney) landed a nice Iraq reconstruction contract. Then it was reported that Halliburton was out of the running for a massive reconstruction contract, and the pro-Bush folks claimed the moral high ground. Ahem: Halliburton Seeks Iraq Subcontractor Work Vice President Dick Cheney's former company is interested in Iraq reconstruction work, but declined to bid for a primary contract under a State Department procedure open to only a few experienced firms. Halliburton Co. said its KBR subsidiary "remains a potential subcontractor for this important work." Since secondary contractors do not have to submit bids, the Houston-based company bypassed a system that became controversial after revelations that the main contenders made substantial political donations — mostly to Republicans.... --AP (Thanks to Skimble for pointing me to this.) posted by Steve M. | 9:58 AM |   So where are the chem and bio weapons? I still think it's quite possible that they'll turn up, but I'm less and less sure that they're there at all. If they never do turn up, expect WMDs to be the Osama bin Laden of 2003 (and 2004) -- a taboo subject, never to be spoken of again by the president or his subordinates, and never to be brought up by the Beltway press. posted by Steve M. | 9:23 AM |   If the war's a cakewalk from here on in, then obviously some of us misjudged the importance of temporary setbacks. But remember, the antiwar side always expected a relatively easy U.S. victory in a short war. Before the war started, we weren't predicting a quagmire. We thought Bush would win the war -- and lose the peace. I think most of us still believe that. posted by Steve M. | 9:15 AM |   A possibly meaningless story that appeared yesterday in the subscription newsletter Publishers Lunch: Anthrax Threat at Random Offices Late yesterday an anthrax threat was received by Random House officials at their new building, leading to an evacuation of the building. The threat was aimed at the 24th floor premises of Bantam Dell. NYC Police and Fire Departments were called to scene, and heating and ventilation systems were shut down (each floor has its own system). According to internal letter read by spokesman Stuart Applebaum, a "field test" was performed "on the substance in question, and the result was negative. More definitive results are expected Thursday morning." Bantam Dell employees were told to stay home, and other Random employees, "in the best interests os safety and precaution," were given the option of returning to work or going home (without impact on benefit days, etc.). Applebaum says, "Many people elected to leave; some are here are toiling away." There is no detailed information exact the nature and source of the threat available yet (you’ll recall the company’s former building was the target of a prank bomb threat subsequent to 9/11). Though Applebaum notes "It struck some of us as kind of pernicious April Fool's Day prank" the company is proceeding with all caution, and expects to update employees later in the day. We join all readers in wishing for a swift and safe resolution for all concerned. It probably is a prank -- though I'd say there's a slight chance that someone's ticked off at a company (Bertelsmann) owned by citizens of "axis of weasels" member Germany.... posted by Steve M. | 7:24 AM |   POW Reportedly Fought Captors With Gun LANDSTUHL, Germany - Spirited but hungry, rescued prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch arrived in Germany for treatment of two broken legs and bullet wounds reportedly suffered in a fierce gun battle she waged against her Iraqi captors. The Washington Post reported Thursday that the 19-year-old Army supply clerk shot several Iraqi soldiers during the March 23 ambush that resulted in her capture. She kept firing even after she had several gunshot wounds, finally running out of ammunition, the newspaper said, citing unidentified U.S. officials.... --AP You can't blame him if he does this, I guess, but I think Bush is going to make Jessica Lynch his daughter. I mean, not literally -- but I think you'll see her accompanying Bush between now and, oh, say, November 2004 more than you see the actual fruit of his loins. posted by Steve M. | 7:13 AM | Wednesday, April 02, 2003   From a BBC report on a torture chamber found in Iraq: The room's likely purpose was explained later, after we had asked around the Commando for a bit, by a Royal Marine officer who had spent some time in the Balkans on UN service. He said: "Two tyres and an electric cable is something we came across a lot in Bosnia. "The interrogator would stand on them while prodding the captive with the live cable so his own feet were insulated from the high voltage by the rubber." Primitive maybe, but a pretty effective and recognised form of torture in a lot of Third World countries. But what do you know? We don't start wars to prevent this in a lot of Third World countries. We start wars to prevent this in countries that have oil. And when we start wars to prevent this in countries that don't have oil, Republicans complain. posted by Steve M. | 11:16 PM |   Saddam is the enemy. Repeat: Saddam is the enemy. Pay no attention to this: Up to 600 US-backed Afghan troops continued to battle suspected Taliban fighters in southern Kandahar province bordering Pakistan, a local commander and deputy governor said. "The fighting started around 5:00 pm (1230 GMT) yesterday when a truck of our police was passing (Qisi village) and came under attack," Kandahar divisional commander Khan Mohammad told AFP. One policeman was killed and the police returned fire before reinforcements arrived. "We sent 300-400 soldiers from Kandahar and 100-200 soldiers from Spin Boldak," he said "The war was going on until late afternoon, then we encircled the group of Taliban completely but they took advantage of the dark and managed to escape," he said. "Today (Wednesday) we followed and surrounded them at 4:00 pm and they are now under seige," the commander said.... --Agence France-Presse posted by Steve M. | 6:29 PM |   Is Germany taking a small step toward getting in touch with its inner Mars, along with a few other European nations? While no one in Europe is predicting the death of NATO or the European Union, the damage is evident in the renewed willingness of Germany and France to consider a military policy separate from either institution.... ...[Chancellor Gerhard] Schröder ... has developed a concept of "core Europe" or "more Europe" in which France and Germany, but not Britain, will lead Western Europe toward a common defense and foreign policy. The first test of this concept is the meeting scheduled for April 29, when Germany and France, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, are to discuss closer military cooperation. Backers of the war including Britain, Italy and Spain were not invited, a snub that can only deepen the rift within the European Union, which has thus far failed to make headway on its grand vision of a common foreign and defense policy, including a joint rapid reaction military force of 60,000 soldiers. ...What is needed now, said [Daniel] Gros of the Center for European Policy Studies, is "a European politician with some vision who comes up and says to everyone in Europe, `Put together one percent of your G.D.P. for a common strike force.' That would mean $80 billion to $100 billion. We could do something with that." --New York Times We'll probably have six more years of petty Bush triumphalism and contempt toward Europe. Think that might be enough time to persuade Germany and other Bush-wary European nations to start rearming in earnest? And if so, should we really not worry about where this could lead? posted by Steve M. | 6:24 PM |   Earlier today I said the media had seized the war from Bush, who wants it to be all about him. Apparently, though, USA Today wants to help George W. Narcissus wrest it back -- see this fawning portrait of His Serene Highness. TBOGG has already had at the article. But let me just add this: If I were a GI actually fighting this war, in a desert where the temperatures were about to enter into the 90s, possibly about to face a WMD attack in a sweat-generating protective suit, I would find it just a wee bit difficult to feel sympathy for a man about whom it is said, He's being hard on himself; he gave up sweets just before the war began. Elsewhere, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans says, "...He understands that he is the one person in the country, in this case really the one person in the world, who has a responsibility to protect and defend freedom." Excuse me? The troops? I thought the whole rationale for the war was that they were protecting and defending our freedoms? Oh, and here's the last paragraph of the article: The president's friends and family fret about him, but advisers say the pressure doesn't seem to be getting to him. "He's not one of those people who blows with the wind," Rumsfeld says. "He has a very good inner gyroscope, a stabilizer that keeps him centered." Yup, it's all about him. ****** Another passage from the USA Today article needs to be noted: [Bush] is convinced that the Iraqi leader is literally insane and would gladly give terrorists weapons to use to launch another attack on the United States. The thought of another assault on the United States horrifies Bush. Aides say he believes history and heaven will judge him by his ability to prevent one. I've said repeatedly that I think Bush really believes this. No chem or bio or nuclear weapons were used in Gulf War I, none have been used in this war so far, none have been found so far (and the only evidence of al-Qaeda-related activity or possible WMD work has been in the Kurdish-controlled north), none have been given by Iraq to Palestinian suicide bombers -- yet Bush says, essentially, that Saddam = Osama. Bush's willful ignorance and refusal to distinguish Saddam's M.O. from bin Laden's are among the reasons we're fighting this war. posted by Steve M. | 6:11 PM |   Just thought you should know this.... Lethal blast hits Philippines A bomb in the southern Philippines city of Davao has left at least 15 people dead and many others injured, police said. ...The head of investigation at the Philippine National Police, Brigadier-General Eduardo Matillano, told Reuters news agency he believed the blast was the work of a terrorist. ...The attack came less than a month after another bomb left 23 people dead and more than 150 others injured at Davao international airport. Arrest warrants for that blast have been issued for leaders of a Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).... --BBC posted by Steve M. | 1:15 PM |   I’ve said a couple of times that it didn’t seem that Americans were fully focused on this war. That seems really silly now -- obviously most of us are glued to our TV sets these days. There was a bit more engagement in ’91, I think, when yellow ribbons were everywhere, and, of course, after 9/11, when so many flags began to be flown, but America is clearly caught up now. Please notice, however, that it’s the coverage of the war that’s engaging America. The country wasn’t awash in pro-war symbols before the war started, as it was before Gulf War I. I still think that’s because Bush never made this America’s war -- the media have done this now, by giving us drama, but Bush never did it. The message we got from Bush was that it was his war. It was all about him. Whatever words Bush may have uttered before the war started, the story was always Bush vs. ... someone: Bush vs. congressional Democrats. Bush vs. the United Nations. Bush vs. Germany. Bush vs. France. Bush vs. Turkey. Bush vs. the protesters. For a while, even Bush vs. Colin Powell. Rumsfeld and Fleischer and Cheney and Perle sent out the same message, and Powell eventually did as well: We want this war. We’re going to get it. If you try to stop us, we will keep coming and keep coming until we prevail. Bush obviously met a lot of resistance -- but he never made a serious effort to lower the diplomatic temperature (he and his subordinates deliberately raised it many times), and time and again he refused to compromise. And he kept reminding us that he refused to compromise, that his “patience” was “wearing thin.” That meant that the story was always going to be about Bush’s squabbles, not Bush’s case for the war. I’m an opponent of this war. I can’t imagine that Bush would have ever swayed me, because I think this a war about empire that in the long run will do more harm than good to innocent people. But Bush could have made much of the country feel that this war was the result of something more than a fit of presidential pique. He didn’t. Here’s a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll on the media’s coverage of the war. The story is supposedly a drop in public approval of the media, but notice that the approval rating is still 79%. That’s higher than Bush’s. It’s easy to find fault with the media coverage of the war -- plenty of us do, on the left and the right -- but TV and radio and the print press have taken the war back from Bush. We’re getting a melodramatic story with inadequate context, but now it’s a story about combat and the combatants -- not about the snappish brat in the Oval Office. posted by Steve M. | 1:09 PM | Tuesday, April 01, 2003   I typed "Iran" in a post earlier today when I meant "Iraq." Thanks to everyone who caught it. It's fixed now. It was really just a typo -- not, as one person suggested, a "subconsciously prescient slip." At least I hope so. posted by Steve M. | 11:47 PM |   "War is like driving drunk." M. Finley explains why. I agree. Oh, and maybe we should all send this letter, or one like it, to our local papers. posted by Steve M. | 7:06 PM |   If you read other blogs, you've read this already and your jaw has already made contact with the floor, but if not.... Forget Stalin or Hitler. The worst ruler in world history is Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Pentagon says. "The Iraqi people will be free of decades and decades and decades of torture and oppression the likes of which I think the world has not ever seen before," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told a Pentagon news conference on Monday.... --Reuters Bush the Elder, of course, said Saddam was "worse than Hitler." And, of course, if asked to vote for the all-time worst dictator, a lot of conservatives would write in Bill Clinton. posted by Steve M. | 5:38 PM |   Everything you hold dear as an American is endangered by ... this poster. OK, I'm exaggerating. But not by much: Warner Bros. wants to avoid making a political statement in its ads for the movie "What a Girl Wants." Print advertisements for the teen comedy originally featured a photograph of star Amanda Bynes wearing a tank top with an American flag on it and flashing the peace sign with her fingers as she stands between two British royal guards. But with the war in Iraq sparking anti-war protests in the United States and abroad, Warner Bros. quickly changed the ad. The studio said Monday it feared the peace sign would be viewed as a political message. New versions of the image feature Bynes with her right hand at her side, although many of the original posters already had been placed on billboards and buses before the change was made.... --AP This ad is in a lot of bus kiosks here in Manhattan. I guess that explains why so many of us in New York are America-hating peacenik scum -- the ad is brainwashing us! posted by Steve M. | 5:24 PM |   ARAB STREET? WHAT ARAB STREET? Dia'a Rashwan, an expert on radical Islamic groups at Egypt's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said he has noticed a trend as he navigated Web sites and chat rooms in recent days. "Now we have many calls to jihad, and those calls aren't only coming from what we usually call radicals or extremists," he said. More moderate clerics are using such language, as are Islamic thinkers who usually confine themselves to political analysis, not calls to arms, he said. In Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still pursuing Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts, the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is circulating posters of his fresh decree calling for a holy war against the United States. The signatures of 600 Muslim clerics are attached. Mullah Omar's old regime has shored up its alliances with remnants of al-Qaida and fighters loyal to rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Already, an increase is noticeable in attacks on U.S. forces, international peacekeepers and nongovernment organizations. --AP posted by Steve M. | 3:46 PM |   War supporters tell us that we're fighting this war because Iraq mistreats its people. But a lot of countries are mistreating their people and we're not fighting them -- in fact, they're among our allies in the "coalition of the willing." Read excerpts of the State Department reports on some of our allies at the Daily Kos. posted by Steve M. | 2:53 PM |   The world is now getting acquainted with the Fedayeen Saddam, the thugs who are keeping Iraqi citizens in check, most vividly right now in the cities of the south. Western estimates of their strength vary--on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put their size at "probably somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000"--but Iraqi opposition sources say they number at around 50,000…. --Kanan Makiya’s War Diary in The New Republic, 3/29/03 Another irresponsible misjudgment by Donald "The Ego Has Landed" Rumsfeld? posted by Steve M. | 1:34 PM |   DENVER (AP) - The nuns say they were exercising their right to free speech when they cut through a fence around a Minuteman III missile silo, used their own blood to paint a cross on the military structure and began swinging at it with hammers. Prosecutors say those actions interfered with the national defense - a crime, that if a jury finds the women guilty, could put them behind bars for 20 years. Dominican sisters Ardeth Platte, 66, Carol Gilbert, 55, and Jackie Hudson, 68, head to court on Monday … --Sacramento Bee The folks at Right-Wing Thoughts are furious at the nuns: What the HELL were these idiots thinking? Well, OK, I understand the dismay of the folks at RWT -- but doesn’t it concern them just a teeny, tiny bit that all it apparently takes for three nuns, average age 63, to gain access to our thermonuclear weapons is some wire cutters? The RWTers shriek in horror: Ladies? TRY NOT TO HIT THE THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON WITH HAMMERS, OK?… …Can you imagine if they accidentally did the one wacky, one-in-a-billion thing that set off the warhead? How would they feel, post-mortem, of course, about the deaths they caused? Listen -- if our nuclear weapons are so fragile that their integrity can be compromised by three AARP-eligible nuns with hardware-store hammers, then that doomsday clock needs to be moved a hell of a lot closer to midnight than we realize. posted by Steve M. | 1:22 PM |   In the final analysis, the war is not just a battle to unseat a dictator. It is a giant experiment to determine what forces might be most useful in the future. --New York Times A retired general who served under President Bush's father in the first Persian Gulf war ... predicted that these difficult first two weeks would harm the nation's standing as a military force. "What's troublesome is the loss of deterrent value," the retired general said. "A month ago everybody in the world looked at the U.S. military as being 10 feet tall. We're not 10 feet tall." --New York Times Just try to imagine what the reaction would have been from the GOP, from talk radio, from Fox News, if the defense secretary of President Clinton -- or President Gore, or even a Democratic president who was a combat veteran, Kerry or McCaffrey or Clark -- had used a war like this as an opportunity to do test-marketing of a new military theory, with the result that American troops felt short-staffed and besieged and unnecessarily endangered, all while warnings of a loss of U.S. prestige hung in the air. Just try to imagine. Do you think Republicans would wait until the war was over to call for the resignation -- or impeachment -- of the defense secretary, and probably the president as well? Do you think the fine, upstanding patriots who push books like this onto the best-seller list would hold their tongues? posted by Steve M. | 9:42 AM | Monday, March 31, 2003   Does it get dumber than this? Saddam Hussein has committed some of the biggest environmental crimes of all time. He may still commit even bigger ones. So environmentalists are leading — or at least supporting — the charge to oust Saddam, right? Wrong. Most environmental groups have gone absent-without-leave when it comes to removing Saddam — even without the use of force. A few are protesting the war. Incredibly, some are even portraying the U.S. as the real threat to the environment. During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam’s troops set 600 Kuwaiti oil wells ablaze "creating a toxic smoke that choked the atmosphere and blocked the sun," according to news reports. The smoke was so thick for a time that the temperature in Kuwait was 10 degrees below normal. Iraqi troops dumped an estimated 50 million barrels of oil into the Kuwaiti desert, forming huge oil lakes and contaminating aquifers. Another 4 million barrels of oil were dumped into the Persian Gulf — an act of eco-sabotage some 25 times larger than the accidental Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. The environmentalists almost gleefully have persecuted Exxon. Saddam, though, gets a free pass.... --Fox News When has Saddam done these things? When his country has been invaded. Is this a good thing? Absolutely not. Is Saddam a green guy? Absolutely not. But would he be setting oil fires if there were no frigging war? No, he wouldn't. Right-wingers think they have an inalienable right to whack a hornets' nest with a stick any time they want -- and if you suggest that they're responsible when someone gets stung, they say you're "pro-hornet." posted by Steve M. | 5:58 PM |   Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? makes the extended New York Times bestseller list. (Yeah, there's a lot of crap above it, including three Regnery books, but still....) posted by Steve M. | 5:23 PM |   SANCTIMONIOUS TRITENESS DEBUNKED, PART 4 Among supporters of the war in Iraq I doubt there's a single one who's "pro-war." No one wants war, no one likes war.... --right-wing academic David Gelertner at a Yale pro-war rally, 3/26/03 *** As for peace, [Moore] quotes an operative known only as "Jack" -- because he is still deeply involved in the search for Osama bin Laden, his full identity is withheld -- as he sits in as Kabul hotel bar: "'God, I hate it when a war ends,' Jack said quietly as he stared at his drink. His teary eyes glassed over from the booze." --review of Robin Moore's new book The Hunt for bin Laden in the New York Daily News, 3/23/03 (no longer available free online; abstract available here) posted by Steve M. | 3:04 PM |   SANCTIMONIOUS TRITENESS DEBUNKED, PART 3 Among supporters of the war in Iraq I doubt there's a single one who's "pro-war." No one wants war, no one likes war.... --right-wing academic David Gelertner at a Yale pro-war rally, 3/26/03 Yeah, right. This guy clearly hated war -- he was just putting on a brave face. posted by Steve M. | 1:42 PM |   Some interesting poll results: While the American public has rallied behind President Bush on the Iraq war, two-thirds say the United States should not feel free to use military force in the future without U.N. support, says a new poll. Three-fourths said they support the president's decision to go to war with Iraq, says the survey. But almost that many, 66 percent, said they don't think the United States should feel free to use force without the backing of the United Nations.... The poll, by the Program for International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, was taken March 22-25 by Knowledge Networks of 795 respondents. It has an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.... Three in 10 said the United States should govern Iraq after the war, while half said the United Nations should assume that role. A solid majority, 72 percent, says the United Nations should take the lead in dealing with North Korea. And six in 10 want the international organization to take the lead in monitoring Iran, which contends that its nuclear program is strictly for energy production.... --San Francisco Chronicle A majority of those who responded to the new [NBC News/Wall Street Journal] poll want the U.S. military to avoid civilian casualties: 56 percent said the military should do all it can to minimize Iraqi civilian casualties, even if it means taking longer to accomplish its objectives. Thirty-eight percent said the military should use whatever force was required to do the job. More than a quarter of those polled — 28 percent — said that regardless of the force used, the war’s outcome would yield no clear winner. Statistically, it was about the same percentage of Americans that responded to the same question in 1991 — before the end of the first Gulf War, which left Saddam in power. Perhaps independent of war concerns, Americans concerned about the economic downturn had low marks for Bush’s proposed tax-cut plan: 52 percent said Congress should not pass the plan, compared with 38 percent who said it should be approved. --MSNBC posted by Steve M. | 1:37 PM |   A Russian telecoms company is offering free phone calls to the White House for anyone who wants to rant at George Bush. Excom in the west Russian city of Yekaterinburg said almost 1,000 people have taken advantage of the offer. Calls have ranged from two to 20 minutes and the tempers of some people have boiled over. Phone operator Irina Natakhina said: "Mostly men call almost every 10 minutes and demand to be put through to the White House. When they have to wait they even begin swearing at me." Excom general director Konstantin Ivanov found the number on the internet and said the offer will continue indefinitely. --Ananova posted by Steve M. | 1:19 PM |   The "Rally for America" photo shown here is cropped. In the print edition of today's New York Times it includes, at left, a woman holding a sign that reads "PROTESTER = TERRORIST." No one confronts her; no one seems put off by her presence; no one seems worried that her equation of dissent with political murder is un-American. Self-righteous right-wingers picked apart the little-read position papers of A.N.S.W.E.R and condemned anti-war protesters for attending A.N.S.W.E.R.-organized rallies. These self-righteous people need to explain why their side tolerates haters of the fundamental values of America. posted by Steve M. | 9:39 AM | Sunday, March 30, 2003   This is what whoop-ass looks like. (Not for the squeamish, as those of you who've already seen the picture know.) posted by Steve M. | 11:51 PM |   Middle East fundamentalists are really, really bad: Perhaps the sharpest debate is over the role of Islamic law in the [forthcoming Afghanistan] constitution. All agree that Islam should form the basis for Afghanistan's legal system, but dispute how rigid a standard it will provide.... Fazul Ahmed Shirinagna Manawi, a deputy chief justice, said that those who proposed only 20 percent Islamic law "do not have any understanding of Islam." He warned Westernized Afghans, who he said were a "little estranged" from Afghan society, that "what they propose should not oppose the basics of our culture, or the holy affairs of Islam." --Amy Waldman in the 3/30/03 New York Times U.S. fundamentalists, on the other hand, are great patriots, despite suffering the contempt of effete America-haters who write for The New York Times: Rod Dreher, a senior writer at National Review, says that clergymen who oppose the war are spiritually disarming us and that military chaplains supporting the war should be heeded, not ''bishops in well-appointed chanceries and pastors sitting in suburban middle-class comfort.'' Dreher, a Catholic convert, must think the pope is one of those cushy bishops, as opposed to the hard-bitten military chaplains who know what God and the devil are up to. We should learn from the ''moral realism'' of soldier-priests, who are ''warriors for justice,'' and not heed ''the effete sentimentality you find among so many clergymen today.'' The priests who do not bow to the War God are, in a chaplain's words that Dreher quotes with approval, reinforcers of the notion that ''religion is for wimps, for prissy-pants, for frilly-suited morons.'' This is what used to be called ''muscular Christianity,'' and Dreher thinks it is the only authentic form of his faith. --Garry Wills in The New York Times Magazine, 3/30/03 Hey, good thing it's so easy to tell them apart, huh? posted by Steve M. | 11:11 PM |   ...65 percent of the public favors the Senate-passed plan to reduce Bush's $726 billion tax cut by more than half in order to pay for the war, shore up Social Security and reduce the deficit - a view shared equally by Republicans as well as by Democrats and political independents. Nearly three in 10 would eliminate the tax cut entirely, the poll found. Most Americans also want the United Nations to play a leading role in postwar Iraq. By nearly 2 to 1, the public believes that the United Nations and not the United States should have primary responsibility for rebuilding Iraq and help setting up a new Iraqi government, a move opposed by the Bush administration but supported by six in 10 Democrats, independents and members of the president's own Republican Party... --Washington Post A small ray of hope. posted by Steve M. | 7:04 PM |   You know who doesn't "support our troops"? Donald Rumsfeld. Isn't failing to "support our troops" literally what Donald Rumsfeld did in the planning of this war? Current and former U.S. military officers are blaming Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his aides for the inadequate troop strength on the ground in Iraq, saying the civilian leaders "micromanaged" the deployment plan out of mistrust of the generals and an attempt to prove their own theory that a light, maneuverable force could handily defeat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. More than a dozen officers interviewed, including a senior officer in Iraq, said Rumsfeld took significant risks by leaving key units in the United States and Germany at the start of the war. That resulted in an invasion force that is too small, strung out, underprotected, undersupplied and awaiting tens of thousands of reinforcements who will not get there for weeks. (Washington Post) You want to get all self-righteous and denounce someone while waving a "Support Our Troops" sign? Wave it at that sonofabitch. posted by Steve M. | 6:28 PM |   How bad are things in the war? A former intelligence official quoted by Seymour Hersh in an article in the next issue of The New Yorker doesn't sound cheery, according to this Reuters story: Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate. Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said. "The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said. Yikes. The official blames Rumsfeld's "underwhelming force" war plan. (At this point, who doesn't?) posted by Steve M. | 12:21 AM |   I may not have the wording exactly right, but here's a headline I saw within the past hour on the Headline News crawl: Pentagon on finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: "It will take time." Oh, really? You bastards. We said precisely that before the war -- and the Boy King sneered, and his minions sneered, and Dennis "21st-Century Georgie Jessel" Miller sneered, calling Blix "Inspector Clouseau." Well, thanks a bit fat frigging lot for admittting in the most backhanded way possible that we were right all along -- that finding outlawed weapons takes time. posted by Steve M. | 12:12 AM | Saturday, March 29, 2003   SANCTIMONIOUS TRITENESS DEBUNKED, PART 2 Among supporters of the war in Iraq I doubt there's a single one who's 'pro-war.' No one wants war, no one likes war.... --right-wing academic David Gelertner at a Yale pro-war rally, 3/26/03 American pilots who bombed Baghdad on Friday spoke of the thrill of a successful attack in the teeth of fierce anti-aircraft fire. "It was exhilarating," Commander Jeff Penfield said after landing his F/A-18E Super Hornet back on the Abraham Lincoln, which is supporting the U.S.-led invasion force from the Gulf. "It was all nice and calm in the city," he said. "Once those bombs hit all hell broke loose. I bet we saw 15 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles), about three or four up our way so we had to defend a couple of times. "What I felt more than anything was exhilaration."... --Reuters, 3/28/03 posted by Steve M. | 9:13 AM |   Oh, lovely -- we're nickel-and-diming the Centers for Disease Control: Bush's proposed budget would give the CDC $6.5 billion ...it is about $700 million less than what Congress actually approved, and Bush signed into law, for the current year. Some of the proposed cuts are sizable. Next year's budget calls for a 26 percent cut for improvements at local public health centers. It also would cut funding for environmental health programs by 18 percent and reduce money for occupational safety and health by 10 percent.... William Gimson, the CDC's chief operating officer, said the agency's plans for administrative savings do not include employee layoffs, although it may not fill some positions after people leave them. Gerberding said the agency could also save money by reducing some of its internal technology costs. "The intent is that scientific program areas would not be affected," Gimson said. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution Got SARS? Have a tax cut! posted by Steve M. | 9:04 AM | Friday, March 28, 2003   We've heard a lot of high-minded speeches about the moral purpose of this war and read a lot of high-minded words. Oliver Willis finds that one pro-war blogger is not with the program. Kill them, kill them all. Just fucking carpet bomb the whole miserable fucking country now. The Iraqis have shown by their actions that they are just as evil as their leader and they are guilty either by action or inaction of maintaining the regime. They are all guilty. They have no claim on our pity on our help on our blood or our mercy. We didn't come here to free the Iraqi people, if they want to be free let them fucking earn for themselves like the rest of us did. We all live in countries where every town small and large has a monument in it to our fallen who bought and kept our freedom for us. The Iraqis have statues of a maniac. There's no free ride in this world.... There's more at the link, if you're a glutton for punishment. posted by Steve M. | 5:55 PM |   Among supporters of the war in Iraq I doubt there's a single one who's 'pro-war.' No one wants war, no one likes war.... --right-wing academic David Gelertner at a Yale pro-war rally, 3/26/03 ******************** We're about to open a can of high-grade whoop ass! I vote for one MOAB on each of his palaces. :) **** Tune in ppl..... It's on.. it is SO on! **** SADDAM'S MAIN PALACE IS ON FIRE... BURN BITCH BURN!! **** I see an awful lot of fire and explosions ... muahahaahha!!! ;) **** I'm going through overload right now. Got two TVs going (Fox/NBC) now I'm diggin Reuters. **** I'm at work so I have to watch Reuters with the sound off. Oh, how I wish I could hear those explosions ... *sigh* A girl can dream, can't she? **** Those are some satisfying mushroom clouds over what was once Saddam's palace... HOO-rah!! **** Tremendous ass whoopage. Tremendous ass whoopage, indeed. **** The News would be much cooler if they played Pantera music while shits blowing up. --comments at the blog Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, 3/21/03, as "Shock and Awe" began posted by Steve M. | 4:32 PM |   DEAR PRESIDENT BUSH: THANKS FOR THAT FOG OF WAR! SINCERELY, R. MUGABE In the days after a crippling strike by opponents of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the government there has struck back with a wave of violence and intimidation that has brought condemnation from governments and human rights groups around the world. Human rights workers and diplomats say that with the world's attention focused on war in Iraq, Mr. Mugabe has unleashed Zimbabwe's armed forces and militia against his own people, even as the country prepares for two important parliamentary elections on Sunday. Advertisement Internet reports from Harare describe hospital wards full of people suffering from severe burns and broken fingers and toes. Photographs show men and women with swollen lash marks across their backs and chests. Opposition leaders report that more than 1,000 people have fled their homes and that more than 500 people have been arrested.... --New York Times posted by Steve M. | 2:30 PM |   Then there is French's Mustard. A news release this week proclaimed, "The only thing French about French's Mustard is the name! Robert T. French's All-American Dream Lives On." The release waved the United States flag as vigorously as it could, proclaiming that since 1915 French's pennant emblem has symbolized "French's affiliation with baseball and American celebration." Advertisement The news release said French's was produced by "New Jersey-based Reckitt Benckiser Inc."... The news release also praised French's "Napa Valley style Dijon" mustard. On French's Web site, that mustard is just called Dijon. The name was changed last year, Ms. Small said, but the company has not gotten around to updating the Web site. --Floyd Norris in today's New York Times I don't think this will work -- the freedom-fry-eating yahoos think everyone in Napa Valley's a pinko peacenik. posted by Steve M. | 2:19 PM |   1979 (The Remix)? Demonstrators pelted the British Embassy in Tehran with stones, breaking windows and shouting "the British Embassy must be closed!" Police fired into the air to disperse the crowd, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.... The cleric who delivered the Friday prayers sermon that was broadcast on Iranian television, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, said: "Will bombs and the use of force bring democracy and freedom? It definitely will not." The worshippers responded with shouts of "Death to America!" and "Death to Britain!" --AP posted by Steve M. | 2:06 PM |   This blog post from Joshua Micah Marshall is a bit more rambling than usual, but read it to the end for a jaw-dropping list of ugly-American blunders we're already making in Iraq. I weep for my country. And if you haven't read Marshall's "Practice to Deceive," read it. Here's the neocon hawks' plan for a U.S. boot in the Arab/Muslim face, forever. posted by Steve M. | 1:01 PM |   Saddam look becomes fashionable in India A new craze for sporting Saddam Hussein's hairstyle has been reported by barbers in northern India. Youngsters in Jalandhar, a city with a fashion-conscious reputation, are asking hairdressers to make their moustaches and hair like that of the Iraqi dictator.... --Ananova Hey, we're doing really, really well at this hearts-and-minds thing, aren't we? posted by Steve M. | 9:53 AM |   Here's an interesting story from yesterday's New York Times -- nationwide polls say that opposition to the war is far greater among blacks than among whites, and the Times found deep skepticism about the war in interviews with blacks in New York City. For years right-wingers have sneeringly said that blacks are stuck on the "Democratic plantation." But if that's the case, how does it jibe with the fact that New York's top Democrats, Senators Schumer and Clinton, support the war? The blacks quoted in the Times article simply don't trust Bush -- for all the right reasons: "You got a president who stole his way into the place, who went into it with this on his mind," said Willie Roper, 65, at the Bay View Houses public housing project in Canarsie, Brooklyn, referring to Mr. Bush's election. "That's why we have this war."... "Oh, they tried to kill my Daddy," Julias Dukes said in a mocking singsong. Mr. Dukes, a 47-year-old former marine who was sitting on a stoop along Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, added, "It's a personal thing."... "You know who I see as a threat?" asked Bashir Sultan, 39, a former computer technician, finishing a slice of pizza in Harlem with a friend, Dolores Jackson. "I see North Korea. Or China. I don't see Saddam as a threat." Pretty astute. Maybe there really is a racial "bell curve" -- maybe Charles Murray just had it upside down. posted by Steve M. | 9:46 AM | Thursday, March 27, 2003   What? There's torture in other countries besides Iraq? Rush never told me that! Human rights groups have accused the Egyptian authorities of detaining hundreds of people in a brutal crackdown on people protesting the war in Iraq.... Human rights groups in Cairo and the United States, citing what they said were witness accounts and statements by detainees, said security forces had used electric shocks, sticks and belts to beat prisoners in police stations and in prisons.... --from today's New York Times But hey -- it turnbs out that torture in Egyptian prisons builds character: Many members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad fled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s....Foremost among them was Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, a surgeon who became Osama bin Laden's deputy. Dr Zawahiri had been imprisoned and, according to friends, beaten frequently after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The humiliations - including, reportedly, the betrayal under torture of a fellow Islamist - marked him for life. He left prison with renewed commitment to the Islamist cause, and began making regular trips to Afghanistan to support the mojahedin fighting the Soviets. Montasser al-Zayat, a lawyer who was imprisoned with Dr Zawahiri and wrote a damning biography of him, described how traumatic experiences during three years in prison transformed Dr Zawahiri from a relative moderate in the Islamist underground into a violent extremist. Others also remarked on the change. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a sociologist at the American University who met Dr Zawahiri after his release, told the New Yorker magazine recently: "Many who turn fanatic have suffered harsh treatment in prison. It makes them extremely suspicious." It was Dr Zawahari who formally merged Islamic Jihad with al-Qaida in June 2001, providing Bin Laden's organisation with an influx of Egyptian recruits and reinforcing its hatred of secular, pro-western Arab governments. Of the nine-member leadership council, six were Egyptians. Al-Qaida recognises the significance of torture. A handbook, Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants, seized by police in Manchester several years ago, was accepted as evidence in the New York trial of those who bombed America's east African embassies. The manual lists gruesome tortures, and then notes: "Let no one think the techniques are fabrications of our imagination, or that we copied them from spy stories. These are factual incidents in the prisons of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and all other Arab countries." --Guardian, 1/24/03 posted by Steve M. | 11:09 PM |   I understand that you might support the war if you sincerely believe that it will result in a net decrease in the suffering of innocent people. But if you believe that, and you also believe that many of Iraq's soldiers in effect have guns pointed at their heads and are fighting unwillingly, it seems to me that you have to include their deaths and injuries in the toll of suffering by the innocent. Obviously, in a war each side is going to try to kill or incapacitate as many soldiers on the other side as possible -- but if you're trying to do moral calculus about the rightness of this war for the U.S., your equation is incomplete unless you count among its victims the soldiers who might have lived through containment but will die or be injured in this war. posted by Steve M. | 6:00 PM |   He's going to get his damn tax cut. That's the conclusion of Liberal Oasis, and the logic is, alas, persuasive: First, the House-Senate conference committee will be packed with Bush loyalists. Then, as reported in yesterday's New York Times, two nonconservative but spineless Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich, say they'll vote for whatever comes out of this ideologue-packed conference. Heedless of consequences overseas, heedless of consequences at home. That's our president. posted by Steve M. | 5:27 PM |   It's not a quagmire, but it is a mess: * Iraqi militias have U.S. led forces pinned down -- and Iraqis in the war zone hate us. ("'We live in fear at night,' said Om Talal, 40, her youngest child at her feet in the southern town of Al-Zubayr. 'Already two of our houses have been destroyed. Why must they fire on our houses and kill civilians?'") * Iraqi opposition groups are planning a provisional government ("The opposition's apparent defiance of the United States illustrated the poor state of relations between them, despite the opposition's complete dependence on U.S. military might.") * British soldiers are scavenging Iraqi soldiers' boots because the Brit boots are melting. posted by Steve M. | 4:15 PM |   "Freedom toast" = French toast? On Air Force One, not exactly: Air Force One is now French-free. Before each flight, the stewards aboard the presidential airplane post a card, embossed with the presidential seal and bearing the menu for the meal they will be serving, in the plane's cabins. Today, the breakfast entree was "freedom toast topped with strawberries," a concoction in which cream cheese is stuffed into what is known elsewhere as French toast. --Los Angeles Times French toast stuffed with cream cheese? Who's the chef on Air Force One -- Elvis? (Link from The Rational Enquirer.) posted by Steve M. | 3:07 PM |   Yesterday, a military blogger posted a photo of the coffins of six members of the Air Force who died trying to transport Afghani children to a U.S. hospital. The blogger wrote, Six brave airmen died trying to make life better for children and their families who were brutalized under a tyrannical theocratic regime. Show me any other nation that does this as a matter of routine, 99% of the time without any press or media attention. InstaPundit linked this and commented, with a sneer, It ain't the French. I guess something like this doesn’t count for InstaPundit: July 6 [2002] [AP]: Two French peacekeepers were seriously injured when a mine exploded while they were trying to deactivate it. The two suffered injuries to their heads and hands and were evacuated to France a day later. The mine and ordinance clean-up operations near the Kabul airport has cleared more than 800 mines since April. --Alex Vassar, “Current Casualties from the Operation Enduring Freedom,” 2002 And I guess this doesn't count as aid to people brutalized by tyrants: French police serving as peacekeepers in Kosovo on Monday notified the families of 26 men missing from this town for five months that the men had been killed by Serbs and dumped in a mass grave and that four suspects have been arrested. The case is the first time in Kosovo that foreigners have completed a war crimes investigation, working from the first reports of missing people to finding the graves and making arrests. Their speed demonstrates a greater commitment than was the case in the former Yugoslavia to catch those responsible for war crimes. --St. Petersburg Times, 9/28/99 And I guess none of the following counts as evidence that dangerous peacekeeping and nation-building work is done regularly around the world by ordinary French service personnel: Hundreds of U.S. Marines and French peacekeepers were killed in almost simultaneous terror truck bomb assaults on their headquarters in Beirut in 1983. --National Review, 9/11/01 September 9, 1992... Heavy machine gun fire blasted a UN convoy arriving from Serbia late Tuesday, killing two French peacekeepers and wounding two others. --testimony before the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1/25/93 The peace process in the Ivory Coast was in tatters yesterday after 30 rebel soldiers were killed and nine French peacekeepers wounded in the bloodiest clash of a four-month armed uprising. --Daily Telegraph (U.K.), 1/8/03 And on the subject of hard, dangerous work being done “without any press or media attention”: [Thomas] Friedman [of The New York Times] contrasts the very different responses of the French and the Americans to losses of recent years. The French press and public reacted rather calmly and matter-of-factly to the tragic loss of French peacekeepers to snipers in Bosnia; the story was buried in the back pages of the newspapers and did not create much of a political storm, thereby allowing that peacekeeping mission to continue. American experience has been quite different. Losses in Somalia and the celebration of the return of a downed American pilot after his escape from Bosnia highlight the different operating principles of the French and American publics, as well as of their presses and political establishments. --Joel Rosenthal in Naval War College Review, 1997 posted by Steve M. | 1:31 PM |   In an e-mail, MoveOn.org says its members have donated more than half a million dollars to Oxfam's Iraqi refugee campaign. Here's the MoveOn site's link to Oxfam's contributions page. All those right-wingers who think lefties "don't care about the people of Iraq" -- do you have a problem with this? UPDATE: Media Whores Online also has an Oxfam link. posted by Steve M. | 12:29 PM |   Soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment found about a hundred chemical weapons protection suits and respirators in an Iraqi command post, said Adm. Michael Boyce, chief of the defense staff.... "We already know from Iraqi prisoners of war that protective equipment was issued to southern Iraqi divisions," Hoon added. The discovery of the chemical suits was not conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein planned to use such weapons, he said. "But it is indicative of an intention, otherwise why equip his own forces to deal with a threat which he knows we do not have? So it must only be to protect his forces from his own use of those weapons which we know he has," Hoon said. --AP Uh, maybe Iraq is screwing with our heads? I don't want to be naive. I think it's quite possible that Iraq has usable chemical and/or biological weapons, and that they may be used eventually in this war. I'm just wonder why this couldn't also just be psyops. posted by Steve M. | 12:11 PM |   Bush's approval rating for handling the situation with Iraq has inched up to 71 percent — for the first time exceeding his overall job approval rating, 68 percent. Both, though, remain well below his father's ratings in the early days of the 1991 conflict. --ABC News, reporting an ABC/Washington Post poll posted by Steve M. | 7:40 AM | Wednesday, March 26, 2003   There may be antiwar civil disobedience at Rockefeller Center tomorrow morning, as The Village Voice reports, but I'll be surprised if the demonstrators are even remotely as disruptive as the crowds at the annual Christmas tree lighting. I speak from experience: I worked in Rock Center for years, and leaving the office on tree-lighting day was as close as I think I'll ever get to experiencing the fall of Saigon (or at least that Great White show in Rhode Island). Still, I feel a bit sorry for the people I know who are still working over there. I'm pleased that people are still demonstrating their outrage at the war, but I'm not a huge fan of street blockages -- they piss people off, they don't piss the right people off (the people who run everything are rarely inconvenienced), and, because they happen outside while all the work is done indoors, they don't exactly bring the wheels of The System to a halt (one ex-coworker who learned of the demo said she might get to work early to try to beat it -- if she does this, she's going to do more work tomorrow than she would have otherwise). And I don't like anything that gives the freedom-fries crowd a smug sense of moral superiority -- although anyone who claims that an act of civil disobedience in Midtown Manhattan held up an ambulance needs to know that no ambulance, or any vehicle other than a presidential motorcade, ever moves faster than a crawl in Midtown on a workday. Sorry, I prefer huge legal demonstrations. Feel free to call me a wimp. posted by Steve M. | 11:38 PM |   This is very nasty: "Pictures of Liberated Iraqis Dancing in the Streets" (Link courtesy of the Mahablog.) posted by Steve M. | 5:35 PM |   If the White House wants to stop "frivolous lawsuits," it should start with this one: Miami relatives of young Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez cannot sue former Attorney General Janet Reno and other federal officials for allegedly using excessive force when agents seized the boy from the family's home, an appellate court has ruled. Yes, folks, the Miami relatives are still litigating this. With the help, unsurprisingly, of the fine folks at Judicial Watch. posted by Steve M. | 5:09 PM |   Does it get funnier than this? And how 'bout this? Photo 1: Tom Daschle is short! Ha ha ha! Isn't that funny? Photos 2through 6: The Wizard of Oz! Get it? Get it? (Actually, I don't get it. Do you get it?) These links are from probush.com -- where you can also find the Ari Fleischer fan club page that was recently cited in the U.K.'s Guardian and The Washington Post (as TBOGG notes). Not amused? Guess you're just a traitor. posted by Steve M. | 3:43 PM |   Worried about how things are going in Iraq? Well, you should know that India and Pakistan just test-fired nuclear-capable missiles, while North Korea broke off long-standing regular talks with the U.N. Command in South Korea and is threatening to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile. There. I bet you forgot all about Iraq, didn't you? posted by Steve M. | 1:15 PM |   Hey, now we're threatening Canada... The U.S. ambassador to Canada took the unusual step on Tuesday of openly criticizing Ottawa for not backing the war on Iraq and urged Prime Minister Jean Chretien to muzzle anti-U.S. sentiment in his government. ...What will have been most disconcerting for the audience was Cellucci's statement that the United States gave a higher priority to security than to the booming trade relationship between the two countries. ..."Security will trump trade, there is no doubt about that," Cellucci told reporters, saying there could be unspecified "short term" strains in the relationship given U.S. unhappiness with Canada. --Reuters I think these guys are just going to have to do a bumper sticker that says "First Iraq, Then Everyone Else on the Planet (Except Republicans and Tony Blair)." posted by Steve M. | 12:04 PM |   All one need remember from their sorry show [the Oscars] is that there are 250,000 men and women volunteers who have offered to die for you and what you believe in. Susan Sarandon isn't one of them. --from Lucianne Goldberg's Lucianne.com today Yeah, Lucianne, and funny thing -- your son isn't one of them either. Sure, he's in his thirties now, but that's not really too old to fight, is it? And where was he in '91, during Gulf War I, when he was of prime fighting age? Says here he was at Goucher College, sitting on his duff reading books like a damn peacenik. Susan Sarandon? She's 56 years old. Pretty close to your age, Lucianne. So why aren't you ducking sandstorms now? posted by Steve M. | 10:11 AM |   Royal Marines were deployed to Iraq's border with Iran yesterday in a move that will unnerve Teheran's regime, which fears encirclement by American-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said the Royal Marines were merely "securing their area of operations" after seizing at the Faw peninsula.... Tensions were illustrated by a succession of border incidents. A rocket struck an Iranian oil refinery depot in Abadan, just across from Basra, on Friday injuring two people while there were reports on Monday that Iranian forces had fired on British troops on the Faw peninsula.... --Daily Telegraph (U.K.) I'm starting to worry that "Iraq" is Arabic for "Cambodia." posted by Steve M. | 9:32 AM |   More sniping at U.S. companies: A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a boycott list of American firms that was making the rounds in Brazil. Now my Brazilian correspondent has written to point out that the boycott list is up on the Web. Here, from the site, is a list of U.S. companies to avoid and non-American alternatives. I boycott you, you boycott me. One more little war in George Bush’s world of war. posted by Steve M. | 9:22 AM | Tuesday, March 25, 2003   Heh heh heh. No more Coca-Cola or Budweiser, no Marlboro, no American whiskey or even American Express cards -- a growing number of restaurants in Germany are taking everything American off their menus to protest the war in Iraq. Although the protests are mainly symbolic, waiters in dozens of bars and restaurants in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Bonn and other German cities are telling patrons, "Sorry, Coca-Cola is not available any more due to the current political situation."... In Indonesia, Iraq war opponents have pasted signs on McDonald's and other American food outlets, trying to force them shut by "sealing them" and urging Indonesians to avoid them. In the Swiss city of Basel, 50 students recently staged a sit-down strike in front of a McDonald's to block customers' entry, waved peace signs and urged people to eat pretzels instead of hamburgers. Anti-American sentiment has even reached provinces in Russia, where some rural eateries put up signs telling Americans they were unwelcome, according to an Izvestia newspaper report. A German bicycle manufacturer, Riese und Mueller GmbH, canceled all business deals with its American suppliers.... --ABC News The article goes on to quote one German bartender who is no longer serving Budweiser. Left unexplained is how the hell anyone in Germany could stand to drink Budweiser in the first place. posted by Steve M. | 11:14 PM |   This basically came true. This is also basically true. So I wonder how soon this will come true. posted by Steve M. | 6:17 PM |   As Thomas McLaughlin tells it, the trouble began when his eighth-grade science teacher overheard him refusing to deny to another boy that he was gay. It got worse that afternoon, when his guidance counselor called his mother at work to tell her he was homosexual. "The assistant principal called me out of seventh period, asked if my parents knew I was gay, and when I said no, she said I had till 3:40 to tell them or the school would," said Thomas, a 14-year old student at Jacksonville Junior High School in Arkansas. "I was too upset to sit through eighth period, so I went to the guidance counselor, and she made the call. Later, the science teacher wrote me a four-page handwritten letter about the Bible's teachings on homosexuality, telling me I would be condemned to hell. I threw it out." That was a more than a year ago. Since then, the McLaughlin family says, the school has continued to harass Thomas because of his homosexuality. The teachers and administrators who outed Thomas last year now want to silence him, the McLaughlins say, by telling him not to discuss homosexuality in school and disciplining him for doing so. They also say that a different assistant principal called Thomas to his office this year and made him read aloud a Bible passage condemning homosexuality. --New York Times What??? You mean this happened even though the Christian-hating liberal thought police have silenced and intimidated all the people in America who have traditional values? posted by Steve M. | 5:56 PM |   What a silly peacenik I am -- I thought civilian carnage was a bad thing. I didn't realize that I was supposed to be happy that Saddam's troops are firing on noncombatants in Basra. posted by Steve M. | 5:47 PM |   Some more unintended consequences: India on Tuesday countered the renewed call by the US for resumption of talks with Pakistan, asking why military action was resorted to against Iraq and Afghanistan instead of dialogue to resolve the crisis confronting the two countries. "If dialogue per se is more critical than combating international terrorism with all necessary means, then one can legitimately ask why both in Afghanistan and Iraq military action instead of dialogue has been resorted to," External Affairs Ministry spokesman told reporters.... --Express India (India is responding to the massacre of 24 Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, for which India blames Pakistan.) posted by Steve M. | 5:34 PM |   On eBay, the highest bid wins -- unless the item on sale is a laser printer from CompAtlanta and the bidder happens to be Canadian. That's what a tax consultant discovered last week when he tried to buy a printer on eBay, but was refused by the vendor when it was discovered he lived in Vancouver. David Ingram received notification that his winning bid of $24.50 had been canceled, along with this message: "At the present time, we do not ship to, or accept bids from, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany or any other country that does not support the United States in our efforts to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. If you are not with us, you are against us." Ingram's .ca address sparked the notice from CompAtlanta, based in Lawrenceville, Georgia.... --Wired News Wow -- unable to buy from one guy selling on eBay! That ought to bring those damn surrender monkeys to their knees. posted by Steve M. | 5:22 PM |   More unintended war consequences: The Iraqi war has convinced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership that some form of confrontation with the U.S. could come earlier than expected. Beijing has also begun to fine-tune its domestic and security policies to counter the perceived threat of U.S. "neo-imperialism." As more emphasis is being put on boosting national strength and cohesiveness, a big blow could be dealt to both economic and political reform.... As People's Daily commentator Huang Peizhao pointed out last Saturday, U.S. moves in the Middle East "have served the goal of seeking world-wide domination." State Council think-tank member Tong Gang saw the conflict as the first salvo in Washington's bid to "build a new world order under U.S. domination." ... "Now, many cadres and think-tank members think Beijing should adopt a more pro-active if not aggressive policy to thwart U.S. aggression," said a Chinese source close to the diplomatic establishment. He added hard-line elements in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had advocated providing weapons to North Korea to help Pyongyang defend itself against a possible U.S. missile strike at its nuclear facilities.... On the military front, the Iraqi conflict will kick start another season of accelerated modernization of weaponry.... --CNN Lovely. (Thanks to Susan M. for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 3:53 PM |   Kanan Makiya is giddy at the U.S. bombing (read the opening paragraphs of the link) but apprehensive about what the U.S. will do to Iraq after the war: There is enough chatter out of Washington to make me apprehensive. Last Wednesday, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Marc Grossman, managed to deliver a long briefing to foreign reporters on "Assisting Iraqis With Their Future, Planning For Democracy" without any specifics on the issue. While Grossman summarized U.S. plans and offered statistical details on economic reconstruction, dealing with weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian assistance, and the role of the United Nations in all these things, all he could say about the central political question was that the Bush administration "seek[s] an Iraq that is democratic." Unlike its experience in Afghanistan, the administration has had months, if not years, to think about what democracy in Iraq would look like. And yet when the journalists asked Grossman to elaborate on the subject, he could add almost nothing. Why? Does the United States have any ideas on this pivotal subject? Will the administration push for those ideas in the establishment of the still-ambiguous Iraqi interim authority that Grossman mentioned in his briefing? And what is the role of the leadership of the Iraqi opposition elected in Salahuddin last month? These are the questions I am left here to argue about with American officials while the war's progress provides a more pleasant soundtrack. Are all the soothing words being whispered in the ears of Makiya and other Iraqi dissidents just part of a big geopolitical con game? I guess we'll find out, won't we? posted by Steve M. | 1:43 PM |   Dr. John Collins, a retired Army colonel and former chief researcher for the Library of Congress, said ... every military commander since Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, has hated urban warfare. "Military casualties normally soar on both sides; innocent civilians lose lives and suffer severe privation; reconstruction costs skyrocket," Collins said... --Philadelphia Inquirer Skyrocketing reconstruction costs? You say that like it's a bad thing: The first contracts for rebuilding post-war Iraq have been awarded, and Vice President Dick Cheney's old employer, Halliburton Co., says it is one of the early winners.... --CNNmoney And please note the terms of these contracts: Confidential contract documents indicate that companies will be paid under an arrangement known as "cost plus fixed fee." Once the cost of a project is established, the contractor is entitled to recover those costs plus a fee that is a fixed percentage of those costs. That percentage is generally 8 to 10 percent, although the security precautions required under the Iraq contracts might justify a higher fee in some cases, construction industry analysts said. --from an article on Iraqi reconstruction in Sunday's New York Times So the higher the cost, the larger the profit (the "plus") in raw dollars. posted by Steve M. | 12:52 PM |   If you suspect that Donald Rumsfeld sent an inadequate force into Iraq, and would have sent an even smaller force if he'd completely had his way, remember: it could have been worse: If a few hundred men and a few dozen planes could overthrow the Taliban, what might ten thousand men and a few hundred planes do in Iraq? --David Frum, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, p. 195 posted by Steve M. | 12:49 PM |   ADD Lizzie Grubman to the list of Oscar boycotters. Grubman says she was supposed to go to the Academy Awards with her father, Allen Grubman, a prominent lawyer who reps many celebs, but decided against it. "We canceled because there's a war on," Grubman tells PAGE SIX. "The Oscars should have been canceled. There are prisoners of war and American soldiers are dying - to go out and party is disrepectful and not appropriate." Grubman says she didn't even bother to watch the show on TV. --from the New York Post's gossip page Or perhaps it's just that crossing state lines is a violation of Lizzie's parole. (Thanks to Benjamin for the Post link and the punch line.) posted by Steve M. | 10:12 AM |   Let me see if I understand this correctly: In America we think Saddam Hussein is a potential Hitler; we think he was involved in the September 11 attacks; we think that if we hadn't attacked him he was planning any day to arm terrorists who would bring a nuclear, chemical, or biological 9/11 to U.S. soil; we think he was a threat to the entire civilized world -- but we're surprised that the war is going on longer than a Bruce Willis movie? We sold all our stocks yesterday because the war isn't over yet? We really need to grow up. I think Saddam's threat to the rest of the world has been drastically overestimated by a lot of people, starting with the president of the United States (at least in his public pronouncements) -- but this was never going to be a four-hour miniseries. If the war had ended last week with Saddam's head on a pike it would have been a shorter war than Panama, for chrissakes. (I'll admit I wished for an insta-war last week, but that was an atheist's version of a prayer for a miracle.) Even if you thought this damn thing could end in days, how could you be surprised when it didn't? This is war. War is ugly and bloody. War creates long periods of suffering. Good people die or suffer gruesome injuries. Survivors have horrific memories and lingering hatreds. This is why we were against it, idiots. posted by Steve M. | 7:47 AM | Monday, March 24, 2003   Have you noticed? Class warfare is hip. Sneering at class warfare is so ten weeks ago: The Democrats couldn't even persuade people to oppose the repeal of the estate tax, which is explicitly for the mega-upper class....Why don't more Americans want to distribute more wealth down to people like themselves?... Income resentment is not a strong emotion in much of America. ....Many Americans admire the rich. They don't see society as a conflict zone between the rich and poor. It's taboo to say in a democratic culture, but do you think a nation that watches Katie Couric in the morning, Tom Hanks in the evening and Michael Jordan on weekends harbors deep animosity toward the affluent?... --right-wing pundit David Brooks in The New York Times, 1/12/03 After watching the actor Martin Sheen, star of "The West Wing," denounce an invasion of Iraq on television last December, Lori Bardsley, 38, a homemaker in Summerfield, N.C., started an online petition, Citizens Against Celebrity "Pundits" at ipetitions.com. The petition now has more than 100,000 signatures. "That evening I was very angry and I knew I wasn't the only one in the country who would be," Ms. Bardsley said. "Many Americans have felt this for a long time."... "Entertainers symbolize something about American life that many Americans resent," [author Neal Gabler] said. "They have so much money and they're so conspicuous about it. The idea is that all celebrities are spoiled and naïve and fundamentally not serious. They're dabblers." Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, a conservative journal, echoed this view. "Subliminally it bothers people that these are famous, rich, celebrated people who America has treated extremely well," he said. --New York Times, 3/23/03 posted by Steve M. | 10:57 PM |   Things can go wrong very fast, even and perhaps especially for an over-reaching great power. Like the German planners of 1914, today's Washington strategists are obsessed with challenges, timetables, windows of opportunity—and the eschatological urge to tear down a frustrating international order and remake it in their image. They, too, have exaggerated the threats and underestimated the risks. That is as far as the analogy goes—Imperial Germany and Republican America have little else in common. But hubris is not a shortcoming peculiar to any one constitutional form; and the inability to envisage nemesis is modern America's distinctive failing. --Tony Judt in the current New York Review of Books posted by Steve M. | 10:33 PM |   For the first few days it seemed as if people weren’t paying much attention to the war. Now it’s a real story -- merciless bombing, the long march, terrified-looking POWs-- but I’m still not sure it’s more than just better-than-average reality TV for much of America. At my office late Friday, we heard thunder and, being post-9/11 New Yorkers, we joked nervously about “Shock and Awe” arriving Stateside. Later, at an Italian restaurant, I heard tables of young men making what were meant to be Lettermanesque jokes using the war as a jumping-off point. That was war in NYC on Friday -- we were riffing on it. Over the weekend I was in upstate New York, where I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently. I didn’t see what I expected to see there -- a lot of newly mounted flags. And I didn’t see a single ribbon around a tree. Last week a caller to an MTV show on the war said her town was full of yellow ribbons. The caller was in a military town -- but during Gulf War I, yellow ribbons were everywhere. I guess we’re all paying attention now, but are we really emotionally invested? I think a lot of us aren’t. I think this is Bush’s war and Saddam’s war and Tony Blair’s war. It’s the troops’ war and the troops’ families’ war. It’s certainly the liberal-haters’ war. I don’t think the rest of the country’s war. It’s just the most interesting thing on. posted by Steve M. | 10:31 PM | Saturday, March 22, 2003   I won't be blogging for a couple of days -- not until Monday night or Tuesday, in all likelihood. Meanwhile, check out some of my links, if you don't already. posted by Steve M. | 9:14 AM |   Civilians mostly unscathed from Shock and Awe, according to The Guardian? That would be good. Many government ministers also unscathed? Maybe not so good. But Saddam is claiming civilian casualties, as the Voice of America reports. And there's this from the Bush administration: President Bush met with his war council Saturday and told Americans the only way to limit the length and scope of combat in Iraq was to use decisive force. After U.S. and British aircraft unleashed the devastating firepower of missiles and bombs the Pentagon calls "shock and awe," Bush warned the Iraqi government, "This will not be a campaign of half measures." Three days into war, Bush also cautioned against overconfidence given the apparent success of the mission and lack of serious resistance so far. "A campaign on harsh terrain in a vast country could be longer and more difficult than some have predicted," Bush said in his weekly radio address broadcast from Camp David where he is spending the first weekend of the war. .."Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force," he said. Translation: We are going to kill people. There is going to be collateral damage. This is going to get ugly. posted by Steve M. | 9:06 AM | Friday, March 21, 2003   First we bomb the crap out of a major city in order to kill one guy (and a couple of his friends and relatives) ... then we let the guy we're trying to kill escape unharmed? American officials have told ABCNEWS that even with today's bombing, secret talks have continued behind the scenes about a Saddam Hussein surrender and exile to, among other places, the country of Mauritania in west Africa. Secretary of State Colin Powell hinted at the possibility of ongoing talks, saying: "There are a number of channels open to Baghdad. There are a number of individuals in countries around the world who have been conveying the message to the Iraqi regime that it is now inevitable that there will be a change." Oh, and here's the best part -- guess the nationality of the person doing the shuttle diplomacy to try to make this happen: One of the back channels goes through France, according to American officials aware of the negotiations. Since December, ABCNEWS has learned, an emissary from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been in the middle of the secret offer of exile. American officials say the French go-between, Pierre Delval, an expert on counterfeiting, has repeatedly traveled to Baghdad to persuade Saddam to accept exile in Mauritania. (Source.) posted by Steve M. | 11:29 PM |   I swear they do this just to piss us off: Q ...have you heard [the president] talk about this other responsibility which may weigh on him heavily today, and that is for the death of innocents, for Iraqi moms and dads and children who may, despite our best efforts, be killed? MR. FLEISCHER: ... I think the President worries about it from two points of view -- one, in terms of the present mission. This is why the President and the Department of Defense work so carefully, and we have such a modern military that is capable of engaging in precision strikes, so that the targets are indeed the military targets. As always in war, there is risk, there will be innocents who are lost. And the President deeply regrets that Saddam Hussein has put innocents in a place where their lives will be lost. The other portion of what the President remembers when he thinks about the innocents are the 3,000 innocents who lost their lives on September 11th in the United States.... --Today's White House press briefing Saddam = Osama. Again and again and again. (Thanks to Susan M. for pointing this out.) posted by Steve M. | 7:14 PM |   A lot of you have already seen this via Atrios, but for those who didn't... Minutes before the speech [Wednesday night], an internal television monitor at the White House showed the President pumping his fist. "Feels good," he said. --Philadelphia Inquirer Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. posted by Steve M. | 7:09 PM |   After we finish bombing Iraq, Colin Powell's State Department has a plan to help win the hearts and minds of the populace in 22 Arab nations. It plans to start publishing a lifestyle magazine for Arabs in the 18- to 35-year-old bracket that will showcase America - minus its politics and religion. "Basically, it's a magazine that will reflect American lifestyle and culture," said Raphael Calis, project manager for the International Information Program at the State Department. The name of the magazine is not yet finalized, but Janet Ottenberg and Richard Creighton - principals of Washington D.C.-based custom publisher The Magazine Group, which is handling the edit and design - said that the working title is simply "Hi." "The idea came to us from our Arab staff," said Creighton. "The name's tested well; we should know for sure in the next two weeks." --New York Post "Hi." I guess "Convert or Die" didn't do very well in the focus groups. posted by Steve M. | 4:28 PM |   Is it possible that the beginning of the war hasn't really been a cakewalk? The Daily Kos collects some news reports that poke holes in the conventional wisdom. posted by Steve M. | 1:59 PM |   And please note: The violent demonstrations in Muslim nations I listed below took place before "shock and awe" began. And now it's begun. posted by Steve M. | 1:32 PM |   The Arab street will erupt. ...This is often predicted but rarely happens. --Fred Barnes, "The Peacenik Top 10: A Look at the Ten Most Popular Objections to War and Some Common-Sense Responses to Them," Weekly Standard, 3/6/03 Four people were shot dead and dozens more were injured Friday as police clashed with demonstrators trying to storm the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, witnesses told CNN, on a second day of worldwide protests against the war in Iraq.... Meanwhile in Cairo, Egypt, Muslims hurled rocks and furniture at riot police from the roof of the historic al-Azhar mosque after Friday prayers.... In Amman, Jordan, police used tear gas against more than 10,000 people demonstrating against the war in a rally led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Thousands of Palestinians also demonstrated across the West Bank and Gaza in support of Iraq, waving Iraqi flags, holding pictures of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat and calling on the Iraqi president to "burn Tel Aviv." ... In Srinagar, the summer capital of India's northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, protesters shouted anti-U.S. slogans and pelted stones at passing cars. Police were forced to use batons and tear gas to disperse crowds. Thousands of Muslims in eastern Malaysia burned American and British flags and effigies of the two countries' leaders. In Bangladesh, thousands marched through the streets of Dhaka, shouting slogans like: "Bush is a war criminal." In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, demonstrators threw eggs and vegetables at the British Embassy in the capital, Jakarta.... --CNN today posted by Steve M. | 1:27 PM |   We're using napalm. Hey, don't worry -- we're not using it in civilian areas, so it's OK. We just fried some Iraqi soldiers at Safwan Hill with it. And besides, we never signed on to the convention that restricts its use. Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. A legal expert at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said the use of napalm or fuel air bombs was not illegal "per se" because the US was not a signatory to the 1980 weapons convention which prohibits and restricts certain weapons. "But the US has to apply the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and take all precautions to protect civilians. In the case of napalm and fuel air bombs, these are special precautions because these are area weapons, not specific weapons," said Dominique Loye, the committee's adviser on weapons and IHL. --Sydney Morning Herald; link from BuzzFlash posted by Steve M. | 12:56 PM |   Cursor links to a good LA Weekly article (by John R. McArthur of Harper's) about propaganda in the run-up to war. The point of the article is that governments lie to you when they want war -- but what's I find interesting is the nature of the propaganda McArthur describes. Nearly all of it has been about scary things, rather than the suffering of flesh-and-blood human beings as a result of scary things. Yes, we heard one (factually accurate) paragraph about torture in Iraq in the State of the Union address, and we've heard "he gassed his own people" over and over. But the bulk of the propaganda has been about aluminum tubes, airborne drones, and warheads that can be fitted with chemical weapons. We heard a lot more about "weapons of mass destruction" than we did about actual destruction (in, say, Halabja). The current Bushies never got us to the tie-a-yellow-ribbon level of fervor for war we reached in January '91. Were they just too cold-blooded and impersonal to manage this? posted by Steve M. | 12:07 PM |   Last night at one point I switched to MTV. I'm always amused by MTV's attempts at earnestness in times like these -- you know, éminence grise Kurt Loder attempting to rearrange his features in a look of concern for our youth, even though his facial muscles probably contain more botulinum toxin than can be found in Saddam Hussein's bioweapons stockpiles. What I saw on MTV was a series of interviews of young people in and around Grand Central Station. They were asked about the war -- and they weren't rah-rah or outraged. They mostly didn't give a damn one way or the other. I don't know how typical these kids are. But if they're at all representative of America, or at least of their generation, then George W. Bush has really accomplished something: on a psychological level, he has partially privatized this war. What I mean is that by failing to rally us around a principle, or around a compelling rationale, he's made the war something many people might not even care about if they don't have a direct stake in it. (On MTV, the interview segment was followed by two young callers from military towns who were, understandably, very focused on the war.) So maybe there are people directly or indirectly involved; people like me who aren't involved but have strong opinions pro or con -- and then everyone else, for many of whom this war is as meaningless as the price of pork-belly futures is to people who go to a check-cashing store to cash their paychecks. Maybe young people have figured out that we just do this every few years, and when it's over there's still evil and slaughter and brutality in the world, much of it in places the U.S. will never invade. *********** Here's Digby, from Wednesday night: The war show is, so far, very disappointing. When Bernie and Peter were hiding under their beds back in '91 at the Baghdad Hilton, and a handsome gas masked Bibi spoke calmly from Tel Aviv in his mellifluous American accent, it was new and exciting. The Patriot missiles were faster than a speeding scud and could pluck that baby right out of the sky. Cool fireworks. (Of course, we later found out they couldn't hit water if they were pushed over the side of a boat.) Still, it all was new and so post-pac man. I'm not seeing it now, no matter how they rhapsodise about the technology. I wonder if people are still watching. Especially since there's nothing to watch. We just turned on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He was being somewhat sarcastic -- he went on to point out that, oh, by the way, innocent people will be soon be dying in Baghdad. But I think he captured some of the sense of ennui that's out there as we pursue Bush War IV. posted by Steve M. | 9:55 AM |   I'm not a big admirer of NPR theme music, but was it absolutely necessary to rearrange the Morning Edition theme in that phony-somber Aaron-Copland-goes-to-war style that's used by every TV network for its war theme music, with its cliché for-whom-the-bell-tolls chime undertones? posted by Steve M. | 9:10 AM | Thursday, March 20, 2003   I didn’t hear anyone talking about the war at the office today. One reason may be the war’s muted start, but another reason, I think, is that we’ve been through this so many times before. We’ve had one or the other George Bush as president for a little more than six years, and this is already our fourth war. And they’re all the same, aren’t they? They’re all quick routs that seem to change absolutely nothing in our lives. Even the last war, the one that avenged 9/11 and actually did a fair amount of harm to some of the perpetrators, didn’t make us feel safer from terrorism. Four wars, three antichrists -- and so far all three of those antichrists are still alive: Noriega, Saddam, and Osama. It’s almost certain that George W. will be president for six more years. Do we have four more of these damn things to look forward to? posted by Steve M. | 10:12 PM |   Environmental experts warned this week that war in Iraq will cause "massive and possibly irreversible" damage to the Persian Gulf region and significantly add to global warming. The environmental leaders said the ensuing damage to Iraq's ecosystem and food and water supplies may eclipse the destruction during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "I think it will be comprehensive damage, and I don't think it will be localized to the area of Iraq, regardless of how precise and surgical our bombing campaign will be," said Ross Mirkarimi, a San Francisco-based environmental analyst who made two trips to Iraq shortly after U.S.-led forces drove the Iraqis from Kuwait. --Washington Post Oh, and putting out burning oil fields is not particularly easy: Most of the teams [that fought oil fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War] used seawater pumped through Kuwait’s empty oil pipelines to battle the fires.... It took Kuwait more than two years and $50 billion to restore its oil output to prewar levels. If Iraq sabotaged its oil fields, any cleanup could take far longer and cost much more.         Iraq’s fields and pipelines are badly run down after 12 years of U.N. economic sanctions. Its fields are also much farther from the sea than those in Kuwait, meaning a ready source of water might not be so easily available. Destruction could be especially bad if Iraqis set off explosives underground, deep within the well shafts themselves. If that happened, firefighters would have to drill a new “relief well” and pump a mixture of sand, gel and mud into each damaged shaft to try to plug it up and stop the blowout. “It’s a long, arduous process,” Badick said. Whereas he and his crews put out as many as five fires a day in Kuwait, cleaning up after a single underground explosion can take two months. --NBC News posted by Steve M. | 6:10 PM |   More subtle wit from the right. posted by Steve M. | 1:21 PM |   When I heard President George Bush deliver his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein on Monday, I could not help but puzzle over one crucial omission: the word "democracy." Why, I kept on asking myself, did he choose not to use it? Please don't snicker. That's Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi dissident, writing in his new war diary at The New Republic Online. Makiya felt betrayed by the U.S. a month ago; Bush administration officials have now made him many promises and he’s guardedly optimistic. His optimism seems premised on the notion that administration officials are men of their word. I have to remember to read Makiya's diary. I suspect it will be a diary of disillusionment with the Bush administration. posted by Steve M. | 12:49 PM |   Uh-oh ... last night, the only picture in the "War with Iraq" box on the Yahoo title screen was of President Bush. Now there are pictures of Bush and Saddam. DISLOYALTY! DISLOYALTY! OBJECTIVELY PRO-SADDAM! posted by Steve M. | 10:23 AM |   Top White House anti-terror boss resigns The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism. Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror. Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date. "Hardly a surprise," said one former intelligence official. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies."... The article goes on to quote James Bamford, author of two books about the National Security agency, The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets: "This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers). There is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration -- by the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq." And there's this: "If it was your job to prevent terror attacks, would you be happy about an action that many see as unnecessary, that is almost guaranteed to cause more terror in the short-term?" said one official. "I know I'm not (happy)." posted by Steve M. | 9:35 AM |   “When I take action,” he said, “I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.” --President George W. Bush in September 2001, quoted by Howard Fineman in Newsweek posted by Steve M. | 9:23 AM | Wednesday, March 19, 2003   Words I'm already sick of, even though the war is only about an hour old: * Target of opportunity * Actionable I'm sure this list will lengthen as the war progresses, unless I pull an Elvis and shoot my TV. posted by Steve M. | 10:45 PM |   Now that this war is actually going to happen, I want the U.S. to win in a rout. I don’t care if I look foolish for having predicted dire consequences. I want minimal casualties -- and minimal glory. On the radio this morning, someone said this war might look the Panama invasion. That’s not insubstantial enough. I want Grenada. I want unharmed Iraqi civilians to cheer unharmed American troops almost immediately. I want this war to be so brief, so painless and bloodless, that it’s a dim memory by Memorial Day. If that happens, this war will never really become part of our national myth. That’s good, because war has sex appeal for far too many people. And if it happens, war will have been a prologue -- and nation-building will be the main act. I don’t believe the aftermath of this war will in any way live up to its promise, as articulated by Bush and his subordinates -- but as long as that aftermath, Iraq as America’s 51st state, is inevitable, it would be good to get to it now. I hope we have as little as possible of Warlord Bush, so we can soon see the real Bush again, the one who’s never done anything successfully in his adult life. And then I hope we do to him what we did to his father. posted by Steve M. | 8:01 PM |   Here's more ham-fisted, humorless conservative "wit." (And it's got the InstaPundit Seal of Approval!) posted by Steve M. | 6:50 PM |   Here's the president's three-paragraph letter, from whitehouse.gov. He invokes the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), then goes on to say, acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. In other words, Iraq = 9/11. More and more, I suspect that belief in that fairy tale is the principal reason Bush has been craving war. I keep going back to something in Peggy Noonan's January 27 column: Four months ago a friend who had recently met with the president on other business reported to me that in conversation the president had said that he has been having some trouble sleeping, and that when he awakes in the morning the first thing he often thinks is: I wonder if this is the day Saddam will do it. "Do what exactly?" I asked my friend. He told me he understood the president to be saying that he wonders if this will be the day Saddam launches a terror attack here, on American soil. When I wrote about the column in January, I speculated that Bush might have this fear because people have been whispering "Saddam = Osama" in his ear. Well, maybe. But now I wonder if this is a case of a fervent Christian expressing his belief that there are many important forces in life for which there's little or no earthly empirical evidence. If that's what's going on, the lack of empirical evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda may mean as little to Bush as the lack of empirical evidence that Christ rose from the dead on the third day. And of course, there are no shades of gray in Bush's world. Evil = evil. posted by Steve M. | 6:31 PM |   Bush met with his war council and the White House sent Congress formal notification of justification for war. The three-paragraph document says diplomacy has failed to protect America's security, and it links Saddam's regime with the al-Qaida network, implicated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. --Washington Post Unbelievable -- the SOBs can't produce three paragraphs of copy without throwing in the Saddam/al-Qaeda fairy tale. posted by Steve M. | 3:17 PM |   Radio airplay for the Dixie Chicks declined 20% just after one of the Chicks made anti-Bush remarks, but apparently the backlash is abating, although the Chicks have been dropped from the playlists of a number of stations owned by Clear Channel, which has sponsored many flag-waving rallies across the country. And meanwhile, for the people at the gossip column of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, the Dixie Chicks are just the tip of the boycott iceberg; the Posties, of course, are acting in the proud tradition of the gossip columnists who helped drive Charlie Chaplin out of America. I'm sorry if I seem fixated on the Dixie Chicks. I'm not a fan of their music. The point is that Natalie Maines wasn't disclosing military secrets to Saddam's forces -- she doesn't like Bush, and that's not treason. There are now a good number of entertainers who support Bush and the war. I don't want those people boycotted. I'm not a fan of Charlie Daniels, who regularly uses his Web site to denounce people like me and just about everything we stand for, but if I had tickets to see Bob Dylan and I learned that Charlie Daniels would show up to play fiddle, as he did for Bob thirty years ago, I would still go, gladly. I used to find Dennis Miller funny, and I may find him funny again, even though I'm tired of his current neocon schtick. Boycotting him seems pointless. I believe in boycotting people whose message runs consistently to hate -- people who wish all gay people dead or who regularly describe this or that ethnic group as less than human. But this is different. posted by Steve M. | 1:49 PM |   "At last -- a conservative alternative to Ben & Jerry's": Star Spangled Ice Cream! Flavors include I Hate the French Vanilla, Nutty Environmentalist, and Iraqi Road. More flavors listed here. I have two words for these people: Billy Beer. Oh, and remind me again: Which Ben & Jerry's flavors have overtly political names? Because I can't think of any. (Thanks again to Dreamweasel for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 12:22 PM |   This is supposed to reassure you: In a lengthy interview with the Voice last week, a high-ranking Defense Department political official did concede that preparation for Iraq after a war is seriously lacking. "The planning should have started much sooner," the official said. "That's hard to deny." But, the official added by way of spin, that's really nothing to be concerned about, because compared to Afghanistan, Iraq is really much easier to handle, and won't require a protracted military presence, in keeping with Donald Rumsfeld's view that the military should not be a tool for "nation building." "It's not like there's a bunch of roving warlords and ethnic or religious differences on the same scale as Afghanistan," the official contended. That's from a good story by Jason Vest in this week's Village Voice about the U.S. government's inadequate postwar plans. I'm sure the lack of religious differences in Iraq will be news to the ruling Sunnis, southern Shi'ites, and non-Arab Kurds in the north. Citing an Army War College paper on reconstruction, Vest writes: While the administration has often tried to describe a post-Saddam Iraq as something akin to post-war Germany and Japan, the paper notes that an entire army staff was dedicated to planning for post-war occupation two years before the end of World War II. In the case of Iraq, similar foresight has not been exercised. Ah, but back then the U.S. government was run by adults. posted by Steve M. | 9:50 AM |   Electronic bugging devices have been found at offices used by French and German delegations at a European Union building in Brussels, officials have confirmed. Devices were also discovered at offices used by other delegations, said EU spokesman Dominique-Georges Marro.... The discovery of the telephone tapping systems was first reported on Wednesday by France's Le Figaro newspaper, which blamed the US. But Mr Marro said it was "impossible at this stage" to determine who had planted the devices.... --BBC I'm starting to suspect that you're allowed to violate the coat-and-tie dress code at the Bush White House if you show up wearing one of these T-shirts. posted by Steve M. | 9:28 AM | Tuesday, March 18, 2003   Most worrying of all is the fact that the Democrats have scheduled the South Carolina primary immediately after Iowa and New Hampshire. At least 40 percent of South Carolina's Democratic primary voters are black. All the ingredients are therefore there for an early Sharpton break-out.... --Andrew Sullivan, Sunday Times (London), 2/24/03 Latest presidential preference poll of South Carolina Democrats (Zogby poll, 3/4 - 3/6): Lieberman 12% Gephardt 10% Edwards 6% Kerry 5% Sharpton 4% Undecided 46% (Results courtesy Daily Kos.) What? Could it possibly be that blacks aren't pod people mindlessly programmed to follow the dictates of their own pigmentation? Could it possibly be that blacks are pretty much like whites, and therefore a lot of them haven't made up their minds about their favorite candidate for '04? posted by Steve M. | 11:30 PM |   These people may be pulling our leg -- but it doesn't look that way.... Give the Statue of Liberty back to the French! Located in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was a gift of international friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is one of the most universal symbols of political freedom and democracy... Now it is time to give it back! They can have their damn Statue! (Thanks -- if that's the right word -- to Phil F. for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 5:35 PM |   From President Bush's speech last night: ...some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace.... From AP today: "We now have a coalition of the willing that includes some 30 nations who publicly said they could be included in such a listing," Powell said, "and there are 15 other nations, for one reason or another, who do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition." ... The State Department released the list of 30 countries, one of which, Japan, was identified as only a post-conflict member of the coalition. Spokesman Richard Boucher said some of them "may put troops on the ground," while others would take on other roles, such as assisting in a defense against the use of chemical or biological weapons or permitting allied combat planes to fly over their territory.... No Arab country was listed by the State Department. But Boucher declined to say none supported the United States against Iraq.... Turkey was included on the list, and Powell said even as the Turkish parliament debates a U.S. proposal to use Turkish territory for an invasion of northern Iraq he was confident of Turkish cooperation in one form or another.... I guess it all depends on what the definition of "resolve and fortitude" is. (Oh, here's the dream team: "part of the coalition" -- Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy and Japan, which isisted as "post-conflict"; "others" -- South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.) posted by Steve M. | 3:08 PM |   NOT IN OUR NAME (local edition) The city [of New York] says Amadou Diallo "caused or contributed" to his own death by refusing to obey police commands, assuming "a combat position" and brandishing what appeared to be a gun. In legal papers filed in response to an $81 million negligence suit brought by Diallo's parents, the city maintains there was "a legal basis" for police to use deadly force in the 1999 Bronx shooting of the unarmed African immigrant. The wording of the document was criticized yesterday by lawyer Anthony Gair, who is representing Diallo's parents. "This is very offensive to the family," Gair said. "One would think that at this late date [the city] would finally publicly say: 'Yes, we were responsible. Yes, we had inadequately trained officers on the street.'"... --Daily News I know this is just the city staking out a contrary position in an adversarial proceeding. I know this is how civil suits work. Still, it's offensive. It opens racial wounds that have been healing. posted by Steve M. | 1:22 PM |   President Bush flashed on the giant screen between the second and third periods of the New Jersey Devils game with the Philadelphia Flyers. He had a captive audience. Most fans sat in their seats in the Continental Arena and listened. And cheered - five times. The loudest eruption came when Bush announced that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to leave Iraq. When the President was done, chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A" echoed through the building. --New York Daily News If Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, Gerhard Schröder, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Jean Chrétien, the Pope, and two-thirds of the world's population are on one side in a geopolitical crisis and a bunch of hockey fans juiced on cheap draft beer are on the other side, well, the hockey fans must be right, right? Every real American knows that. posted by Steve M. | 1:16 PM |   Here's an interesting result from this quickie Gallup poll. Although the public is rallying around Bush and approving the war ultimatum, most Americans still aren't convinced that it's actually the right thing to do: For months, President Bush has been trying to persuade the American public that a war against Saddam Hussein might be necessary to disarm Iraq and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The poll suggests that 44% of Americans have been convinced by the president's arguments, and thus support his decision. Another 21% of Americans are unsure if war is the right thing, but support Bush anyway because he is the president. Thirty percent take an opposing point of view.... Which comes closer to your view [ROTATED: you support going to war because you think it is the best thing for the U.S. to do (or) you are not sure if going to war is the best thing to do, but you support Bush's decision because he is president]? COMBINED RESULTS 2003 Mar 17 % Approve 66 (Right thing to do) (44) (Not sure if right thing, but supporting president) (21) (Unsure) (1) Disapprove 30 No opinion 4 Chances are someone who's told you that "all politicians are liars" now thinks a war must be a good idea because, well, "we have to trust the president." posted by Steve M. | 12:42 PM |   If you haven't read it or heard it, here's the full text of the speech with which Robin Cook resigned from the British government. Some excerpts: Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.... For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralized and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term—namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors? ... posted by Steve M. | 10:03 AM |   Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? is in the Top 40 at Amazon. A small ray of sunshine. posted by Steve M. | 9:48 AM |   A total of 510 randomly selected adults were interviewed Monday night after Bush's speech.... Nearly two in three -- 64 percent -- said they approve of the way Bush is handling the confrontation with Saddam Hussein, up from 55 percent in an ABC News survey conducted last week. Overall support for a war with Iraq also surged from 59 percent two weeks ago to 71 percent today. And the poll found equally broad support for beginning the war immediately after Bush's 48-hour deadline expires on Wednesday.... --Washington Post Americans like to say they think all politicians are liars, but most don't really believe that -- a president who wraps himself in manliness and the flag is always believed. (Bill Clinton never seemed to grasp that, even when he used military power. He never equated differing opinions with evil; he never suggested that agreeing with him put you on the side of good, on the side of God. I voted for Al Gore and I'd do it again, but I'm not sure he would have been able to grasp that, either.) posted by Steve M. | 9:28 AM | Monday, March 17, 2003   Did we really all rush home to hear it? Were we that naive? Did we not realize that all we would hear was “he has attacked his neighbors” and “twelve years of defiance” and “the world’s most dangerous weapons” all over again? Actually, it was “the most lethal weapons ever devised” this time; “world’s most dangerous weapons” was from the State of the Union address. I had a pointless stray thought about that line: do you think Bush’s speechwriters are deliberately trying to remind us of The World Scariest Police Chases and other staples of late-1990s reality TV, or do you think this White House hires writers whose minds have been colonized by the Fox network? Oh, well, war this week. It’s been inevitable from the day the Bushies raised the possibility. Now, at least, we more or less know when it's going to start. posted by Steve M. | 11:13 PM |   G. Beato gets snarky about Dixie Chicks denouncers here. America is a hands-on place: we're not content to let our troops do all the work. We want to get involved, make sacrifices, achieve tangible results. Hating France is not merely an intellectual exercise; we're also renaming our food. Forsaking the Dixie Chicks means we have to spend that much more time listening to Shania Twain. posted by Steve M. | 5:49 PM |   Drudge is linking this story: Automotive supply chain Pep Boys fired a Tucson store manager because his military Reserve duties took him away from work, according to a federal lawsuit filed here. It may not be an isolated case. Several other reservists fired from Pep Boys in Tucson and Pennsylvania have contacted a military advocacy group with similar complaints.... In the Tucson case, Erik Balodis, then a store manager at the 7227 E. 22nd St. Pep Boys, was fired after being called to a U.S. Naval Reserve exercise in June 2002. Balodis, a father of two young children, was unable to find work for five months.... Under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act and Arizona state law, an employer may not terminate an employee who is called to active duty.... You know what folks? The Dixie Chicks don't hate America. Barbra Streisand doesn't hate America. Pep Boys, if what's being alleged here is true, hates America. There's a detail in the story that I find shocking. I really want to believe this is a typo: The suit cites a letter sent to the Naval Reserve by Pep Boys, dated Sept. 11, 2001, requesting Balodis "be exempted from any impending call to active duty as a result of the tragic and senseless acts of terrorism. ... While I recognize Mr. Balodis' commitment to protect and serve the nation, I must also make you aware that he holds a critical position in the Corporate Structure of Pep Boys." Is this accurate? Did Pep Boys actually have the gall to send a letter on September 11, 2001, demanding exemption from the requirement to protect the job of a reservist? If Ben & Jerry's had done something like that, you'd never hear the end of it. I'm opposed to the war, but I am not opposed to the people who might have to fight it. This is wrong. (A footnote: The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act became law in October 1994. Yes, this happened when we had a Democratic president, House, and Senate.) posted by Steve M. | 5:24 PM |   Brawl erupts after song played at rodeo Talk of war with Iraq has sparked an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. And it may be to blame for a brawl that broke out at the rodeo Thursday night. With some 15,000 to 20,000 folks at the rodeo drinking beer and having fun, things can get a little out of hand at times. It happened when a tape of Lee Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American was playing. Some rodeo fans were standing and others were sitting down. Felix Fanaselle and his buddies chose to remain seated. "This guy behind us starts yelling at us (because) we're not standing up," said Fanaselle. "He starts cussing at us, telling us to go back to Iraq." The 16-year-old said the man seated behind him started spitting at him and spilling his beer on him and his friends. "By the end of the song, he pulled my ear. I got up. He pushed me. I pushed him," said Felix. "He punched me in my face. I got him off me." ... Fasanelle has a lawyer now, though. I like this: Fanaselle's lawyer says you don't have to stand for a country and western song. "I guess next time, he'll think maybe we need to stand for the Okie From Muscogee," said attorney Clayton Rawlings. (Link from Ted Barlow, who saw the rodeo and actually had an OK time.) posted by Steve M. | 5:08 PM |   "Apology from Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks." No, it's not real. But it's brilliant. (It's from The Specious Report. Thanks to Dreamweasel for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 5:02 PM |   Hey ... remember these guys -- the Afghanis? During his recent [fund-raising] trip to Tokyo, [Hamid] Karzai was promised $51 million [by world leaders] for the ["New Beginnings"] program, which aims to provide commanders with micro-credits to transition to new livelihoods in exchange for their weapons.         But Afghan officials say that the funds pledged in Tokyo are three times short of what it would take to make such a plan a reality. Aside from demobilization, the formation of the Afghan National Army is also proving to be a challenge. Only 3,000 of the promised 70,000 soldiers have so far been trained by the U.S. and coalition forces. Defense Minister Marshall Fahim told NBC that many soldiers have not been paid for months as the Afghan government doesn’t have the budget for it and the donations have not provided for it. At the same time, there are reportedly fresh flows of money to fund operations of al-Qaida and Taliban groups as well as the forces of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar....         Karzai told reporters last week it will take between $15 and $20 billion over five years rather than the $4.5 billion pledged by international donors more than a year ago in Tokyo.... But with the costs of an Iraqi war and post-war recovery program expected to cost billions of dollars — mostly out of the U.S. Treasury — it will be doubly hard for Karzai to persuade the United States and the rest of the international community to cough up another $15 billion for to help Afghanistan get back on its feet. --NBC News But, of course, this is in no way a harbinger of what's to come in Iraq, right? posted by Steve M. | 12:41 PM |   It should have been obvious that something like this would happen eventually: Anger against France leads to vandalism towards local woman For Francoise Thomas, the anger against France for its continuing opposition to military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hadn't hit home until she read about it on one of her doors. When Thomas took out the garbage Saturday morning, she saw red letters spray-painted on the garage door of her townhouse. "Scum go back to France," it read.... I hope this is the worst we see. And I'm happy to see that her neighbors are on her side. (Thanks to Atrios for the link.) posted by Steve M. | 12:05 PM |   Rush Limbaugh says, in words and a picture, that the Dixie Chicks are now "Saddam's Angels." Blacklist? What blacklist? posted by Steve M. | 10:46 AM |   Bush Has Audacious Plan to Rebuild Iraq Within Year The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children. --Dow Jones Business News, via Yahoo News It's almost as if he's doing this just to piss us off, isn't it? It's as if he looked at the list of what his critics want -- long-term thinking, significant UN involvement, significant NGO involvement, avoidance of the appearance that the war is being fought to create business opportunities for his pals -- and said, "Whatever it is they want, I'm against it." posted by Steve M. | 10:00 AM |   Earlier this morning I heard an antiwar protester on the radio say that he’s afraid “nobody’s listening.” I assume he meant that no one with the power to stop this war is listening, which is true. But when the war starts this week, that qualification will no longer apply: no one -- certainly no one in America -- will be paying attention to what we’re saying. We'll have nothing but pro-war, rally-round-the-flag news coverage, and most Americans -- even most people who now have anxieties about war -- will find that appropriate. The very things we’ve said could happen if there’s a war rather than continued containment and deterrence -- a chem or bio attack on U.S. troops that may also catch Iraqi civilians in its net, a widening of the war to Israel, destruction of oil fields -- will be described not as reasons war was a bad idea but as proof that Saddam was evil and war was necessary. Increased al-Qaeda terrorism or an escalation of saber-rattling by a back-burnered North Korea will be seen as a sign that the world is a dangerous place and it’s a good thing we’re getting rid of one evildoer, at least, before he can threaten Main Street. In the course of the war, no one will notice any chem or bio weapons that slip out of Iraq to augment arsenals elsewhere in the world. And the American press will consider any discussion of civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombing of Iraq, or destruction of infrastructure there, unpatriotic and a turnoff to American audiences. After the war, of course, the American press will turn its attention elsewhere very quickly; if conditions in Iraq deteriorate in a year or two, most Americans simply won’t notice. Any destabilization elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world will be regarded as confirmation of the Bush administration’s worldview, not of ours. What I’m saying is that, in this debate we’ve been having, there aren’t just two possible outcomes -- the facts vindicate us or the facts vindicate the pro-war side. There’s a third possibility, one that seems much more likely to me: that perceptions will seem to vindicate the pro-war side, at least in the eyes of the vast majority of Americans, while reality, more or less unnoticed, tends to vindicate us. posted by Steve M. | 9:32 AM | Sunday, March 16, 2003   Haven't your ambassadors informed you? Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. --aging racist Oriana Fallaci, from The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, 3/13/03 In San Diego, skateboarders and homeless people said the three walked miles and miles each day, the women always silently behind the man and covered in robes and veils. Once, when Mr. Mitchell [alleged kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart] got in an argument with four people on bicycles, he was heard hollering, "Jesus Christ is Lord!" "We asked him if he was Muslim, and he'd say, `No, I'm not Muslim, I'm God, above Muslims,' " said Mike Cortez, a skateboarder. --New York Times, 3/16/03 Hate to break this to you, Oriana, but there are dangerous, misogynistic religious fanatics who don't have olive skin and don't read the Koran, and some of them even put women in veils. posted by Steve M. | 11:50 PM |   The article on rape at the Air Force Academy in Sunday's New York Times was fine, infuriating work -- read it and you'll realize that true justice in this situation, as in the Catholic Church's pedophile scandal, would demand nothing less that the building of a supermax prison in the lowest circle of hell for an awful lot of perpetrators and enablers, far more than will ever really be punished. I have one criticism of the Times article, however: Why the reluctance to explain "LCWB," the designation for the all-male Academy class of 1979 that brings such cheer to Academy misogynists? As explained here, "LCWB" stands for "last class with balls." Why couldn't the Times say that? The Times published the Starr Report, didn't it? posted by Steve M. | 11:29 PM |   Ken Pollack, also of the Brookings Institution, thinks such a “rolling start” would be perilous. Better, he thinks, to amass an imposing force, which will increase the chances that Iraq capitulates without a fight, and allow General Franks to respond to any contingencies or counter-attacks. --Economist, January 30, 2003 The American-led coalition that is preparing to topple Saddam Hussein's government is planning for a complex invasion of Iraq to begin even as allied troops are still arriving in the region, senior commanders say.... But there are military experts — including experienced commanders — who are worried by this plan, which has come to be called a "rolling start" to the impending war. --New York Times, March 16, 2003 One more way in which the war isn't going the way the best-known liberal hawk hoped it would. posted by Steve M. | 11:14 PM |   Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials. There it is, war fans. You happy now? Among the countries where the recruiting is going really well? Britain, Spain, and Italy. posted by Steve M. | 11:03 PM |

archives October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 links MAIN PAGE E-MAIL NO MORE MISTER NICE BLOG ATOM FEED * Spencer Ackerman (Attackerman) * (the other) Roger Ailes * Alas, a Blog * Alicublog (Roy Edroso) * Alterdestiny * Eric Alterman's Altercation * AlterNet PEEK * AMERICAblog * The American Street * Americans United for Separation of Church and State * Annie's Annals * Applesauce * Atrios (Eschaton) * Attytood (Will Bunch's Philadelphia Daily News blog) * Bad Attitudes * BAGnewsNotes * Balloon Juice * Bark Bark Woof Woof * bastard.logic * Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) * Michael Berube * Bill's Big Diamond Blog * Birmingham Blues * bjkeefe * Blue Gal * Blue Wren * Break the Terror * Bulworth * BuzzFlash * A Cautious Man * Ta-Nehisi Coates * Juan Cole (Informed Comment) * Comments from Left Field * Cormulley.com * Betty Cracker * Crooked Timber * Crooks and Liars * Cup O' Joe * Daai Tou Laam Diary * The Daily Howler * Daily Kos * Scoobie Davis * D-Day * Dear Leader Blog * Dependable Renegade * distributorcap NY * Doghouse Riley (Bats Left Throws Right) * Donkey Mountain * Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) * Eccentricity * David Ehrenstein's Fablog * Emptywheel * Fafblog * Feministe * Feministing * Firedoglake * First Draft * FiveThirtyEight * Freedom Camp * The Garlic * ginandtacos.com * Glenn Greenwald * The Heretik * The Huffington Post * Hullabaloo * If I Ran the Zoo * The Impolitic * Instaputz * Interesting Times * Isebrand * Jack & Jill Politics * Jesus' General * Lady Insignificant (D. Sidhe) * Lawyers, Guns and Money * Leftblogistan * Left I on the News * L'ennui melodieux * Liberal Oasis * Liberal Values (Ron Chusid) * Liberty Street * A Lie a Day * The Mahablog * Making Light * Lance Mannion * Media Matters * Memeorandum * Mojo (Mother Jones blog) * MyDD * MyRightWingDad.net * Needlenose * Newshoggers * News Hounds * The New York Crank * Norwegianity (now at Wordpress) * The November Blog * The Phil Nugent Experience * Nur al-Cubicle * Online Blogintegrity * Operation Yellow Elephant * Opinions You Should Have * Orcinus * Pam's House Blend * Pandagon * Paperwight's Fair Shot * Pere Ubu's Debraining Machine * PERRspectives * pesky'apostrophe * The Plum Line (Greg Sargent) * Polling Report * The Poor Man * The Raw Story * The Reaction * The Republic of T. * Right Wing Watch (People for the American Way blog) * Rising Hegemon * The Rude Pundit * Rumproast * Runnin' Scared (Roy Edroso at Village Voice) * The Ruth Group * Sadly, No! * salto mortale * Seeing the Forest * Shakesville * ShortsandPants * The Sideshow * Situation Vacant * Skimble * skippy the bush kangaroo * Slacktivist * Something to Consider * Stoutdem * Suburban Guerrilla * Talking Points Memo * TalkLeft * TAPPED (American Prospect) * TBogg * Think Progress * This Modern World * Tome of the Unknown Writer * uggabugga * The United States of Jamerica * Vagabond Scholar * Very Early 3rd Millennium * Wampum * War and Piece (Laura Rozen) * The Washington Independent * Welcome Back to Pottersville * Whiskey Fire * Why Now? * Oliver Willis * James Wolcott * Wonkette * World O'Crap * Matthew Yglesias * You Forgot Poland! * The Zen Cabin "The Manipulator" (New Yorker article on Chalabi) "How Chalabi Played the Press" (Columbia Journalism Review article) "Defectors' Reports on Iraq Arms Were Embellished, Exile Asserts" (New York Times article on Chalabi and Iraqi National Congress) Ann Coulter's original New York Observer interview ("My only regret with Timothy McVeigh...") (also here) "Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President" (from Scotland's Sunday Herald) "Yankee Go Home: Who's leading the anti-war movement? Congressional Republicans" (1999 Slate compilation of GOP antiwar quotes) "The Press vs. Al Gore: How lazy reporting, pack journalism and GOP spin cost him the election" by Eric Boehlert (from Rolling Stone) America's Taliban (Coulter, Falwell, etc.) in their own words Language: A Key Mechanism of Control (Gingrich's guidelines, still in use today) John Scalzi's "I Hate Your Politics" Column IS IT ANN COULTER -- OR IS IT DAVID DUKE? IS IT CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS -- OR IS IT DWIGHT SCHRUTE? SORELY MISSED: * Americans Are Dumb * Anti-Coulter * Billmon (Whiskey Bar) * The Blog Report at Salon * Busy, Busy, Busy * Cursor * Greg T. * Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness * The Jed Report * Little Green Fascists * Main and Cenral * Martini Republic * MaxSpeak * mfinley * Mykeru * Nathan Newman * The News Blog (R.I.P. Steve Gilliard) * Nitpicker * The Rational Enquirer * Rittenhouse Review (R.I.P. Jim Capozzola) * Tristram Shandy (now at Instaputz?) * Slannder (anti-Ann Coulter) * SullyWatch * Jon Swift * Too Sense (but Adam "dnA" Serwer is now at TAPPED) * wastedirony.com * Cintra Wilson