BILL KRISTOL: This man isn't just a pundit. This guy is the former president of the United States saying the war is going to be over in a flash. Totally irresponsible. And then he says, "You can always wait to kill somebody next week. You can't bring them back next week." So that's what the war's about? We are just going to kill people? You know, there are U.S. soldiers sitting there. It's a serious question in terms of when is militarily the best time to go. And Clinton has this cavalier attitude that, well, it's going to be over in a flash. We can kill people whenever we want, so let's just delay. I mean, it's one thing, as I say, for a candidate to say. It's one thing for a commentator to say. But for the most recent president of the United States to be so flip and glib when 200,000 American troops are sitting on the verge of war on a war front is really appalling.
JUAN WILLIAMS: There have been moments when Bill Kristol and I have disagreed about things. I don't know if you remember any of them. But on this one, I've just got to say absolutely right on. I mean, how do we know it's going to be a quick war? I fear also it's a, you know, possibilities that would be so sad. And we don't know...[W]e don't know. And you can't put that out there in the way that Bill Clinton did as if it's a fait acompli.
Well, you can -- if you're Bill Clinton, because you can be fairly certain that no one in the media who believes you're the greatest thing since sliced bread will ever call you on it.
I'm sick of saying this, but I voted for Clinton, and he is just not the amazing politician people think he is. And you don't have to be a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy to see that: you just have to be willing to look at reality.
I then went on a long diatribe about how we're a Christian family and that we do not allow this kind of behavior in our home. It disgusts us and it makes us sick.
I let Susie talk for a minute or two while I scrambled to remember every phrase that parents are supposed to say to make their teenagers feel like shit.
Susie took it to a whole new level. She said this is how serial killers and rapists get started...looking up porn on the web. And she didn't want him going to prison. She called him a "Jeffrey Dahmer waiting to happen".
Hon. I don't think the guy's going to lure young Laotian boys to his apartment, sex 'em up, kill 'em and eat em.
I then took the conversation back over before she started saying she didn't want him to grow up to be an African cannibal with a poor driving record.
Hee.
08:30 p.m.
Frank Sensenbrenner, who posts over at Iain Murray's site on British and American politics and current events, emailed me with some interesting comments on stuff I've posted here lately:
As for the Russians wanting the contracts
in Iraq to be resumed under a new regime, I think
that's fine. As long as they repay outstanding Russian
government bonds from before the Bolshevik Revolution
with compounded interest. 5 billion pounds will look
like a drop in the sea by comparison. Same principle,
no?
Heh. Good point, and I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Don't get me started on the Lib Dems. They're the
worst of both worlds, combining the intolerance of
right-wing religious fundamentalists with the
sanctimony of socialists. At least I can get into a
fun debate with my Labour party friends, but strangely
enough, neither they nor I have any Lib Dem friends.
They're also known for bad typos on their leaflets,
especially in reference to public services, but that
squares with their view on porn, which seems to be the
only libertarian bone in their body. Maybe they just
want to regulate it so they can tax it.
I wouldn't put it past them. As for neither Frank nor his Labour party friends having any Lib Dem friends, perhaps they should introduce proportional representation into their social circle.
08:04 p.m.
Whoa. I was just watching the ITV Evening News*, and one of the reporters was going around Umm Qasr, talking to the people who live there. In a crowd of smiling men, women and children, he spoke to a man and asked him if he had a problem with British troops being there. The man said, "No, no problem. Is very good." The reporter asked him, "Are you afraid Saddam Hussein will win?" He said "No," looking nervously around him with a look of what I can only describe as absolute terror on his face.
These people truly know what it is to live in fear of their leader. I'm so sorry we abandoned them in 1991, and the trustfulness that some of them are now showing the coalition forces is far beyond what we deserve after that cock-up.
*The news anchor was standing at the port of Umm Qasr, with the British supply ship Sir Galahad -- containing 100 tons of water 150 tons of food -- which has now docked there.
“When Coldplay did this gig they banged on about the war, that’s wrong. Chris Martin shouldn’t be using this cause to bang on about his own fuckin’ views on the war.
“If him and his gawky bird [Gwyneth Paltrow] want to go banging on about the war they can do it at their own gigs. That lot are just a bunch of nobhead students — Chris Martin looks like a fuckin’ geography teacher. What’s all that fuckin’ shit with writing messages about Free Trade on his hand when he’s playing. If he wants to write things down I’ll give him a fuckin’ pen and a pad of paper. Bunch of students.
“These gigs are about kids who have got cancer, they’ve got to fight a war every day of their lives. That’s what we’re all here doing this for.”
Except Chris Martin, who's there to shout about the war. (And yes, I'd condemn anyone who used a cancer charity event to voice pro-war sentiments, too.)
During Everything’s Not Lost he urged the crowd: “Don’t be afraid to sing along, sing to end this war.” He also changed the lyrics of A Rush Of Blood To The Head to “I’m going to buy a gun and start a meaningless war.”
With this, and his Brit Awards comment that "When George Bush has his way, we'll all be dead" (uh, Chris? We'll all be dead someday whether George Bush has "his way" or not.), Chris Martin has revealed himself to be just another clueless pop star.
Chris also wound Liam up by playing a section of Songbird, which Liam wrote for fiancée NICOLE APPLETON. Chris said: “It’s the best song ever written.”
But Liam fumed: “That pissed me right off. He’s got my song involved in the war.”
What an ass. I won't be able to listen to my Coldplay records for a while.
06:03 p.m.
Two points -- the first is made by French intellectual Pascal Bruckner:
I am not "pro-war" but "anti-Saddam Hussein". If we had been able to overthrow the latter by peaceful means I would have been overjoyed. But all the pacifists wanted to do was to attack Bush, whom they called “that scabby, mangy [dog]” in order to avoid ever incriminating Saddam Hussein. We have just gone through several weeks of almost Soviet anti-interventionist unanimity, in which the internal French debate over Iraq has consisted in maintaining, throughout the media, that war is the supreme evil. All the French moral and intellectual authorities thought they were obliged to speak up and assure the prince [i.e. Chirac] that he was right to oppose Washington's war machine. In this affair, it’s the "nice" left […] which has set the tone. But to end up where? To propose, as the only solution for Iraqi misery, the reintroduction of the status quo.
Pacifism is an old French passion. It can be picturesque and derisory. What can you say, on the other hand, when "anti-war" protesters chant, without causing a scandal, the slogan "Bush, Sharon, murderers!" but forbid themselves mentioning the name of Saddam Hussein even occasionally. All these young people have begun to speak "Le Pen's text" without knowing it, it's this which has prompted me to put the stakes of the Iraqi conflict in terms which are the opposite of the consensus within France.
For those of you who don't know who Jean-Marie Le Pen is -- and I had the scary experience of seeing his campaign signs stuck up all over the Dordogne region of France this summer -- he's the openly hateful, far-right (think David Duke) founder of the National Front in France who was first runner-up in France's presidential elections last year. (Jacques Chirac is a right-winger as well, but not as much of an extremist as Le Pen.) And what Bruckner says is right on the money.
The second quote is from Cinderella Bloggerfeller, who translated the above text from the original French:
European pacifists suffer a high degree of intellectual turmoil because they realize (even if they don’t openly acknowledge), their freedom to hold their viewpoint has been guaranteed by “Anglo-American” military action and US military spending. This turmoil comes out in the form of resentment against the USA and a squeamishness about using power, even when refusing to act does not guarantee that the world will be a better place.
And I wouldn't just limit that comment to European pacifists: American pacifists must also realise that their freedoms are guaranteed by the government they question (quite rightly -- I, for one, will never stop doing so) and detest (as some of them do) so much. Perhaps this is the root of the trendy American self-hatred that seems to have usurped white guilt as the required accessory for any American who wishes to be thought of as "evolved". I'm not sure, but the connection doesn't strike me as insignificant.
04:12 a.m.
For the record -- and not due to any hate mail or anything (though if you want to send me hate mail, please do), but just because it's something I think about a lot, even though I haven't addressed it here:
Some of my best friends are against this war. I know them, and they're not idiots, but I still think they're wrong. They think I'm wrong. They still think a lot of pro-war people are "blood-thirsty," "stupid" and "Bush lovers". I still think a lot of anti-war people are uninformed and living in a dream world where twelve years of failed diplomacy with a man who freely admits he sponsors, trains and supports terrorists constitutes a "rush to war" with someone who is "not a threat."
When people form opinions based on exhaustive research and careful consideration, then find out that their views don't match up with a friend's, it's bound to be at least a small disappointment. I only have one friend with whom the subject of this war is verboten, and that's because he/she hasn't done any homework on this, and when he/she says something that is patently untrue (not on purpose: he/she just has no idea that it is) and I say, "Well, actually..." and explain why what they've said is inaccurate (and we're talking things like whether or not the UNSC unanimously passed 1441 -- things that aren't even up for debate), he/she gets pissy and says, "Go suck George W Bush's dick."
That's not debate: that's a temper tantrum. Especially considering I'm no fan of the guy myself.
What I'm getting round to, eventually, is posting a quote that I think people should keep in mind throughout this whole thing, which isn't going away anytime soon:
People who agree on everything else, disagree on this and likewise, those who never agree on anything, are finding common cause.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, 18/03/03
And that's all I'm going to say about that.
03:49 a.m.
Look people, despite all of your sincerest beliefs that "peace through traffic congestion" is going to make a difference, it's time to accept the fact that you are now in the minority. Somewhere around three quarters of Americans support this war. The generals are not going to pull their troops because they've gotten word that you've staged a "die-in" in Manhattan; they're too busy worrying about keeping their own men and women alive, and maybe a little pre-occupied with thoughts for those who have died for real. Continue writing your essays plooped with harsh words about "imperialism" and "hegemony", maybe even a "naked aggression" or two, but at this point, give up with the public nuisance business. The only thing you are united in is defeat.
By all means, anti-war people, keep on registering your dissent. That's very cool. Seriously. But the public nuisance stuff is just stupid and makes people less sympathetic to your "cause".
And something else: if you're against this war and haven't written to your elected representatives but have instead opted to march in the streets carrying signs with slogans as intelligent as "I love french fries," what is your logic? And why am I not surprised that you cannot make a cogent argument against this war? I read a comment today from an anti-war person saying that, while they've been out marching and taking photos of the marchers for their website entries about how cool marching against this war is, they haven't actually bothered to tell their elected representatives of their dissent. That boggles my mind, but I suppose it shouldn't.
I suspect that a lot of people out there marching just want to belong to a (somewhat, but decreasingly) popular cause that lets them get angry, rail against The Man, delude themselves into thinking they're trying to save Iraqi babies from the Great Satan and yet not have to do any of that tedious correspondence with the people upon whom they claim they desperately want to impress their dissent. (These are the same sorts who tend to opt for new age "spirituality" that lets them babble on about chakras and vibes, but doesn't require any actual personal sacrifice or discipline.) As Steven Den Beste puts it:
No one really knows for sure why [initiation] makes people more loyal to the group, though there's speculation. One idea is that it leads to a period of rationalization: Yes, I did just go through something awful and demeaning but it was worth it because membership in the group is even more important. Therefore the person will assign offsetting value to the group proportional to the degree of unpleasantness they went through to join it or advance within it. Whether that's why it works, it's beyond dispute that it actually does. And this same kind of thing also tends to show up in cults.
And it's also the case that lesser parts of the group culture can enhance this on an ongoing basis. Even something as trivial as having all members wear some sort of silly hat during all group meetings will work to this end. Yes, this fez makes me look like a moron, but it's worth it because it helps me be accepted in this group that I think is particularly important. Thus group meetings as such come to be valued in direct proportion to the silliness of the display.
“Am I embarrassed to speak for less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don’t. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things? Yes, we have. How did our people learn about them? They learned about them on television. In the newspapers.”
Please remove your ass from the top of your head - it's obscuring your view of reality. Frankly, you have what we in the medical field call an "asshelmet." This condition causes the sufferer to say patently untrue and ridiculous things in an uncontrollable manner. Famous asshelmet sufferers include Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin.
After you've performed this ass-removal procedure, please lay off the bong or the crack pipe, whatever it is you're hitting, and review the factual data of the war. To say that the U.S. does not have the military capability to take over Baghdad is like saying Barbra Streisand is one smart lady or that Tom Daschle possesses testosterone. It's just not true, man!
After you've removed your asshelmet and reviewed the facts, please stop being such an everlasting anti-American jerk. I'd even go so far as to suggest that you're a traitorous lying pig. Yep, a pig. Didn't you receive some money from the Iraqi government some time back? Pig.
If these measures are unsuccessful, and you can't help but continue to be a lying, manipulative, traitorous, pig-like pig, please come to my house and let me kick you in the ass that sits on top of your head. If that is impossible at this time, well, I can't help you.
I don't always agree with her, but Rachel Lucas is hilarious. I love her.
02:02 a.m.
Near Basra, Iraq: British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra.
At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war.
It was believed that last night (Thursday) British forces were preparing a military strike on the base where the al-Qaeda unit was understood to be holed up.
A senior British military source inside Iraq said: "The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us."
This is getting very interesting indeed.
01:55 a.m.
We shouldn't be going to war when some countries disapprove. How hard can it be to get everyone in the world to agree on something?
Bush is doing irreparable damage to the U.N. by insisting it uphold its own resolutions.
Los Angles, CA -- Leaders of the anti-war movement announced Tuesday that as the war progressed in Iraq, the movement was headed into a "dangerous quagmire". Angela Hassle-Moore, leader of a recent protest march stated, "We have lost our focus. What are we really trying to accomplish here? Are we fighting for the U.S. to stop the war after it has already started? Are we trying to get another recount of the 2000 election? Are we just bitching and moaning?" Angela added, "If we don't know what our goals are, how will we know if we've won? How many more of our best and brightest youth must throw away their free afternoons and weekends on this hopeless cause?"
Heh!
01:50 a.m.
27 March, 2003
Why is the "Arab street" is so quiet? One of the main reasons why war would be a bad move, cited by those opposed to military action, was that as soon as the US stepped foot in Iraq, Arabs around the world would rise up furiously in untold numbers to protest.
That hasn't happened.
In fact, many anti-war protests in Muslim countries have been fizzling out, as Reuters put it, due to lack of interest. To quote this paper, which predicted as much:
First, in the 23 years since the fall of the shah of Iran, Mideast governments have gotten very good about protecting their domestic security. While they may dawdle on economic reform and jaw-jaw on political opening, they have invested huge sums into protecting themselves and their "homeland." Arab leaders know riots against U.S. targets would open the door for attacks on them, too.
Second, Arabs are more sophisticated than many in Washington give them credit for. They know that Baghdad 2002, with a hated dictator posing a real threat of lobbing chemicals and germs on Israeli civilians, is a far cry from Beirut 1982, when Israel was viewed as invading to control an Arab capital. They also know the difference between unprovoked attack and legitimate retaliation.
So let the debate among Americans and Israelis rage on, as it should, over how these allies can advance their common interests in the event Israel suffers an Iraqi attack. But let the debate be informed by realism and experience, not warped by unfounded fear.
I do find it ironic that the "western street," as it were, has risen up in far greater numbers against this war, claming -- in part -- that it shouldn't be fought because of the way the "Arab street" would rise up. And it's still the "western street" doing the bulk of the protesting.
This seems to have escaped the notice of most anti-war types. I'm not surprised.
The first supply convoy to arrive in Iraq was mobbed by hungry women and children yesterday amid scenes of chaos. Seven trailers containing water, tuna, ready meals, biscuits and sweets trundled into the border town of Safwan. Boxes split open and spilled their contents on the dust floor as the eager horde descended upon them. Aid workers battled to keep control but were overwhelmed when men climbed on the trucks and began throwing aid packages to family and friends.
A massive 16.5million [Iraqis] relied entirely on United Nations handouts to stay alive even before war began.
But ungrateful Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh said: “Iraq does not need any humanitarian assistance. We are a rich country.”
Yeah, whose leaders feast while much of the population starves. Time is about to be called on that, though.
The link above shows exactly why securing the port at Umm Qasr by Royal Marine Commandos was so important. And reading the lists of what the rations contain (tins of beans, rice, shortbread, peanut butter, jam, etc) is very humbling.
Phil Smucker, who writes for the Christian Science Monitor, told his paper yesterday that military police were going through his belongings and were concerned that he had disclosed too much information in an interview, according to Monitor Foreign Editor David Scott.
Is this an example of the US military trying to quash freedom of the press? Far from it. Check out what shit-for-brains said in a live broadcast:
In the interview, Smucker told CNN's Carol Costello: "We're about 100 miles south on the main highway. It's an unfinished highway. It goes between the Tigris and Euphrates River in the direction of Baghdad."
Smucker continued to provide more geographic details about the Army and Marine forces, prompting Costello to interrupt him:
"Well, don't be too specific," she said. "We don't want exact specifics."
"Okay," said Smucker, who gave a similar description yesterday to National Public Radio.
Give me strength.
Scott said Smucker told him about 6:30 a.m. that he "got a general mad" with an interview he gave to CNN 90 minutes earlier and that the reporter said he was told that "I gave out information I shouldn't have given out."
"I thought all that stuff he was doing -- philanthropy and the children thing and all this stuff -- was awesome, and maybe we could save the world together." She pauses. "OK. Hello. I was delusionary. I got some romantic idea in my head that I could save him and we could save the world."
On Darth Vader:
"I was obsessed with him...That whole black dark thing I liked: the cape, the voice, the breathing, the whole thing."
The voice? The breathing? You imagined the two of you running away together?
"God, I wish. I just wished he was real."
On Michael Jackson again:
"He was quoting me, 'Lisa Marie told me Elvis had a nose job,' which is absolute bullshit," she says. "I think it justified something in his mind -- they were asking him about his plastic surgery. I read that, and I threw it across the kitchen. 'I told you what?'"
She talks about other stuff; as celebrity profiles go, it's pretty open. I really like her new single, Lights Out, which is a great pop record, and hope she does well -- as long as her success doesn't lead to the further proliferation of Scientology.
11:18 a.m.
Saddam apologists reap reward of dead British soldiers:
REPULSIVE
Sickening TV pictures of two missing British soldiers lying dead in the Iraqi dust leave UK troops in tears. Two other men shown captive in a room of jeering and chanting Iraqis...
That's a headline in today's Mirror. Yes, the same newspaper that excused Iraq's treatment of American POWs just two days ago, saying that America had it coming. Now that it's happening to Brits, it's not so easy to apologise for it, apparently.
Disgusting.
Edited to add: Peter Cuthbertson, as quoted in my post from two days ago, totally called this one:
If the world had united in condemnation of this latest despicable act, there would have been the very slim chance that Saddam would concede to Geneva for the sake of global opinion. Instead, newspapers like the Mirror justify it as Iraq only following America's lead. Now if Britons fall into Iraqi hands, they can be assured of the same brutal treatment.
President Bush called this one, too:
In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.
President Bush also warned us about the following:
Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military -- a final atrocity against his people.
And we've seen that only too vividly over the last several days. My only comfort there is the use of the word "final."
The BBC's coverage of the war has come under fire from one of its own correspondents in the Gulf who has fired off a furious memo claiming the corporation is misleading viewers about the conflict in Iraq.
Paul Adams, the BBC's defence correspondent who is based at the coalition command centre in Qatar, complained that the corporation was conveying a untruthful picture of how the war was progressing.
Adams accused the BBC's coverage of exaggerating the military impact of casualties suffered by UK forces and downplaying their achievements on the battlefield during the first few days of the conflict.
"I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering 'significant casualties'. This is simply not true," Adams said in the memo.
"Nor is it true to say - as the same intro stated - that coalition forces are fighting 'guerrillas'. It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas," he stormed.
"Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving 'small victories at a very high price?' The truth is exactly the opposite. The gains are huge and costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected," Adams continued.
The BBC has come under attack for describing the loss of two soldiers as the "worst possible news for the armed forces".
[...]
Earlier this week the BBC was forced to promise that it would no longer show footage of seriously injured British troops, after the mother of a Royal Marine watched her son set on fire during a gun battle on a BBC early evening bulletin.
At least one person at the BBC can see sense. I hope his influence, and the embarrassment of public condemnation of their decidedly anti-war stance, leads to a more objective, responsible style of reporting.
11:14 p.m.
Prime Minister's questions, the Q&A session the PM has in the House of Commons every Wednesday, was notable for a couple of reasons this week:
12.14pm
Charles Kennedy rises - not booed this week, for once.
Ah, that's a shame. Then again, after wondering earlier in the week just what the Lib Dems have been up to lately -- apart from exploiting the war and voicing concerns in my local council* about the cost of keeping the electorate informed of council activities -- I downloaded the Lib Dems' consultation paper on censorship. Specifically, the consultation paper deals with porn. It's not a bad paper, especially as it calls for the repeal of Britain's blasphemy laws (laws which respect religion, and laws which limit freedom of speech against scurrilous insults against Christianity: these blasphemy laws are yet another reason why I cannot stand to hear someone from the UK dare tell me that "Americans don't have civil liberties like we do in the UK". Get to know your own laws as well as I know them and then we'll talk.). But the best thing about the whole document has to be the footnotes. A selection:
As John Stuart Mill observed in On Liberty (1859), chapter 1, "over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
Well, that's the way it should be, anyway. Another Mill gem from the paper:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
And a comedic one:
In 1953, the Lord Chamberlain (then responsible for theatre censorship) refused to license a play if it included the noise of a flushing lavatory because he "object[ed] in principle to the pulling of lavatory plugs and all that stands for."
So kudos on the quotemasterish and comedic qualities of this paper, Mr Kennedy, but what is it you actually do?
Anyway, that other notable part of PMQ today:
12.15pm
The SNP's MP for Angus raised cheers for suggesting the media was to blame for some next of kin being distressed to hear of casualities from the TV before they were informed by the Ministry of Defence.
Well, Members of Parliament never turn away the chance to pile on the media. This time it was very richly deserved.
*In discussing the Lib Dems, Tories and Labour with a friend this morning, he commented: "Local council politics are enough to make you hate all the parties equally." That pretty much sums up my experience.
04:40 p.m.
I hate to say this, but I do know anti-war people who are hoping for the worst. One of them is (was, actually) a friend. But I can't be friends with someone who thinks America (whether on September 11, 2001 or in the last week, with actual POWs being mistreated by the Iraqis) had it coming, just as I can't be friends with someone who hopes for the worst in this war. Such sentiments disgust me, and disgust is not a component of any friendship worth maintaining.
Evil times force us to confront evil choices. Many of us find ourselves hoping that really bad things will happen, and it's uncomfortable to realize this. We find ourselves hoping that something bad will happen because we think it's the only way to prevent something even worse from happening later. If honest, that calculation is a correct one and a moral one, but it's still hard to find yourself advocating death and suffering.
For instance, I know full well what an awful thing war is, and just how much it can really cost. Yet I have been advocating war in Iraq, and continue to think it's the right thing for this nation to do. It's not that I love war; it's that I am afraid of what will happen to my nation and to the world if we don't do it. In the long run, I think the outcome for everyone, but in particular for my own nation, will be better if we fight this war than if we don't. Yet that means that I'm advocating a course of action where the possibility exists that a lot of my countrymen, and a lot of Iraqis, may die or otherwise suffer.
Many who oppose the war are in a similar situation, and if anything it's even more anomalous. They recognize the danger that Arab/Islamic extremism and failure represent to the world, but they fear American power even more. Thus they find themselves hoping that we will suffer a bloody defeat, or a Pyrrhic victory. They hope that as a result of this America will be chastened, humbled, and will cease to embrace an activist and martial foreign policy. They hope that America will embrace self-doubt and moral paralysis and meekly return to its estranged allies and beg forgiveness and submit "multilaterally" to the nascent post-national world governmental structures (such as the ICC), and because of this will cease to be a danger to the world.
It's not that these people love Saddam; they don't. It's that they fear America even more. They deeply fear that if the US wins in Iraq, and wins what is perceived to be a fast and easy war there, that Americans will be emboldened and will gain self-confidence and perhaps even become self-righteous, and will eventually plunge the entire world into war. If America is willing to use direct aggressive military power to force a regime change in Iraq, where else will that then happen? And what else can possibly stop the American juggernaut without devastating the entire globe?
I don't agree with this point of view, but I can at least understand it. And that's why when I read some anti-war blogs, those who try to deal with the issues seriously and who do not descend to petty ridicule and fashionable cynicism, that their posts regarding the process of the war seem to be deeply conflicted. On one side they fear for the troops and at the same time there almost seems to be a wish that disaster will overtake the troops. For someone in this position, who hates Saddam but fears America more, among the best outcomes is that America wins, but pays such a high price that Americans will not support any future wars. Thus they find themselves simultaneously dreading and hoping that a lot of our soldiers will be killed and wounded.
I'm getting really tired of some people talking about civilian casualties in Iraq as if those who support this war didn't think that was part of the deal. Funny how the people who talk that way are those who have no problem whatsoever with the civilian casualties resulting from not going to war -- hey, as long as it's "not in [their] name," those people can drop like flies thousands of miles away that they'll never have to see or think about. But in a war, governed by rules and customs of warfare (The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and the Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949 -- which, you'll notice, only one side of this war is observing, and it isn't the Iraqis), designed to stop present and long-term suffering, depose a genocidal, torturous, truly evil dictator and lessen the threat of terrorism, any death becomes unacceptable to such people.
No, it doesn't make sense. Yes, they'll cling to it as long as they have to, because George W Bush is more evil -- in their (warped, or simply uninformed) minds -- than Saddam Hussein.
Point to ponder: would such people rather live in Iraq or in America? Just asking.
07:00 a.m.
Baghdad blogger Salam Pax was featured on the BBC yesterday, and there is a story about him in this week's issue of the New Yorker.
The New Yorker story on Salam Pax on the newsstand today (not yet online, apparently) gives more than enough info, to my mind, for even an idiot policeman to find "Iraq's only blogger." I think I could find him, for that matter. I'm assuming the magazine's editors are counting on a rapid U.S. roll into Baghdad... if not, then, well, what the hell were they thinking?
Yesterday in my WW2 class, the professor said something about blitzkrieg and why it worked so well in the first months of the German invasion of Russia. Some mentally defective assclown said something like, "Sounds just like what Bush is doing now." Before I or anyone else could tell the little moron that he's so full of crap it's not even funny, the professor said, "Actually, no it doesn't, and that's the point. The reason blitzkrieg worked so well was because the Germans were completely unconcerned about killing civilians. In fact, killing civilians was part of their goal. They weren't dropping smart bombs on specific targets, they were carpet-bombing the villages and towns. It was nothing like what's going on now in Iraq."
Which reminded me again that the thing that's shocking and awesome about the assault on Baghdad right now is that it's not an assault on Baghdad. It's an assault on specific buildings in Baghdad, and according to the Red Cross yesterday, after checking all the hospitals in the city, exactly one civilian has been killed.*
That one civilian was a worthwhile person whose life had value, no doubt about it. But I think it's time for those arguing that the bodies of civilians are piling up in great numbers to face facts. The more they say such rubbish, the stupider they look.
*Go here to see the Red Cross's notes concerning this particular day's events.
01:46 a.m.
The first Gulf War was "a disappointment to me. I heard from others in Iraq that they have anger at America, but the anger there cannot compare to the anger with Saddam." His words were confirmed shortly after he spoke them when a news bulletin announced that the city of Basra was rebelling against Saddam's rule. Enuiya has family in that city.
[...]
This current war seems to be taking a silent toll on a strong man. There was tension lining his cragged face as he spoke. "We know America will prevail." Enuiya is worried about his family, from whom he has not heard since the war began. "Even though my family is there, if something happened..." He paused, trying to hold down the emotion. "Sometimes you have to pay it. This is the price of freedom."
Those of us in the western world who did not personally live through the likes of World War II do not adequately understand what the price of freedom often is. As a second generation American whose own forebears understood this only too well -- they fled to America, as so many millions have done, not from it -- I am dismayed when those who are against this war suggest that freedom must come with no cost. Either they have precious little knowledge of history, or they would argue with what it has shown us.
In closing he spoke words that may have been trite coming from anyone else. "I would like to give my condolences to the families of US and British servicemen. And to Iraqi civilians. We’re grateful to US forces and President Bush for helping the Iraqi people."
For me, the gratefulness of the Iraqi people trumps the uninformed, bitter denial of the Bush haters* many times over.
*Hate Bush all you want -- God knows I didn't vote for him, am not a Republican and do not share his politics -- but don't let your hatred of him stand in the way of seeing sense on this matter. Many people seem to think that for the right thing to be done by the wrong man is so out of the question that they'd rather the right thing not be done at all. As Jurjen says, reciting an old Dutch saying, "You row with the oars you have." Or, as liberal Paul Berman in Salon puts it, Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam (thanks to Lindsey Corcoran for that link).
Ansar al-Islam, the group that killed Paul Moran, operates in northern Iraq in an area not controlled by Baghdad. It has been trained by al-Qa'ida, funded by al-Qa'ida and includes Arab al- Qa'ida operatives in its number.
All of this has been on the record for months. Yet the Australian debate has been infused by such irresponsible cynicism, and such an ill-informed but pervasive assumption that all these threats are exaggerated or even invented, that Ansar al-Islam – one of the most obvious connections between Iraq, terrorism and al-Qa'ida – has been almost totally ignored in the debate.
It's not just the Australian debate that has seen these connections dismissed as irrelevant, as we all know. As Professor James Lindgren writes:
Since much of the anti-war Australian press thinks that there is no Al Qaida/Iraq link (and therefore no need for Australia to send troops to Iraq to prevent future Bali-like massacres), it must confuse them greatly when an Australian news reporter is killed by an Al Qaida group in Iraq--indeed, the very Al Qaida group that supporters of the war have been pointing to as one reason to go into Iraq. In fact, it's the very same Iraqi Al Qaida group that was formerly reported as the probable source of the Ricin discovered in England and France.
When supporters of the war would mention the Al Qaida terrorist training camp in Northern Iraq, they would be derided.
The bombs have begun to fall on Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers have shot their officers and are giving themselves up to the Americans and the British in droves. Others, as in Nasiriyah and Umm Qasr, are fighting back, and civilians have already come under fire. Yet I find myself dismissing contemptuously all the e-mails and phone calls I get from antiwar friends who think they are commiserating with me because "their" country is bombing "mine." To be sure, I am worried. Like every other Iraqi I know, I have friends and relatives in Baghdad. I am nauseous with anxiety for their safety. But still those bombs are music to my ears. They are like bells tolling for liberation in a country that has been turned into a gigantic concentration camp. One is not supposed to say such things in the kind of liberal, pacifist, and deeply anti-American circles of academia, in which I normally live and work. The truth is jarring even to my own ears.
If you want to understand the perceptual chasm that separates how Iraqis view this second Gulf war from how the rest of the Arab-Muslim world views it--or from how these antiwar elites here in Cambridge or, dare I say, in Turtle Bay or Paris or Berlin view it--then you must begin with the war that has already been waged on the people of Iraq by their own regime. Then you will know, horribly, how the explosion of a JDAM can sound beautiful. For Iraqis, the absence of this new American-led war is not the presence of peace.
I, personally, accept the fact that war -- to put it mildly -- sucks. I've not heard one person who supports this war deny that. But it would only take me a few fingers to count the number of people who are against it who I have heard admit that the absence of this war does not mean that peace exists in Iraq. Some people either cannot accept that truth, being told to them by people who have experienced it firsthand, or will not accept that truth. But the denial of that truth is what makes it very easy to dismiss the arguments of so many who are against this war.
I don't think I've ever bought a copy of that rag in my life, but they've just guaranteed that I never will do. Imagine if the American forces were treating Iraqi POWs this way, then pointed to the way the Iraqis treated American POWs in the last Gulf War (which, for those of you not familiar with the timeline, predates Camp X-Ray and its holding of non-POWs by over a decade) -- raping them, torturing them, beating them...and the rest -- and said, "Well, what the hell did they expect? Fuck the Geneva Convention." Just think of the outcry that would -- quite rightly -- follow. In Peter Cuthbertson's words:
If the world had united in condemnation of this latest despicable act, there would have been the very slim chance that Saddam would concede to Geneva for the sake of global opinion. Instead, newspapers like the Mirror justify it as Iraq only following America's lead. Now if Britons fall into Iraqi hands, they can be assured of the same brutal treatment. The Question Time audience booed William Hague on Thursday for accusing Mirror Editor Piers Morgan of turning the paper into an apologist for Saddam Hussein. Can anyone seriously deny this analysis now?
The Mirror calls those held at Camp X-ray (who are "tortured" by the air conditioning provided to keep them cool in the hot climate -- those American bastards, eh?) "POWs". Even a cursory review of the text of the Geneva Convention reveals this not to be the case. And there are people -- smart people, who should know better -- who will read this and believe it. This is irresponsible journalism at its most extreme, and I shudder to think of what the ramifications of it will be.
The American POWs had it coming? Jesus. I really don't know how the minds of some people work.
In addition to any prayers/vibes/good thoughts/whatever that you may have been sending Salam's way in the first place, please add to those the hope that Saddam Hussein's henchmen are too distracted by this war to go after Salam. (They were observing CNN closely enough to throw them out of Baghdad, so I don't think this will escape their notice.) God -- and the world, though some are hesitant to acknowledge it -- knows that they have done unspeakable things to people for much less than what Salam has said on his weblog.
I don't have words to say how much this upsets me.
The Sussex University Students' Union Services board (SUSUS) have put a stop to sales of the Daily Mail [Recently voted the British Press Awards' Newspaper of the Year --JD] from its outlets after a recommendation from a panel of elected student officials.
The union said the paper [sic] blamed the paper's tone on war and asylum seekers for its decision.
The newspaper has a favourable editorial stance to this war, and dares call into question the government's treatment of political asylum seekers, and the Sussex University Students' Union's board decides that students should not even have access to it. This is not a private business, but a taxpayer-supported institution of higher learning.
I'll tell you one thing: there certainly are people out there who'd like to dictate what you and I may read, but they tend to be the ones shouting more loudly than everyone else that their civil liberties are being infringed upon. That much of this is taking place in universities -- and going largely unnoticed -- is depressing beyond belief, and another pox on the supposedly liberal people who are running these educational institutions.
A human rights group has lodged a complaint with the International Olympics Committee, backed up by several affidavits of tortured athletes. There has been no investigation or action to date.
Why not?
IOC president Jacques Rogge acknowledged last week that his organization received the complaint and says it is in the hands of the ethics committee. But IOC member Richard Pound says that it is "important to remember these are just allegations, and you have to make sure this is not all tied to the Iraq-U.S. dispute, that we are not being used for propaganda. You just never know."
[J]ournalists are skeptical, confrontational and iconoclastic, which means they challenge the establishment, while conservatives want to conserve it.
So the better journalists do their job, the more likely conservatives are to see them as liberal.
I came across an interesting statement as I was perusing the comments responding to that quote in Matt Welch's blog. It's by a guy called Chase, whose political ideals I don't exactly get in line with, but who makes a very important point:
I'm surprised that we skeptical, confrontational and iconoclastic conservatives have kept this argument just to the media. If I may, let's talk about the entire education system. Without any exaggeration, the professorial establishment is 90% liberal (if you question me, go back to school and see for yourself - I dare you!). Yet even though they are the vast majority, they cultivate a minority status. I've always wondered why that is. I mean, they've won; they dominate all of academia. Why not come out and rejoice, declaring victory from rooftops? The answer is exactly what was illuminated by Shaw. They realize that if they accept victory, they can no longer fight - they can no longer stage protests, be loud, be dissidents, skeptics, and iconoclasts. In other words, if teachers accept that they are in the majority, inculcating students with atheism, collectivism, and liberalism would no longer be in the name of academic freedom, it would be indoctrination. It's the same with the media. If they admit that they've won (i.e. that they are the establishment), they lose the power to peddle their agenda. Liberals are in the ultimate Catch 22. They don't want to lose, but they can never claim victory.
Moore said that the news media try to make people think that they are a small minority when they want to dissent from mainstream America. But, according to Moore, dissenters aren't the minority.
Conservatives and liberals alike want to believe -- and make other people believe -- that their opinions and ideology are the most popular thing going, but they don't want to give up their respective images (imagined or otherwise, inside or outside their own circles) as anti-Establishment rebels.
Or is that only a concern for the most self-obsessed, rather than issue-obsessed, of either extreme?
Having seen this from both sides of the pond, this preoccupation with image seems almost exclusive to American political pundits and the media, with the Brits too busy savaging one another on issues both political and personal to worry about media bias. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the British media -- at least as far as newspapers go -- is pretty open about their respective political leanings, not even trying to keep up the façade of impartial, non-partisan coverage. Everyone here knows what the politics of a Times reader are likely to be, everyone here knows what the politics of a Guardian reader are likely to be, everyone here knows what the politics of an Independent reader are likely to be...and so on and so forth.
British newspapers are wholly unconcerned with the question of whether or not their views reflect the mainstream or not*: they're right, dammit, and if you don't agree with them then you're just stupid. (The Brits, as much as I love them, enjoy nothing so much as the chance to feel smug. Feeling persecuted isn't nearly as much fun.)
Now, if only we could get the BBC to give up the same pretensions (and stop taking our annual licence fee while they're at it?), we'd really be getting somewhere.
*The rather notable exception to this, of course, is when newspapers are trying to portray themselves as the champion of the people, as with the Mirror's sponsorship of the London anti-war march in February (followed by claims that 750,000 people out of a population of 59 million proved that "nobody supports this military action"). Such misrepresentation is not, though, accompanied by accusations of bias against other media outlets. The Mirror doesn't give a shit if the Sun is pro-war: they expect as much and, indeed, depend on the difference to feed into their marketing plans. Stopping to rail against the Sun would only detract from their (lost, as it happens) battle against war in Iraq.
In this situation, alas, Piers "Moron" Morgan has greatly overplayed his hand, with the Mirror's circulation figures in decline. The irony of Morgan's paper, which made a huge deal of banning soft celebrity features in favour of more serious political stories, sponsoring an anti-war march where celebrities (Tim Robbins, Ms Dynamite, Kylie Minogue, Damon Albarn, et al) were the big draw was not lost on many. Nor was the fact that the Mirror profited from sponsoring the anti-war protests, grabbing over £100,000 of free advertising for its exploitative efforts:
"They did terrifically well, the BBC news alone is worth £100,000, but the Mirror's branding was prominent on placards in every press photograph I saw in the Sunday papers," said Eugen Beer, of Beer Davis.
The newspaper paid the £10,000 cost of hiring the big screen erected in London's Hyde Park, shackling its name to the Stop the War campaign and the country's biggest ever public demonstration.
Not bad going -- if you don't mind being a war profiteering organisation. And the willingness of the sneering intelligensia to march under the banner of a lowly tabloid is perhaps as notable as the willingness of supposedly everyday people to link arms with anti-Semitic, pro-North Korean extremist groups. As this war has demonstrated to us quite clearly, being for or against it makes for strange bedfellows. (But I'll take mine over theirs any day.)
01:41 a.m.
24 March, 2003
So many people are saying so many hilarious, spot-on things about Michael Moore that I just cannot resist sharing them. For not the first time, Fametracker nails it:
"Hi, I'm Michael Moore. It's a good thing you gave me an award for Best Documentary Feature and recognized the one thing I do better than anyone else: championing popular causes in such a way that even those people who agree with me fundamentally despise me for acting as their public spokesman. But I don't care! 'Sense of occasion'? What's that? 'Speaking persuasively and making cogent arguments instead of screeching slogans'? I've never tried that before -- why start now? No, I feel that the best way to get my message across -- my rather popular message, which is that war is bad -- is by bloviating semi-coherently and screaming over the boos and basically acting like a would-be bad-ass high-school senior trying to rile up the class with some confused crap in opposition to 'The Man,' filibustering as long as I can until the principal hauls me offstage to detention. So the more you boo me, the more my inner high-school senior -- the part of me that has cobbled together a simplistic political attitude from chants I've heard at protests and the table of contents of The Nation -- the more convinced I am that I, and only I, am right. So, now that you've given me this award, financing my next documentary will be a cinch. I think I'll make my next movie about how America is, like, bad."
10:57 p.m.
Garcia Bernal, gorgeous star of Y Tu Mamá También, said during the Oscars telecast:
If Frida (Kahlo) was alive, she would be on our side against war.
Kahlo turned on Trotsky because she had become a devout Stalinist. Kahlo continued to worship Stalin even after it had become common knowledge that he was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, not to mention Trotsky himself. One of Kahlo's last paintings was called "Stalin and I," and her diary is full of her adolescent scribblings ("Viva Stalin!") about Stalin and her desire to meet him.
Folks, Frida was a Stalinist, whose famous line about painting her reality and not her dreams was partly a sop to reassure the Communists that she wasn't a gulag-worthy Surrealist.
In one of her last paintings (Frida and Stalin, c 1954), Kahlo depicts herself seated contemplatively beneath an enormous portrait of a benign and fatherly Stalin. As a political testament it speaks volumes.
But at least it all made for pretty pictures. Isn't that what counts? I'm sure Bernal and Salma Hayek, whose cheering of his words was vigourous, would agree.
Some excellent points from Peter Cuthbertson on why the europhile lobby is failing:
[T]heir arguments really are narrowed down to overblown ad hominem attacks associating euroscepticism with xenophobia, nonsense about a small, over-crowded, irrelevant island going bankrupt, and even sillier metaphors about 'catching the wave' and 'missing the bus'. I can't help but imagine a feverish gentleman urging a bus queue to join him ("You'll miss the bus! You'll miss the bus!") in a journey the destination to which the majority of the queue is indifferent and the rest are extremely hostile.
And it's not just the obvious political differences between Britain and Brussels that make Britain's proposed entry into a common currency and defense with these countries seem so inappropriate. Peter himself refers to these comments from British Spin:
Britons self-identify as Europeans less than any other EU member. Culturally you need only to look at the TV schedules to see where our cultural comparators are (and it is a two way process - Pop Idol, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Ali G and The Office go one way; Blind Date, Friends, Buffy and The West Wing go the other. The only major European import? Big Brother). For many of us, it is not that we feel inferior to Europe, it is that Europe barely exists as a political/social force.
Now, it is one thing to tell people they should join Europe to rescue the country from disaster when the evidence of decline is all around them, as it was in the seventies. It is quite another when they generally regard things as going pretty well.
I don't think that the EU can be serious about taking on America as a superpower before they show that they're willing to even consider building up their sorely lacking military powers. As of this writing, they're not even approaching that consideration, and the attempts of Chirac and Schroeder to exploit the Iraq situation as a means of creating a unified Europe -- with a Franco-German power base, not coincidentally -- will fail as long as they refuse to do so. Like it or not, the words of this man are absolutely spot-on:
If history—especially that of the Cold War—teaches us anything, it's that peace (if we take peace to simply mean "the absence of armed conflict") and justice have an annoying tendency of being mutually exclusive.
And in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Ignore that at your peril, Europe. Looks like you're determined to do so whatever the repercussions.
10:12 p.m.
Did anyone else catch BBC Breakfast this morning? Sometime after 8.30, they had a very brief "discussion" with Will Hutton, Tariq "Israel provoked the suicide attacks" Ali and Robert Kagan -- the briefness of which was such that I wondered why they bothered at all.
It was, in a word, a joke. Bob Kagan is the author of one of the best, most widely respected (by liberals, centrists and conservatives alike) works on the differences between Europeans and Americans ever written. (It's worth printing it out and reading it that way, because it's the kind of thing that just gets more and more relevant as the days go on, and lends itself well to repeated readings.) Tariq Ali is an extremist anti-Israeli writer. Will Hutton is a columnist who contradicts himself at every turn. Put these three together and you get one of the biggest farces of the BBC's coverage thus far. Ali and Hutton strongly deny that there is any difference whatsoever between the worldview of Americans and the worldview of Europeans, proof of which -- they say -- is the fact that Europeans and Americans alike have opposed this war in significant numbers.
And, er, that's it.
Will Hutton even went so far as to say, "International relations aren't helped by people like Bob Kagan saying that Europeans and Americans view the world differently." Bob Kagan quite rightly pointed out that one of the reasons international relations are in the state they're in is because leaders have principally failed to recognise that Europeans and Americans do hold different worldviews, due in no small part to their respective, very different experiences during the Cold War.
On the all-important question of power — the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power — American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of affairs is not transitory — the product of one American election or one catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.
Unfortunately, the BBC pissed away the chance to have a great exchange of ideas by pairing Kagan with two people who are, for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to acknowledge what is so plain to most. The whole deal lasted about five minutes, and it was after Tariq Ali claimed that "Americans do not want this war -- the latest polls show only 72% support" (yes, that is verbatim) that I wished they'd never even teased me with the possibility of a good debate. Bob Kagan pronounced the proceedings "an embarrassment" and the segment ended with nobody but Bob Kagan having said anything worth hearing.
I suspect there have got to be people out there who can make more salient arguments against what Kagan and many others are saying, but I sure haven't got to hear any of them. Tariq Ali and Will Hutton are great discredits to their cause, whatever the hell that may be.
First of all, how relieved were you not to be subjected to three-and-a-half hours of preening anti-war moral instruction from a parade of Malibu millionaires? Even Barbra Streisand, that lovable, out-of-control diva, limited herself to praising the American tradition of free speech, "even for artists."
(There appears to be a widespread delusion within the celebrity community that somebody has passed a law prohibiting them from declaiming their political opinions at every possible podium. Until the right-wing talk-show harridan Ann Coulter becomes president, this probably won't happen.)
Sadly, it's not just celebrities. And I don't just mean those who think that ABC owes Bill Maher a sponsored platform on American mainstream television for his political views, and that denial of such a platform constitutes "un-Constitutional censorship".
Moore's spittle-flecked ululations were so over-the-top, that even the Oscar crowd — his natural constituency, you might think — erupted in a storm of boos. This was totally unexpected.
But a pleasant enough surprise.
09:25 p.m.
In the words of Iain Murray:
Anyone who manages to get booed at an Oscar ceremony for being too liberal must have serious questions asked about their judgment.
I'd perhaps change the word "liberal" to "self-promoting, a liar and dumb as a box of hair," but Iain and I are on the same page with this one.
If you're a liberal who thinks that the only people who are seeing Moore's lies and distortions for what they are -- and calling him on them -- are non-liberals (be they centrists, Republicans, gun nuts or extremists), I'm happy to tell you that you couldn't be more wrong.
dedicated to unearthing the truth behind the doublespeak and falsehood that spews from the mouth (and keyboard) of Michael Moore on a regular basis. Moore is a disingenuous danger to this country, and his assumptions and assertions should not go unchallenged. The collective expertise and research abilities of the entire Internet are more than enough to debunk most of the nonsense Moore regularly puts forth as fact, and we at MOOREWATCH hope to be the clearinghouse for this information.
Michael Moore is not just a filmmaker who stretches the truth to suit his own weak arguments: he is a man whose product of lies and distortions has won him a significant fanbase consisting of not only stupid people, but intelligent ones who should bloody well know better. I'd challenge anyone to argue that Moore's contentions stand up to scrutiny, and anyone who cares to take me up on that can peruse the above links to find out just how tough a job that would be.
"If the small businesses suck they'll be driven out of business," he said. "If they got a good restaurant, people will go there and eat. You know in my town the small businesses that everyone wanted to protect? They were the people that supported all the right-wing groups. They were the Republicans in the town, they were in the Kiwanas, the Chamber of Commerce - people that kept the town all white. The small hardware salesman, the small clothing store salespersons, Jesse the Barber who signed his name three different times on three different petitions to recall me from the school board. Fuck all these small businesses - fuck 'em all! Bring in the chains. The small businesspeople are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. Fuck 'em all. That's how I feel."
Yep, this is the same Michael Moore who's the self-styled, self-appointed enemy of the American corporate world. No, he doesn't make any sense. But it sounds like Jesse the Barber knew what a moron he was: no wonder Moore's still holding a grudge, and because of it condemns all small businesses and small business owners. More issues than a newsagent, clearly.
"Recycling creates an illusion of saving the planet." He said he disapproves of simply recycling without knowing where recycleables go - they might be sent to a Third World country where people work under sweatshop conditions.
Another stunning display of logic and clarity of thought.
Moore said that the news media try to make people think that they are a small minority when they want to dissent from mainstream America. But, according to Moore, dissenters aren't the minority.
As James Lileks interprets: "Meaning, they’re the majority, which means they’re not dissenting but reaffirming their beliefs. Dissent, then, means those who dissent against the Dissenters Formerly Known as the Minority. Black is white! Up is Down! Moore is Less! Rall is Funny!"
In obvious need of sleep, Moore and his bleary-eted (sic) posse trundled off to their quarters to rest up for an appearance the next day at Arcata's independently owned Northtown Books.
In Lileks' words:
Where perhaps he would back the owner into the corner, tell him fuck off and say that he hoped a Borders opened up and drove his family into bankruptcy.
But only after all the books he’d signed had been sold.
Best Oscar broadcast EVAH. Michael Moore tried his hardest to make the awards about his favourite subject -- no, not war: Michael Moore -- and got booed. Too bloody right. And the more he talked his rubbish, the louder the booing got. Hardly surprising. If you missed it, go here and listen.
And that "fictition" word Moore used? If only it was the most inaccurate, made up shit he'd spouted.
I really cannot wait to see how he tries to spin this one to make the fools who believe his bullshit think that booing is a form of reverence. Fortunately, unlike his practice of deleting his "fictition" from his website, nothing he can do can erase the image of him being booed from anyone's memory.
It's funny: even the people I know who admire Moore's work admit that he's a political nutjob, and opine that even he doesn't actually believe half the lies he tells: he just tells them to get people worked up about stuff. I wish I could believe that, but I'm afraid it gives him far too much credit.
This is the man who, in his "documentary," claimed that there are "no Canadians shooting other Canadians" in Windsor, Ontario (false).
This is the man who, in his "documentary," claims that no one in Toronto locks their doors.
This is the man who, in his "documentary," shows rockets used for space satellite launchings and calls them "missiles".
This is the man who, in his "documentary," refers to those rockets for satellite launchings as "weapons of mass destruction".
This is the man who, in his "documentary," edits together words from six different sections of two separate speeches and creates a speech that was never given.
This is the man who, in his "documentary," claims that a woman making $1250 a month for one of her two jobs "did not earn enough to pay her [$300 a month] rent".
This is the man who, in his "documentary," claims that the US government gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban, while showing the World Trade Center attack to mislead people into thinking there was some connection (the $245 million was humanitarian aid, dispersed through the UN and nongovernmental organisations, to relieve Afghan famine -- yeah, America sure does suck).
This is the man who, in his "documentary," claims that Osama bin Laden "used CIA training to murder 3000 people".
This is the man who, in his "documentary," shows an animation claiming that the Pilgrims "killed all the [Native Americans]" (someone tell the 2 million of them living in the US today).
This is the man who, in his "documentary," confronts entertainer Dick Clark because a murdered girl (Kayla Rolland's) mother worked for one of Clark's restaurants, and asks him what he thinks "about a system that forced poor single mothers to work two low wage jobs to survive."
This is the man who even tried to argue with Charlton Heston about Heston's Alzheimer's diagnosis, saying that he doesn't really have it (he does).
Even Canadian officials have gone after Moore, asking him to account for his lies and distortions.
To quote Moore:
"I am there as a representative for the mass audience out there that wants to sit there and cheer me on, and live vicariously through me, as I go after the bastards that have ripped them off and made their lives miserable."
Well, you self-important, lying prick, tonight your ass got booed. And if the only people who ever cheer for you are those who blame other people for "[making] their lives miserable," I'm not surprised, but I certainly hope they don't count as a "mass audience".
06:37 a.m.
With hundreds of new schools and hundreds of thousands of refugees returning home, at least 1 million more children are expected to attend school in Afghanistan this year, officials say.
Education Minister Yunus Qanooni said 5.8 million students will go to school, up from 3.3 million last year. The United Nations has a more conservative estimate - about 4.5 million.
[...]
About two-thirds of Afghanistan's schools were damaged over the last two decades of warfare that largely came to an end with the collapse of the Taliban, which was ousted in U.S.-led airstrikes in 2001.
Those same airstrikes which were protested by many of those now protesting this war. Make of that what you will.
A third of the 3.3 million children who returned to school last year were girls banned from getting an education under the Taliban.
If you're a feminist like me, or just a person who knows good works when you see them, you can only greet such news with joy -- and a hope to see such progress continue apace. And if you're someone who protested against the US intervention which led to this progress, you can only hang your head in shame.
On the bench beside [Blair], the pathetically diminished figure of Clare Short - or "depleted Claranium" as she is now nicknamed by her colleagues - bore testimony to the weakness of his enemies. In her decision not to carry through her promise to resign, a role reversal had been completed. Mr Blair, so often accused of trimming and lack of principle by the Left, had stood his ground. In contrast, Ms Short, the soi-disant conscience of the Labour Party, had put expediency before conviction.
The whole piece is worth reading, as it opines that Tony Blair and George Bush have different ideas as far as how Iraq will be run after the war is over. Apparently Blair sees that issue as a good one to "put some distance between them and us," as one of Blair's closest advisers says.
Wait a sec. Isn't Tony supposed to be George's lapdog, his arse-licking poodle? I look forward to that lame assertion being proven wrong again and again: it's only just begun.
03:45 a.m.
23 March, 2003
Skip this if you find British local politics irrelevant to your life (or just impossibly boring).
After my revelations yesterday about how I used to be quite fond of the Liberal Democrats -- to the point where I thought I might want to join them someday -- until I found out more about what racist, opportunistic shits they are, I was a bit spooked to find that a copy of FOCUS on Chadwell, the local Lib Dems' newsletter, had been pushed through my mailslot this morning. Coincidence, surely, but an amusing one nonetheless. (I'm easily amused, clearly.)
Further amusement was in store when I sat down and read the thing.
First, the large headline reading:
Liberal Democrats, Get Things Done
Yes, please: Liberal Democrats, get things done, won't you? More proof that correct use of commas isn't optional.
To allow the area committee to keep local residents informed it [sic] has agreed to pay for the erection of secure notice boards at Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath Stations. It also agreed to approach Tesco's [sic] in Goodmayes to see if they will allow us to install another board. Councillor Gary Staight has however voiced his concern that each board will cost £2250.
Keeping local residents informed of committee actions and proposals: the Lib Dems are concerned that £9000 is too much to pay for this. I suppose if they had more good works under their belt and less shite, they'd be a bit more willing to fork out to publicise it.
The area committee, after consulting local shopkeepers, has agreed to introduce short-term pay and display [parking] in the parking bays in Seven Kings and Chadwell Heath. This will keep them free for local shoppers and prevent them being used all day by commuters or shop staff.
How in the world do you work that one out? Apart from it not being true, I'd point out that the only commuters in this area of London are people commuting out of here and into the city centre. And the overwhelming majority of them are doing that by rail and Tube, as it happens. Yeah, shop staff might be taking up some parking spaces, but they're local people, too. Let their bosses handle the problem of their staff taking spaces away from potential shoppers and keep the local government out of it. Apart from the local council clearly having many, more pressing matters to take care of (see below), surely this is not such a huge problem that we need to make all of the parking in the High Road (think "downtown" if you're in North America) pay and display. The many empty parking spaces I see in the High Road tells me as much.
And the coupon they've included for donating money and joining the Lib Dems comes under the banner:
"Join Charles Kennedy's Winning Team"
I'm not sure what their definition of "winning" is, since the Lib Dems have a much smaller representation in Parliament than either Labour or the Tories, and since the Lib Dems haven't pushed through any significant legislation whatsoever. And according to Up My Street, which gives some very interesting information and statistics about your street and local government when you enter your (British) postcode, this Lib Dem local council of mine is doing a pretty shit job, too. To wit:
Theft of vehicles is more than double that of the English average (11.1 per 1000 population, compared to 5 per 1000 population), and our burglary rate is almost triple that of the English average (5.2 per 1000 population, compared to 1.5 per 1000 population). Our unemployment rate in this area is also nearly double that of the English average. Missed collections (that's trash -- or "traysh," if you're a hilljack) per 100,000 bins? Well, the English average is 317, but here in the Borough of Redbridge, it's 4,929. We've also got a higher percentage of streetlights not working than the rest of England does, on average, and fewer playgrounds as well. Somehow they're achieving those low results while spending more per head of the population (£991.39) than the English average (£738.90).
But it's nice that the local party is clever enough to recognise that a charismatic leader is their only asset.
Again, I don't know what the Lib Dems consider "winning," but the above certainly doesn't qualify in my mind. At least their newsletter is good for a few laughs, though, because little they're doing (and not doing) as the only party running the local council makes me want to smile.
The Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it could not be photographed aerially, by swathing it in sand-cast walls to make it look like the surrounding desert.
With this, and all those unaccounted for SCUDs and other weapons that Hans Blix came clean about this week, I can imagine that anyone still holding on to the "Inspections work!" cry may feel that the time has come to face facts. Not that facts mattered to them before now, mind, but you never can tell.
09:32 p.m.
A reminder, courtesy of Glenn Reynolds, to keep the following (from the BBC) in mind when you hear about "civilian deaths":
One of the problems in the fighting in Umm Qasr has been that some of the conscript army appeared to surrender, but then disappeared.
It's thought they then took off their uniforms, became civilians, but kept their guns. And so they were effectively acting as a guerrilla force which makes it very hard for conventional armies to fight that because they don't want to risk killing civilians.
As Glenn rightly points out, soldiers out of uniform are war criminals. And also like Glenn, I eagerly await the protest marches against this practice. Same goes for protest marches against the Iraqi execution of POWs.
09:26 p.m.
Yesterday, Baghdad could still function. The landline telephones worked; the internet operated; the electrical power was at full capacity; the bridges over the Tigris remained unbombed. Because, of course, when – "if" is still a sensitive phrase these days – the Americans get here, they will need a working communications system, electricity, transport. What has been spared is not a gift to the Iraqi people: it is for the benefit of Iraq's supposed new masters.
Evil Americans. Now they're not destroying the village in order to save it. How despicable can a people be?
Meanwhile, the silliness continues apace at the Guardian, where Johnny Freedland takes credit for the apparent success of the Baghdad raids -- on behalf of the "peace" protesters:
The campaign began not with "shock and awe" but a subtler knife, aimed at the surgical decapitation of Saddam Hussein and his regime.
I can't help but give him credit for acknowledging that. God knows many of his ilk simply refuse to do so.
One night's bombing of Baghdad lasted no more than an hour. The terrifying spectaculars threatened by Rumsfeld and the boys, reminiscent of the fireworks of the first Gulf war, only materialised last night. There could be a stack of explanations for that initial deployment of the short, sharp blow... The US might have wanted to avoid a wave of worldwide revulsion. A series of tight, well-aimed strikes at the regime would have confounded the global fear of colossal Iraqi civilian casualties. It's as if Washington had heard the peace movement's objection to this war - that too many innocents would die - and was attempting to heed it. (Now the US can, at least, say it tried its best, but that it didn't bring instant results.)
Yep, the US's plans of indiscriminate murder were scuppered by the anti-Semites, anarchists and misguided masses. Otherwise, the place would have been levelled, obviously.
08:22 p.m.
In a display meant to show that Saddam Hussein's government was still functioning after U.S. strikes, a Palestinian group funded by the Iraqi leader distributed $10,000 on Friday to three families with sons killed in the uprising against Israel.
Gosh, that's altruistic of him.
The Arab Liberation Front, which is financially backed by Saddam, said it was asked by the Iraqi government to speed up check deliveries to families of Palestinian civilians, gunmen and suicide bombers killed in fighting with Israel.
There have been over 90 suicide bombings in Israel since September 2000. By the Arab Liberation Front and Saddam Hussein's own respective admissions, families of suicide bombers are paid $25,000 each -- not a small sum for impoverished Palestinians -- by Saddam Hussein (relatives are only eligible for $10,000 if their relatives are killed in clashes with troops -- terrorism pays more than military combat). In the past 30 months, Hussein has paid out in excess of $35 million to these people.
This is public record. This is openly admitted and it's being reported. And yet you still hear people claim that Saddam Hussein doesn't have ties to terrorists. How one can conclude that such people are anything but uninformed is beyond me.
Unless, that is, they are out and out liars. In which case, one has to ask: just who exactly are they trying to protect?
UPDATE: A friend of mine went to the London anti-war march yesterday. In all but three of the 38 photos he took, Palestinian flags and "FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE!" signs were the most prominent things being waved.
People, by all means, march with the likes of those who are chanting "Our beloved Saddam, hit Tel Aviv" if you can do so and still sleep well at night. But I've yet to hear one person -- even my friend who did march with them -- tell me how linking arms with such people promotes peace. For that reason, among others, calling anti-war protests "peace marches" is a fucking joke.
Bush has gotten the most flak for, in essence, placing too much stock in the U.N., not too little. Like his father, he thought it could become an effective collective-security organization once it was freed of Cold War constraints. This approach worked in the first Persian Gulf War, because his father was confronting a clear-cut case of aggression -- Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. But not even Bush père could have gotten U.N. approval for regime change in Baghdad.
That's why he didn't try. His son did -- and nearly succeeded. His mistake was becoming a little too ambitious. Not satisfied with U.N. Resolution 1441, which passed unanimously in November, Bush unsuccessfully sought a second resolution (or, more accurately, an 18th). Now, like every U.S. president since 1945, he has embarked on military action without explicit U.N. authorization. . . .
It's true that acting "unilaterally" -- actually with a substantial "coalition of the willing," in Bush's words -- increases distrust of U.S. power. But it's far from clear what the consequences are. Will France and Germany stop fighting al Qaeda? Refuse to continue helping to rebuild Afghanistan? Torpedo the free-trade treaties they have supported? All possible, but all unlikely, because they didn't undertake these actions as a favor to Washington -- it's in their self-interest to promote trade, stamp out terrorism and foster peaceful development in war-torn lands.
Political scientists warn of "bandwagoning" against a hegemon, and they might see some evidence of this in the U.N. debate, where France, Russia and China ganged up on the United States. But only one of these nations -- China -- is making an effort to challenge U.S. power, and then only in one region. France and Russia, along with the rest of Europe, are doing little or nothing to build up their military capabilities. If they were serious about taking on America, they would be forming a military alliance against us. No one imagines this will happen.
Why not? Because for all their griping about the "hyperpower," our fair-weather friends realize that America is not Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany.
And don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
I took almost a day off from blogging and news coverage. Sometimes all this, and the way it affects one's life outside the blogosphere, can be rather a bit much.
That said, how lucky I am to be where I am, alive and well, free to write what I want to write, as I see fit. Funny thing: I'm not taking that for granted so much these days.
05:39 p.m.
22 March, 2003
Even more good news, via the BBC's correspondents in Iraq in their weblog:
Coming into Basra as part of a massive military convoy, I encountered a stream of young men, dressed in what appeared to be Iraqi army uniforms, applauding the US marines as they swept past in tanks.
Leaflets had been dropped on the city, urging members of the 51st Iraqi Division to surrender, and I saw hundreds doing so.
Thank God.
As we drove into southern Iraq we were greeted by the smiling faces and waves from local people clearly happy to be free from the control of Saddam Hussein. The civilian population here have welcomed the coalition forces but have already pleaded for help to build the schools and hospitals they say they have long been denied.
Truly heartwrenching.
I'm looking out now as this large convoy and can see local people in Basra . There are lots of people coming out, lots of children and they are applauding. The people coming out to shake the hands of American forces who are seen as liberating the city of Basra. This has a significant impact on morale.
Meanwhile, in London:
Thousands of demonstrators have converged in central London, marching good-naturedly and shouting slogans.
MPs, union leaders, human rights campaigners marched side by side in what they insisted was not a futile gesture now that war had actually started.
Outside Downing Street, one woman, overcome with emotion screamed a message through a megaphone - taken to be aimed at Tony Blair: "Stop the War. Do you not understand you are killing innocent people?"
"We will have to defend our interests so that the contracts which were signed under Saddam Hussein are not annulled as lacking legal force and to make sure the Iraqi debt owed us is respected," he said.
Baghdad owes Moscow at least £4.5 billion in Soviet-era debt.
The request to expel diplomats and freeze Iraqi assets was "not made by accident," Ivanov said.
"In this way, they are saying that everything before today was illegal, all contracts signed before are illegal, and legality begins with the arrival of a new administration, even a temporary one."
I am literally seething, here. This war is not good for my diastolic.
04:17 p.m.
Sigh. I just found out from Alex Singleton's Liberty Log -- another fine British weblog that I've added to the sidebar today -- that Peter Tatchell is pro-war. Now I know how anti-war people must have felt when they found out David Duke and Pat Buchanan shared their view of the world.*
*Okay, I exaggerate. Peter's just very annoying and self-aggrandising, not racist or anti-Semitic or -- gasp! -- a Republican. I still think he's a little dangerous, though.
01:57 p.m.
Rachel Corrie, the young American woman who was crushed by a bulldozer in Gaza as she protested the demolition of Palestinians' houses, has attracted a lot of attention -- and no small amount of it from bloggers. I haven't said anything about it, because I don't think she deserved to die just because she held some deeply disturbing political beliefs and did some dubious things. (Hey, burn the American flag all you want: it's freedom of speech. But I reserve the right to view doing so for an audience of confused Palestinian children as very dodgy indeed.)
That said, the US State Department has warned Americans not to travel to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though, so she definitely knew that she was taking a risk in going there -- much less crouching in front of a fucking bulldozer. Those are risks she willingly took, and especially due to the latter, no one else can be blamed for her demise. Plus, she was evacuated from the area several times, in some instances with force and tear gas, and she kept returning for more. (Read what Jurjen, who has experience with armoured vehicles and has done a good job of setting forth why he doesn't think Rachel was intentionally run over, has to say about this.) I consider her death a suicide, not a homicide. Personal responsibility: it's what's for dinner.
"It's possible they [the protesters] were not as disciplined as we would have liked," Thom Saffold, a founder and organizer of the International Solidarity Movement, said in a telephone interview from the group's base in Ann Arbor, Mich. "But we're like a peace army. Generals send young men and women off to operations, and some die."
Rachel Corrie was a volunteer for this man's group. She was one of the young women "sent off to operations". Thom Saffold's matter-of-fact attitude towards her death is appalling. I'm guessing, though, that the man who made such comments is not a man who feels remorse for much. I just hope anyone else who is thinking of volunteering for this innocuous-sounding "peace army" knows all about the implications of such an involvement. I wonder if that comment will show up in the ISM's marketing materials -- like, say, their website. As Jurjen says:
At best, ISM is wilfully ignorant of international law; at worst they're lying scum who dupe well-meaning kids into getting themselves killed by the IDF in order to make political capital from it.
Miss Corrie, you wanted to prove a point here, which I may or may not agree with, but what do you gain in getting killed!? And by accident?! It is just a waste of life, plain and simple.
[...]
Damn it, American and European "peace activists" kids, grow up.
12:55 p.m.
President Bush has been personally calling the families of those American soldiers who died in that helicopter crash the other night to express his condolences.
And I'm sure someone will find a way to criticise him for it, or minimise the gesture.
Profile in the Independent of Andy Law, founder of St Luke's, the once achingly trendy ad agency. Law has now been pushed out, and the company has lost any of the sheen it once had.
[...]
Law began a talk to some of us, which was intended to explain how we would all be working towards reviving the paper's fortunes, with the words 'You're all fucked. The paper's fucked. The readers are fucked. You are fucked'.
Inspiring.
At the dinner which followed I was sat next to David Abrahams, Law's founder partner. Much as I would rather sit and stare into space than talk to such oafs, that would have been both rude and a missed opportunity - they were, after all, supposed to be the bee's knees. So I began with a pretty basic conversational gambit: 'Where's your office?'.
Abrahams looked at me as if I had asked him how long his mother had been on the game. 'We don't have an office', he told me, sneeringly. 'We have space'.
Law and Abrahams are certainly unpopular with people I've worked with at various other London ad agencies, and the above surprises me not one bit.
12:10 p.m.
I haven't got sick of listening to this yet. The sheer foolishness of trying to tell an Iraqi exile that leaving Saddam Hussein in power would promote peace and justice in Iraq is obvious, but not admitting when the floor had been wiped with her "simplistic, Nickelodeon" non-argument -- and then laughing at the guy -- was just cringeworthy.
11:43 a.m.
The "Great Satan" has invaded Iraq but students at Tehran University seem pleased at the prospect.
"It will be a good thing to have American troops in Iraq. Perhaps that will bring change to Iran," said Namin, a lanky engineering student strolling to class.
"Maybe that will put more pressure on the regime here." Unlike fellow Muslims in the Middle East or their predecessors 23 years ago who seized the United States embassy, students today are not seething with anger against America and are unmoved by the government's daily references to "the enemy" in Washington.
"I think only about the consequences of a war. If the war has good consequences, let it be," said another student, Mohammad. "We're not protesting like European students. We don't have a democratic government like they do. We're not acting like them because we're not in European shoes."
Bad news. According to Antoine Clarke, there is little hope of Jacques Chirac being out on his ear in the next couple of years:
On Chirac's imminent departure, I wish it were that simple. Chirac is in until 2007, unless he dies in office. I don't think he actually can be impeached: an investigator into his affairs can be either appointed by him (or by his appointees) or switched to other cases, if they come too close to finding anything, and his almost worse henchman Alain Juppé controls the party machine which has the majority in both houses. It would take street protests or a foreign invasion to remove Chirac, which is why his pandering to the left is so handy.
You know, not many people seem to remember that this guy won last year's election because his opponent, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was an openly hateful National Front member -- who still, it should be noted, got 18.2% of the French vote. (FACT: Many people cast their votes for Chirac with clothespins and/or wearing white gloves, to indicate that their vote was a rejection of Le Pen and that they also regarded Chirac with much disgust and disdain.) It also seems to slip people's minds that the only reason Chirac hasn't been prosecuted for half a dozen corruption charges is because of his presidential immunity. And what of his good mate Robert Mugabe, with whom he was laughing and joking in front of the world's press only weeks ago? (Yes, this is the same Jacques Chirac who is up for the Nobel Peace Prize.)
As the Guardian puts it:
It is, by any stretch of the imagination, a remarkable transformation: from over-the-hill Gallic greaseball to leader of the peace-loving world, from charm-packed but unprincipled chancer to de facto spokesman for all those in Europe (and indeed the rest of the world) who do not want to see America start an immediate war against Iraq.
[...]
"Even if you support what he's doing 100%, with Chirac you still have this nagging feeling that there must be some sneaky political stuff behind it," says Anne-Laure Pereire, an economist. "I'm proud of France on Iraq; it sticks in my throat to say I'm proud of Chirac."
[...]
After his crushing May victory, this theory goes, and the equally crushing win by his centre-right forces in parliamentary elections soon after, Jacques Chirac was casting around for a way to make a suitably big splash in the world pool - "A gesture that would say: 'Hi guys, Jacques is back,'" as one western diplomat put it.
After five unhappy years in the shadow of an uncomfortable cohabitation with a socialist prime minister, his foreign policy wings clipped to such an extent that all he really controlled was his presidential jet, the president was, in short, desperate to throw his weight around.
Hence, in quick succession: Paris repairs ties with Washington damaged by the previous government, which had the unfortunate habit of publicly slamming US policy as "simplistic"; the embargo on British beef gets lifted; the Sangatte refugee centre is closed; Paris and Berlin hop back into bed again and relaunch their celebrated Franco-German motor; and, er, Chirac says: "Give peace a chance."
"I'm quite sure," says the diplomat, who would rather not be named, "that at first this anti-war stance was a flag run up the pole to see which way it blew. Chirac didn't want to upset America, he'd spent months bending over backwards to be nice to it. But when he saw the way the wind was blowing, he jumped, impulsively. And now he's in it so far he couldn't back out if he wanted to."
Here's hoping that the after-effects of the self-serving damage he has so gleefully done to France's relations with America and Britain come back to bite him on his corrupt, sleazy cul.
11:02 a.m.
Something's bothering me. Despite all of the footage we're seeing of the British forces in Iraq and environs, and the significant contribution being made by them as part of the coalition, I have yet to hear one British person -- on television, radio or in person -- express support for the troops (except, of course, for Tony Blair).
Maybe this is standing out to me because, back in Ohio, whenever the US armed forces were involved in conflict, there were always rallies held in support of them, and lots of smaller efforts were organised to boost their morale. I am ashamed to admit that I, on many occasions, rolled my eyes and dismissed such events as nationalistic and stupid. (I'm going to plead ignorant youth here, though that's not really a good reason.) But with a friend of mine making his way, as I type this, to another anti-war march in London, the absence of any demonstration in support of the British troops strikes me as incredibly sad -- especially with the news of fresh British casualties in this war (the result of another helicopter collision, not combat).
"They made their choice when they took the queen's/president's shilling. They agreed to fight and kill and die as directed. Fuck 'em."
"What we need is a bloodbath - to stop pricks like Bush and Blair in their tracks."
"[Asking opponents of war to back our troops is] nothing more than a ploy to defeat opposition to this war. If you don't support our troops now, then you are a traitor. McCarthism is alive and well."
A few years ago, when I was 21 or 22, I thought that if I had to choose a political party in Britain to belong to, I'd choose the Liberal Democrats. Then they fucked students over on the issue of tuition, I found out that Paddy Ashdown is a One Minute Man, and Charles Kennedy stopped being so funny on Have I Got News for You. But this scathing commentary on the Lib Dems' behaviour concerning Iraq (and national security threats in Northern Ireland) has reminded me once again what it is I find so loathsome about Mr Kennedy's party, and its leader in particular:
[T]hey have been disgustingly opportunistic, and [this] is apparent in their constantly changing position on war, and their new reverence for the "unquestioned moral authority" of the United Nations, which gave no more support to the Kosovo War - which the Liberals backed strongly - than to this one.
In the closing couple of years of Paddy Ashdown's leadership, he was espousing a doctrine of 'constructive opposition', which worked out as vigorously supporting the new Labour government on some issues and - in theory - opposing them equally strongly on others. When the Tories attacked them as Labour's poodles, they fired back the charge of irresponsibility and opposition for its own sake, condemning 'yah-boo' politics and the like. This was not a generation ago, but four years ago.
The extent to which they followed this doctrine became clear when William Hague (showing what events have confirmed was very accurate foresight) said that release of IRA terrorists should happen while the organisation decommissioned their weapons, otherwise we would lose all bargaining chips against a fully armed terrorist organisation ready to wage war on innocent people at any time. Charles Kennedy made zero allowance for legitimate criticism of this policy, and in his first conference speech as the new party leader, he outrageously told the Tory leader: "Loose talk at Westminster can literally cost lives in Northern Ireland... William Hague, grow up!"
Yet as it became clear that Tony Blair had no intention of forcing proportional representation through, this constructive opposition strategy fell apart completely. Suddenly, the Liberal Party found all sorts of new principled objections to government policy. So within three years of telling the Leader of the Opposition to "grow up", Kennedy was reporting to his party conference his utter disgust at Hague's successor's strategy of 'constructive opposition': supporting Blair on a tremendously important issue of national security, of war and peace. Kennedy used the fact that he had himself been the one to be tougher on the Prime Minister as an example of his party's own emergence as the "real opposition", draining all possible political capital out of the Iraq crisis, managing to attack the leaders of both main parties over their attitudes.
Constructive opposition was fine for Kennedy when it suited his party political interest in a rigged electoral system, which - unlike the voters - would deliver the Liberals power. But when it meant principled Conservative support for a war the party leadership knew to be right even if it was not popular, constructive opposition was suddenly a sign of Conservative moribundity. When dealing with a threat to national security in Ulster, Kennedy thinks the slightest criticism "costs lives". But when dealing with a threat to national security in Iraq, massive, constant opposition was perfectly acceptable to him. Kennedy has done all he could to squeeze political capital out of this crisis, backing away from and disparaging positions he held to passionately a couple of years ago.
Reasonable people can certainly take the view that the Liberal Democrats are right to oppose a second Gulf War. But they cannot sensibly claim that the party has not been intensely hypocritical and opportunistic throughout the Iraq crisis. It's a fact.
And it's also why I watched Charles Kennedy being scoffed at, laughed at and heckled during his speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday with such glee. He is a discredit to the Scottish people, and I hope The Guardian catches him picking his nose in Parliament many more times before he is voted out of Westminster.
I feel like adding a big "Fuck you, Charles Kennedy" to this, but that seems like it would be rather a bit much.
UPDATE: Stephen Pollard has this further information on Lib Dem opportunism, based on personal experience:
I spent four years working for Peter Shore, who was then the (Labour) MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney. The Tories were almost non-existent in his constituency; the opposition was the Liberal, who at that time ran the council. Labour's corruption and complacency had allowed what was once a party fiefdom to fall into Liberal hands. But the means by which the Liberals won power, and tried to hold onto it, were foul. They started a 'Sons and Daughters' housing policy, which meant that priority was to go to the sons and daughters of 'local' residents. In a constituency with the largest ethnic minority population in the country (most of whom were Bangladeshi) this was not so much thinly veiled as rampantly trumpeted racism. It was illegal, and they knew it. But that just made it all the more attractive, as they were able to rail against unjust legislation which discrimated against 'local people' in favour of 'visitors'.
Local Liberal 'Focus' politics panders to voters' worst prejudices. The only difference from the BNP [British National Party, a scary bunch of ultra-right-wing, racist thugs --JD] is that they aren't skinheads and they aren't violent. That almost makes them worse. At least it's obvious where you stand with the BNP.
There are, of course, some good and decent Lib Dems. But my experience of them on the ground left me with an abiding contempt for their nauseating brand of opportunism, which didn't just veer towards racism but had it at its very core.
I'm sure any non-Brits still reading this are thinking, "A party called the Liberal Democrats which actively peddles racist policies for political gain?" Welcome to British politics.
09:54 a.m.
As if sweets weren't tempting enough, now they're making gak snacks. Even better, they don't erode one's septum like traditional chang does. As for the price, at bags of 12 for 50p, I'm guessing it's not, as the kids say, good shit.
09:33 a.m.
Juan Gato has been posting stuff for the last couple of weeks, warning that Cuba would start doing horrible things to a fresh batch of those who dare oppose their government while the world's attention was diverted, and he has been proven right. As he mused in his blog, I wonder if we'll hear much about this at the Oscars...
I was able to ask Mr Emmott a question about Britain's relationship with the rest of the EU in the context of the Iraq war. In the event of a satisfactory outcome, he thought that Tony Blair might well call for a referendum on entry into the Euro within eighteen months.
I may be wrong, but I seriously cannot see that going down well at all. Calling a referendum he may well do, but I'm trying to imagine it passing after a successful war, after the divisive bullshit France and Germany have pulled, and it's just not materialising.
Chirac said: "These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position. It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet. I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others," Chirac said.
Chirac called the letters "infantile" and "dangerous," adding: "They missed a great opportunity to shut up."
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, all of whom have dates for EU membership, joined EU members Britain, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Portugal in signing a letter last month supporting Washington's stance on Iraq. Ten other eastern European nations -- eight with entry dates and Romania and Bulgaria who are still in membership discussions -- signed a similar letter a few days later.
"Romania and Bulgaria were particularly irresponsible. If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way," Chirac said.
When asked why he wasn't similarly critical of the EU nations that signed the letter, Chirac said: "When you are in the family ... you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door."
CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley described Chirac's outburst as "pretty grumpy and imperious."
"For him to lecture these applicant countries or these accepted members on their way in was really behavior like the worst of what the French complain about in the United States," Oakley said.
Indeed. And people say the Americans are bullies! Imagine if President Bush used such language about France and Germany. Instead, after they publicly shit all over the US and Britain, Bush referred to them as "friends" and "allies."
But anyway. I can't see the British public being too hot on a Euro referendum anyway, let alone after France and Germany -- and their respective populations -- have gone to such great pains to let us know how little they think of us. Share a common currency and (eventually, they hope) a common defense? I sincerely hope I never live to see the day.
08:54 a.m.
Natalie Solent, a British blogger who writes for the excellent Biased BBC site as well as having her own blog, made me smile with this post:
[C]an I reassure you that Our Boys will go to war with some delicious sort of ginger-cum-Garibaldi biscuits in their rations. I have been sampling a 24-hour rat pack for various obscure reasons. It's a vegetarian one. Vegetarian military rations. They didn't have that option when I was in the OTC, I can tell you. You wanted to be a veggie baby-killing tool of the hegemonic forces of world capital in those in those days, you just had to be a hungry veggie baby-killing tool of the hegemonic forces of world capital and put up with it.
The irony is that this topic has for the first time truly galvanised a popular European identity. As Europeans pour out in their millions on demonstrations, there is a worthwhile common purpose - not dreary directives, but a sense of Europeanness. It is an identity built on deep difference from Bush's America.
Any identity built on hostility to others can change the object of its hostility as easily as a man changes his coat.
08:33 a.m.
From the BBC correspondents' blog:
Southern Iraq :: David Willis :: 1901GMT
I'm with US Marines who have been sent in here, along with British Marines, to secure oil wells. They are close to completing that mission.
This is the region which produces more than a half of Iraq's oil.
I've seen quite a few prisoners of war. I've seen several dozen being looked after by American soldiers and given food to eat.
A lot of people here are very pleased that Saddam Hussein has been attacked in this way.
One group of Iraqis waved at the American soldiers I was with and said "down with Saddam Hussein".
07:19 a.m.
Scenes from the Arab Street
07:17 a.m.
Jonah Goldberg, author of the piece I linked below, tackles the matter of anti-war demonstrators -- with particularly good points about those in countries not backing this liberation -- quite eloquently:
But however much contempt I have for the radical chic here at home, I have even more for the protesters abroad. At least those in America and Britain who take to the streets to stop the war are protesting actions by their own democratic governments. They can at least claim that America is acting against its own interests.
But these people in France, in Mexico, in Cairo, and elsewhere around the globe — these people have made an outrageous moral choice. Their protests are not couched in terms of national interest, even though their own governments are behaving exactly as they would have them behave...
Of all the wars and conflicts all around the globe, this is the one that has caused them to spill out onto the boulevards in rage. This is the one they've decided warrants human shields and boycotts. There were no human shields boarding buses to defend the Kurds or the Kuwaitis from Saddam Hussein — but they're falling over themselves for the opportunity to get in our way when we try to defend or liberate them. The useful idiots didn't rend their clothes and gnash their teeth when the Soviets invaded Kabul, but they were out in force when we liberated it. In short, these people don't hate war or care for the innocent nearly so much as they hate America.
Like it or not, war forces people to choose sides. If the vomiting protesters had had their way the United States would never have bombed Saddam's bunker. If they had their way, U.S. tanks would be turned around right now and we would apologize to Iraq, to France, and to the world for daring to shatter that glorious peace that allowed Saddam Hussein to keep the professional rapists' guild working overtime and the people of Safwan patting their empty bellies.
If the war goes well and the people of Iraq are saved, let the useful idiots cheer the liberation if they like. Let them applaud the alleviation of famine and disease should they feel so inclined. Indeed, let them claim all they like that they wanted all of these good things too. But don't let them forget that they never believed these things would be worth it if the price was letting America have its way.
06:49 a.m.
From the "You said it" files...On Tuesday:
Liberation reported that Dominique Dord, a deputy from the majority UMP party, said during Tuesday's assembly debate, "We would look really stupid if Iraqis applaud the arrival of Americans."
"No Saddam Hussein!" called one young man. "Bush!"
Another young man named Abdullah cheered the arriving Americans. "Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher."
An old woman, dressed all in black, hugged an American woman. And knelt at the feet of the Americans. A man pulled her away, sliding his finger across his throat in a signal not to make friends with the enemy.
"Americans very good," a man named Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free."
Some of the townspeople chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!" Others put makeshift white flags on their cars and trucks. And many simply patted their bellies in a sign of hunger.
These are all scenes from the liberation of Safwan, Iraq — a "poor, dirty, wrecked" town near the border with Kuwait. Before crowds of Iraqis, American Marines used their jeeps to pull down portraits of Saddam. Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein told the people of Safwan: "Saddam is done" and launched them in a cheer: "Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!"
An MP from my local area, Tony Banks (Labour, representing West Ham) is urging the coalition "to ensure that Baghdad's El-Zawra zoo is safeguarded and that when hostilities are over military vets will provide urgent assistance to the zoo and other organizations involved with animal welfare in Iraq."
06:15 a.m.
A year to the day after she was abducted on her way home from school by a still unknown assailant, Milly Dowler was laid to rest.
Milly’s family and friends were driven to the railway station in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. They then set off on the 600-yard walk towards her home. It was while making the journey that Milly vanished.
[...]
Her parents said: “The anniversary of Milly’s last day with us is a very poignant occasion. We feel it is right to mark it by laying her to rest.”
06:10 a.m.
Iraqi boyband Unknown to No One, discovered by Peter Whitehead (who also discovered, er, Radiohead), are apparently looking for fame in the UK. The piece I linked doesn't mention a date for the release of their first single, Hey Girl, but I'll be interested to see how they do.
05:43 a.m.
From the "Yeah, that makes sense" files: Alternet/LA Weekly is calling on a boycott of the Oscars because, as Jeff Jarvis puts it, "without the red carpet the anti-war stars are being robbed of their chance to fight the military industrial complex." And no, that's not a piss-take.
Afraid that the US and Britain will abandon them, the people of Safwan did not touch the portraits and murals of Saddam Hussein hanging everywhere. It was left to the marines to tear them down. It did not mean there was not heartfelt gladness at the marines' arrival. Ajami Saadoun Khlis, whose son and brother were executed under the Saddam regime, sobbed like a child on the shoulder of the Guardian's Egyptian translator. He mopped the tears but they kept coming.
"You just arrived," he said. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave."
In the words of Andrew Sullivan: "Sorry, guys, you see, twelve years ago, we got cold feet and abandoned you, and then there are these people called the French, and you see, they ... oh never mind. Welcome back to humanity. Welcome back from the grave."
"For a long time we've been saying: 'Let them come'," his wife, Zahara, said. "Last night we were afraid, but we said: 'Never mind, as long as they get rid of him, as long as they overthrow him, no problem'." Their 29-year-old son was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran.
Administrative note: in logging this stuff, I'm emphasising all of the evil shit Saddam Hussein has done to the Iraqi people, just in case anyone who reads this ever again dares to compare the likes of Tony Blair ("the devil's chaplain," in the words of rapper Ms Dynamite at the London anti-war march) and George W Bush (who's been likened to Hitler and railed against much more than Saddam Hussein has been at those anti-war marches) ever again. If you choose to make that comparison ever again, at least do it with the knowledge of how misguided and inappropriate -- not to mention dead fucking wrong -- you are. Harsh words? You bet: and richly deserved.
"He was a farmer, he had a car, he sold tomatoes, and we had a life that we were satisfied with," said Khlis. "He was in prison for a whole year, and I raised 75m dinars in bribes. It didn't work. The money was gone, and he was gone. They sent me a telegram. They gave me the body."
The marines rolled into the border town after a bombardment which left up to a dozen people dead. Residents gave different figures. A farmer, Haider, who knew one of the men killed, Sharif Badoun, said: "Killing some is worth it, to end the injustice and suffering." The men around him gave a collective hysterical laugh.
The injustice of tyranny was merged in their minds with the effects of sanctions. "Look at the way we're dressed!" said Haider, and scores of men held up their stained, holed clothes. "We are isolated from the rest of the world."
The marines took Safwan without loss, although a tank hit a mine. "They had to clear that route through. They found the way to punch through and about 10 Iraqi soldiers surrendered immediately," said Marine Sergeant Jason Lewis, from Denver, standing at a checkpoint at the entrance to the town where, minutes earlier, a comrade had folded a huge portrait of President Saddam and tucked it into his souvenir box.
The welcome, he admitted, had been cool. "At first they were a little hesitant," he said. "As you know, Saddam's a dictator, so we've got to reassure them we're here to stay - We tore down the Saddam signs to show them we mean business.
"Hopefully this time we'll do it right, and give these Iraqis a chance of liberty."
I can't help but wonder what those who march under banners reading "Not in My Name," having marked themselves as an opponent to the above, think when they read and see such things.
Someone on a messageboard I frequent actually posted that the liberation of Iraq made her "ashamed to be an American". I can't identify with that kind of self-hatred in the first place -- sure, take umbrage with your government's fuck-ups and do not live under the mistaken idea that your government is perfect or free from error, but this shame of being American seems to be the trendier, more acceptable usurper of white guilt -- and I really am curious as to how ashamed she feels when she reads about such scenes or sees them on television. I hope it's shame of herself for buying into the idea that the big, bad American hegemony is the enemy of the world, rather than those who would stuff her, head first or feet first and screaming, into a machine for shredding plastic by mere virtue of her American birthright.
04:56 a.m.
Heh. A reporter asked Donald Rumsfeld at the press conference today, "Why did we stray from the warplan?"
Rumsfeld's response: "The last I checked, YOU don't have the warplan...and I find comfort in that."
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien closed ranks with the United States against its critics yesterday, saying the Americans had the ''privilege and right'' to begin the military conflict with Iraq.
Mr. Chrétien, who had earlier said such a war cannot be justified, said the time to debate is over and he wished the Americans well...
Mr. Chrétien made the remarks days after announcing Canada would not send troops to Iraq.
He also moved to mute those who would criticize the United States, saying that to debate the war's merits now would give succour to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
02:39 a.m.
Salam Pax has attracted a lot of attention with his Baghdad-based weblog. Diane emailed Salam today about Uday Hussein's brain hemmorhage. The rest of the story is as follows:
He wrote me back:
look, the absolute biggest best most wanted brain-stuff-specialist (i am sure it has a name can't think of it now) is a neighbor of my cousin. he has been called and taken to a location outside baghdad, he called his family and said he can't come back tonight.
something has happened to someone.
In a subsequent update about the status of Saddam's blog (I'm reading that the internet is down in Iraq now, which would make it impossible for Salam to post but would leave his site up as long as his North American host, Blogspot, remains functional), Diane says:
I cannot not not not get over the irony of this war and how we are all communicating with one another. I am a sort-of-hawk (at least, conditionally pro-war), and I am communicating with a Baghdadi from New York City; an Israeli puts up a mirror site for this Iraqi; the guy in Baghdad wishes an Israeli woman and her family well while he is about to be shocked and awed by my country's unparalleled ability to wage war; she puts up a website from the IDF Home Command for him to download a PDF survival guide in Arabic.
As hundreds of coalition troops swept in here just after dawn, the heartache of a town that has felt the hardest edges of Saddam Hussein's rule seemed to burst forth, with villagers running into the streets to celebrate in a kind of grim ecstasy, laughing and weeping in long guttural cries.
"Oooooo peace be upon you peace be upon you peace you oooooo" cried Zahra Khafi, a 68-year-old mother of five, to a group of American and British visitors who came to the town shortly after Mr. Hussein's army had appeared to melt away. "I'm not afraid of Saddam anymore."
Two years ago, Ms. Khafi said, her 39-year son, Masood, was murdered by Mr. Hussein's henchmen, for a crime no greater than devotion to a brand of Islam out of official favor.
Yes, the same Saddam Hussein who so many people are saying is "no worse than George W Bush". It really does beggar belief.
As Ms. Khafi told her story, her joy gave way to gloom, and she began to weep, and then to moan, and finally she pleaded with her visitors to stay and protect her.
"Should I be afraid?" Ms. Khafi said, mumbling and wiping her eyes. "Is Saddam coming back?"
If feeling good about this is wrong, I don't want to be right.
02:05 a.m.
How's this for a shitter? From the Wall Street Journal:
Remember back in December, when Rep. Charles Rangel of New York proposed reinstating the draft? His stated rationale, as we noted, was egalitarian: "A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military," he told CNN. Forcing the affluent to serve would establish a principle of "shared sacrifice."
It turns out Rangel doesn't think very much of those who actually are making the sacrifice of serving in our volunteer military. This morning Rangel was one of only 11 House members to vote "no" on a nonbinding resolution "expressing the support and appreciation of the nation for the president and the members of the armed forces who are participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom." (The Senate unanimously approved a similar resolution yesterday.)
This was not a pro-war resolution, just a show of support for the troops.
Nice, eh? I'm ashamed to say that Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Dennis Kucinich, Representatives from my home state of Ohio, also refused to vote in support of this resolution.
It gets worse.
By our count, 23 members of the Congressional Black Caucus--a clear majority--voted either "no" or "present" on the resolution. This goes a long way in explaining why so few black candidates are able to win statewide office in America. Racial gerrymandering produces districts that elect black candidates who are so far to the left that they cannot even bring themselves to endorse a simple expression of patriotism during wartime.
That said...
One encouraging sign: Denise Majette of Georgia and Artur Davis of Alabama both voted "yes." Both are black Democrats who defeated far-left anti-Semites (Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hillard, respectively) in primaries last year.
The United States has told Turkey it would not welcome a large unilateral Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, where Kurdish authorities are suspicious of Turkish motives.
And in the words of Stephen Green, from whom I got this link:
Having pissed away overly-generous offers of US aid, and taxed American goodwill, Turkey will now have to pay for their mini invasion out of their own pockets.
And in the end, they still won't control Kurdistan or the Mosul oil fields. Serves 'em right.
01:33 a.m.
21 March, 2003
Oh, man. The French Embassy in the US has a truly hilarious feature on their website about the strength of French-American relations. Try and keep a straight face, here:
Based on solidarity that has never failed, from the battlefields of Yorktown to the beaches of Normandy and through all the crises of the past half century...
Yeah, I'm already laughing, too.
This community of values is today our most precious asset enabling our two countries together to address the important common challenges facing them, foremost among them terrorism. After the horrific attacks that so wounded America, the very deep solidarity between France and the United States illustrates once again the lesson of our common history--that whenever the essential is at issue, whenever the values underlying our civilization are threatened, our two countries are naturally at the other's side in the same cause. As President Chirac said when he came to the United States a few days after the September 11 attacks, "France will be in the front line in the combat against international terrorist networks, shoulder to shoulder with America and its ally for ever."
Yeah, my laughter has turned to disgust.
I love France, and the French people I've encountered in my visits there (and here in the UK, as well as my French relatives) are lovely people. But their president is an asshole of epic proportions. (I understand that a lot of them feel the same way about Britain and America and their respective leaders. So I guess we're all even.)
I just added another link to the sidebar, this one to Biased BBC, which has taken on the not inconsiderable job of logging the shocking and saddening amount of spin that this supposedly objective media outlet continues to put on world events.
Just skimming through the incidents that have been catalogued, this one made me quite furious. If all of the horseshit I hear and read about the "Kosher Conspiracy" in the media was true, then the BBC would have absolutely no motivation for removing only the words "Jewish" and "antisemitism" from its (supposedly) verbatim quote of the National Union of Teachers' statement on bullying in this climate of war.
As Sally Foster (whose complaint to the BBC resulted in the piece being edited to reflect the actual words of the NUT) put it in her letter, the BBC doesn't seem to think that Jewish students and teachers are worthy of mention, to the point where any reference to them must be deleted. And you don't need me to point out the chilling implications of that particular slight.
The US does not want Turkish forces to enter Iraq, fearing possible clashes with the local Kurdish forces.
So much for the US not giving a shit about the Kurds, eh?
Meanwhile, ABC News is reporting that:
[T]he 1st Marines moved north into Iraq for nine hours nonstop last night. He said that they encountered Iraqi army positions with white sheets hanging and draped everywhere. The Marines didn't slow down - they just ran through them and kept going. Mike said their orders were not to stop to collect Iraqis who were not resisting. That may account for the apparent low number of actual prisoners taken; they've been told to hold in place, and we'll worry about them later.
5:17 PM News report: Hans Blix admits that he would have never have found all the WMD. Thanks, Hans. Much obliged. I’m guessing that he was paid by the week, not by the discovery; if we’d given him a bonus for Finding Stuff, and the bonus exceeded what he would have made in a year of desultory squinting, we might have had the material breach in week one.
Here are Blix's comments. At least 50 SCUDs still unaccounted for, too. Which is nice.
06:15 p.m.
So far, however, there is no indication that the Iraqi population at large is resisting the allied forces. At Safwan, another town in the southeast, Iraqis waved in celebration as members of the 1st Marine Division hauled down giant portraits of Saddam Hussein. "We're very happy... Saddam Hussein is a butcher," said a man in the back of a pickup truck, identifying himself only as Abdullah. A woman fell at the feet of the Americans and embraced them, touching their knees, the Associated Press reported.
Immoral and unjust, my ass.
06:12 p.m.
Another must-read is an interview on the PBS programme The News Hour with Jim Lehrer with John Burns of the (stridently anti-war) New York Times, who is on the ground in Baghdad:
GWEN IFILL: John Burns, so good to have you with us. Tell us, what is the mood tonight on the streets of Baghdad?
JOHN BURNS: Well, you would imagine there is a great deal of apprehension. The city is quite extraordinarily quiet. It has been, in fact, since about noon on Wednesday as people headed out to country in the hundreds of thousands one suspects, all hunkered down in their basements, and a good deal of prayer, a good deal of solicitation from foreigners of insider knowledge, as if we had any, as to when the timing of the attack would come.
But along with all of this apprehension, I think America should know that there is also a good deal of anticipation. Iraqis have suffered beyond I think the common understanding in the United States from the repression of the past 30 years here. And many, many Iraqis are telling us now-- not always in the whispers that we only heard in the past, but now in quite candid conversations-- that they are waiting for America to come and bring them liberty.
GWEN IFILL: They are actually anticipating... eagerly anticipating war?
JOHN BURNS: It's very hard, though, for anybody to understand this. It can only be understood in terms of the depth of repression here, and it has to be said that this is not universal, of course. Having traveled throughout Baghdad in the last few hours, I can tell that you there are occasions when people are angry-- an old woman selling vegetables -- somebody pulling up alongside me in a car with a Kalashnikov who made a big show of snapping a magazine into the Kalashnikov in a most menacing way. There are, of course, people who, because they are loyalists of the regime or out of fear or out of suspicion of America's motives, don't want this war at all. And we don't know how numerous they are, and we also don't know... still don't know, given the nature of this closed society, how numerous are the others.
All I can tell you is that-- and every reporter who is currently here will attest to this-- that the most extraordinary experience of the last few days has been a sudden breaking of the ice here with people in every corner of life coming forward to tell us that they understand what America is about in this. They are very, very fearful, of course, of errant bombing, of damage to Iraqi infrastructure, and they are very concerned about the kind of governance... the American military governance that they will come under afterwards.
GWEN IFILL: Let me ask you...
JOHN BURNS: But there is absolutely... can I just say there is absolutely no doubt, no doubt that there are many, many Iraqis who see what is about to happen here as the moment of liberation.
Wow. This comprehensive timeline of the events in the UN leading up to this current military action -- from 1991 right up to the present -- is not to be missed. A must-study for anyone wishing to be informed on this matter.
In perusingthis story on the North Korean media's silence over the war in Iraq, a quote on the sidebar caught my eye:
"The U.S. is the only ally providing Tokyo with deterrent power against any foreign country that could threaten regional security, such as North Korea, and the Japanese people should never forget it."
--Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, stating one of the reasons for his support of U.S. action against Iraq.
So they're not just supporting the US because they like Levi's, as some have been silly enough to suggest.
05:40 a.m.
Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, claimed that in the first six months of last year France exported goods worth $212.5m (£135m) to Iraq. Germany exported goods worth $203.8m. In the same period Britain exported goods worth $27.8m.
[...]
"We interpret resolution 661 very strongly. We interpret that to mean that it is illegal to do other than maintain what is there [in terms of exports for the oil industry]. Clearly the French and the Germans have done more than that."
I believe that is what is commonly referred to as an understatement.
03:22 a.m.
Jacques Chiracvetoed the mere mention of UNSC Resolution 1441 (y'know, the one France voted for) at last night's EU summit in Brussels. "You are always surprised when people don't want a reference to an unanimous decision of the UN," said a Downing Street spokesman.
And I can't help but snort a bit over this:
[Blair] and [Chirac] were seated diagonally opposite each other over tuna carpaccio and roast lamb.
But their body language was hostile. As talks began, Mr Blair chatted amicably with Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, George Bush's other loyal European ally.
President Chirac huddled with Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor and fellow leader of the anti-war camp, but kept his distance from Mr Blair.
[T]he UN diplomacy of the run-up to war finally came down to a conflict between Europe's oldest adversaries, England and France. As at Agincourt in 1415.
[...]
The Chiraco-Putinesque idea - if idea is not too dignified a word - is that American might is, by definition, dangerous. Jacques Chirac believes that it's unhealthy for any single country to have so much power, but it's particularly dangerous if that country happens to be America (rather than, shall we say, France). A unipolar world is therefore unacceptable. France's mission is to construct an alternative pole. That counter pole is Europe, which, in Gaullist geography, includes Russia. So not just Europe but Eurasia. The diplomatic battle over the last few weeks, with the Franco-German-Russian (-Chinese) continental alliance pitted against the American-British-Spanish (-Australian) maritime one, made me think again of the war of super blocs in George Orwell's 1984. He called them Eurasia and Oceania.
The Chiraco-Putinesque vision is half right and therefore all wrong. It's true that it's unhealthy for any single power - however democratic and benign - to be as preponderant as the United States is today. But for France to make common cause with a semi-democratic Russia (the butcher of Chechnya) and a wholly non-democratic China in a diplomatic campaign which brought temporary succour to Saddam Hussein is not the brightest way to advance towards a multipolar world. Anyway, you never will unite Eurasia against the United States. As we've seen, even in this crisis roughly half the governments of Europe put transatlantic solidarity before their grave doubts about the wisdom of the Bush administration's approach to Iraq.
So which idea is best? In Garton Ash's estimation, Blairism:
Blair's idea is that we should re-create a larger version of the cold war, transatlantic west, in response to the new threats we face. What he calls the "coming together" of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism should frighten us as much as the Red Army used to. Europe and America must stick together to defeat it. Yes, Europeans should worry about US unilateralism, but, he told the Commons, "the way to deal with it is not rivalry but partnership. Partners are not servants but neither are they rivals". Last September, Europe should have said to the US "with one voice" that it would help Washington confront the dual threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, provided the US went down the UN route and re-started the Middle East peace process between Israel and Palestine. Whatever happens now, Europe and America should work together as partners and, wherever possible, they should do so through the international institutions of the post-1945 world.
From Tim Garton Ash's mouth to our world leaders' ears.
01:49 a.m.
Some of my favourite people are against this war. One of them really cracks my shit up when he talks about MTV's war coverage:
While Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather sat there in their suits, John Norris was in his cleanest black t-shirt with a raggedy looking flannel shirt over it.
John tried his best to "rap" about this war with Generation Y or whatever, and failed miserably.
So he had his musician friends call in to give their opinions.
First, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and now Audioslave.
Of COURSE Tom is going to be anti-war. I knew that before the guy opened his mouth.
He had a lot of good points. Like he said "This is not America's war...it's George Bush's war".
According to the polls I've seen, 2 out of 3 people support the president and think we need a war.
Tom hasn't seen those polls. Tom's convinced that everyone in America is against this war.
He's also convinced that someone stole his stash and he's suspecting that rat fink Zach de la Roche guy or however you spell his name.
[...]
Then Fred Durst from Limp Biskit called in. You could see John Norris' black jeans get damp from the excited droplets of pee that he was shedding.
Fred was bummed, man. Totally bummed. He...he....man. He was just really bummed.
That's it. That was Fred's commentary. You could tell he was really wanting to say "For the remaining 13 Americans out there that haven't heard yet ... I banged Britney Spears. Yes, I'm 13 years older than her and it's a bit creepy that I'd be trolling around Britney's house, waiting for her to spread 'em, but I nailed the bitch. Boy Howdy. It was good too. Yeah, she's walking around saying it never happened, but it did. And this war thing? It's got me totally bummed."
Thanks Fred. Found a guitarist for your band yet?
01:31 a.m.
Cherchez la différence: The Sunpublished another special edition blasting Jacques Chirac in Paris yesterday. Obviously this is more of a PR stunt for The Sun than a true attempt to get a message across to Parisians -- God knows I've never seen anyone in Paris or any other part of France reading The Sun (except for me, at a café in Sarlat this summer, desperate for news on Milly Dowler's disappearance and which C-list slebs had been saying dumb shit and wearing ugly clothes) -- but one quote from it did stick out:
Everyone knows that once the brave Allies have risked their lives liberating Iraq, Chirac will be first in line sniffing for lucrative business deals to rebuild this tragic nation.
Oh, silly Sun, you're a bit late and have the wrong guy (though I'm sure Chirac will catch up soon enough). Dominique De Villepin was already on French TV last night, before the war officially started, in a snit as he insisted that France be let in on Iraqi reconstruction projects.
01:05 a.m.
Salma Hayek is clearly suffering from an irony deficiency. Either that or she truly doesn't realise that Dame Edna Everage is a satirical character, in which case she's just rather dim.
12:59 a.m.
Live from Baghdad, Salam Pax is still blogging. And while he's at it, he points out yet another fuck-up by the BBC from last night: the airwaves were not taken over by US broadcast as the BBC reported, and the three state broadcasters were still in operation.
12:30 a.m.
StrategyPage ("News about Military Blunders") has some interesting figures from SIPRI, the Swedish disarmament group, on exactly who armed Saddam Hussein, and who his creditors are. This is the latest in a long line of such revelations -- so much so that calling them "revelations" no longer seems appropriate -- and if you've been doing your homework on this stuff, it's not surprising in the least:
Despite information published during the 1980s about where Iraq was getting its weapons from, the myth that Iraq was armed by the United States continues to survive. In fact, the major arms supplier for Iraq was the Soviet Union. And Iraq still owes the Russians over five billion dollars for arms delivered and not paid for. France and China are owed lesser amounts. Below are best estimates of the dollar amount of weapons sold to Iraq between 1973 and 1990.
Soviet Union- Over 25 billion dollars
France and China – at least five billion dollars each
Czechoslovakia and Poland – about two billion dollars each
Brazil, Egypt and Romania – between $500 million and one billion dollars each
Denmark- Over $200 million
Libya and the United States, less than a quarter of a million dollars each
Someone emailedGlenn Reynolds about the anti-war protests in San Francisco today:
I had some problems getting to work today. A few people (not a lot) blocked some city streets to protest the war. Just a few minutes ago, the whole group of protesters (maybe one hundred and fifty) walked down the middle of Second Street trying to put up barricades by rolling garbage bins and dragging newspaper boxes into the street. They spilled a lot of "Bay Guardians" - a far left free daily -- in the process. The police followed behind, cleaning up after them, but not really arresting anyone. Really, what would be the point?
I watched the proceedings from my office window with a co-worker. He's a strong Democrat and he opposes the war. Looking down at the pathetic-looking group and their shenanigans, he shook his head and said "It makes me want to support Bush."
Someone needs to tell the protesters that trying to shut down San Francisco, the city that loves France, is not going to have any effect of America's foreign policy. All they're doing is pissing off their choir.
12:02 a.m.
Another noteworthy point from Lt Cl Collins' remarks:
Warning that the troops were very likely to face chemical or biological weapons, he said: "It is not a question of if, it's a question of when. We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself. If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack."
"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.
[...]
[I]f you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory. Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there.
It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.
If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.
The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please."
11:50 p.m.
An intriguing theory about "shock and awe" (man, do I already hate that term):
I think "shock & awe" is a deliberate deception, one that the Bush administration encouraged passively, and was even willing to suffer some PR casualties for... If Iraq falls quickly, and a massive bombardment of Baghdad is unnecessary, they can turn around and tell the world "..look, we dropped the whole idea of shock & awe, just 'cause you guys said so, and looked so darn cute protesting all night.." Anti-war pacifists would be silenced (temporarily), and the long-term fallout would be minimal to non-existent
Sun Tzu is smiling down at his newest disciples...
We shall see, shan't we?
11:41 p.m.
Some interesting signage at an anti-war protest today in San Francisco:
"Iraq continues to deny any involvement in training al Qaeda operatives, and Pakistani intelligence very effectively, and quickly, suppressed evidence of these clandestine meetings after September 11. But erasing the fingerprints cannot change the irrefutable fact that Ricin and other chemicals first found in al Qaeda's Afghan safe houses after years of covert collaborations with Iraq inside Pakistan and Afghanistan are now being repeatedly uncovered in al Qaeda affiliated terror cells throughout Europe.
Interestingly, the discoveries of Ricin in Europe come after Zarqawi visited at least one of the cells in early November last year. And not just any cell. He was allegedly transported by well-paid Albanian mercenaries [from Iraq] through southern Turkey via the Balkans into France — that's right, France — where he spent the month of Ramadan teaching Algerian radicals how to make the toxic poison for which there is no known antidote. French police interrogations have revealed that the same Algerians arrested in Paris traveled to Barcelona, where later another al Qaeda cell was rooted out.
Traces of Ricin apparently found in the Paris apartment of the Algerian cell demonstrate with great clarity how Zarqawi's presence in Europe enabled the export and distribution of formulas and ingredients through al-Qaeda's nebulous global network to endpoints for deployment while giving Saddam plausible deniability of any involvement."
The first Paris ricin discovery was kept quiet by the French government during the UN negotiations. Ijaz tried to tell everyone of the find and the Iraqi source at the time, but as usual, everyone ignored yet another Iraqi terror connection. Hopefully the French learn to enjoy ricin with egg on their face.
