03:59 p.m., Friday, November 2, 2001
How not to win a war. It bears quoting here.

...'once the initial attacks had achieved air superiority, the bombing did not stop. It intensified. Once al-Qaida's camps were destroyed, the US simply expanded its hunt for targets. Despite boasts about precision strikes, reports of collateral damage quickly emerged. This toll has since been rising sharply. Once Afghanistan's skies belonged to the US, and the country was diplomatically and physically besieged, the long-brewing humanitarian crisis did not become any easier to address. As the bombs fell and Taliban fury grew, it suddenly became much harder.

'At the same time, other expected types of military action failed to materialise. Grabbing Osama bin Laden - still the war's primary objective - turns out to be too difficult. They say he just cannot be found. This shocking intelligence failure has also hampered much-anticipated plans to mount search-and-destroy missions or insert special forces. Suggestions that the US would create bridgeheads or seize airfield bases, such as Bagram, have come to nothing so far. Even while military commanders talked of a new kind of war, they were actually pursuing the old, discredited kind.'

Read the rest. And have a good weekend.
[by Beth]

03:53 p.m., Friday, November 2, 2001
I've been convinced that this would turn out to be the case since the anthrax panic started. Don't go taking Cipro indiscriminately, peeps!
[by Beth]

03:48 p.m., Friday, November 2, 2001
DON'T LET THE GOVERNMENT ABUSE YOUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. Don't make it easy for them.
[by Beth]

03:36 p.m., Friday, November 2, 2001
Two things left over from yesterday:

The Times of India praises RAWA.

Is the best use of federal officer's time right now to raid the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Centre - 'the body which supplies medicinal marijuana to a variety of ill people in LA' with the backing of the local council? It works with the local sherriff's department for crying out loud!
[by Beth]

01:58 p.m., Thursday, November 1, 2001
Oh for Christ's sake. Now we're dropping leaflets on Afghanistan? Leaflets that will only get civilians in trouble with the Taleban if they're caught looking at them.

And they quote Mohammed Hanifi, a Taliban commander: '"The burka has been in our country for generations. It didn't just come with the Taliban. They are insulting our culture and our tradition."'

Nope, it didn't. But the Taleban and the Northern Alliance have made it suicide for women not to wear them. And their repression of women has nothing to do with Islam. Maybe those leaflets do insult their culture and tradition, but not for the reasons he means.
[by Beth]

03:50 p.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001
This is decidedly odd.
[by Beth]

03:38 p.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001
'There is blood on our hands but the Taleban are worse'? What do you think that excuses? I don't just want us to back out, I want us to work to make things better. And FEMINISTS HAVE BEEN ON THE TALEBAN'S CASE FOR YEARS, DAMMIT.

I'm sick of this 'fight violence with violence' mentality.
[by Beth]

03:19 p.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Bin Laden has delegated authority for new terrorist strikes by al-Qa'ida.

Further proof that military strikes are pointless. Even if we kill him now we're not safe. We have to concentrate our efforts in other areas, to other ways of preventing further attacks.
[by Beth]

02:14 p.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001
I just can't help thinking, and comparing the situation to that in Northern Ireland. There are some cold-blooded, heartless terrorists there too, meshed into the scenery and the families and the day-to-day life of the people. Even after the IRA ceasefire the first time round, violence in Northern Ireland didn't go away, it just switched from bombs and guns to kneecappings in the street and fist fights. But did we bomb them? Do we bomb ETA, or any of the other places on mainland Europe that have? Or do we just bomb the places we see as backwards, the places that don't have English as a first language, the places that are run down anyway. The places that we feel isolated from, so we don't have to look into the eyes of that person on the news who's just lost their entire family in a badly aimed air attack and feel responsible for their pain. Like that article I linked earlier today, I want 'a police operation conducted under the auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community as a whole, against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted down and brought before an international court'. I want them jailed, not dead. Anything else would be hypocritical.

I want to wear my white poppy, but they've not arrived yet. I want to mourn the dead and show them my gratitude, but I'm against war and always will be, and I think it's important to show that too.
[by Beth]

10:38 a.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001
THIS IS WHY I'M AGAINST THIS 'WAR'.

'Sir Michael said the administration had made a "terrible and irreversible" mistake in calling its anti-terrorism campaign a war.

'It had granted al-Qaida a status it did not deserve and created overwhelming public demand for military action.

'"Many people would have preferred a police operation conducted under the auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community as a whole, against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted down and brought before an international court," Sir Michael said.'
[by Beth]

01:32 p.m., Tuesday, October 30, 2001
Differing opinions. All very well, but as the article says - how do you celebrate cultural diversity when some of the cultures involved think our culture to be hedonistic amoral trash?
[by Beth]

01:05 p.m., Tuesday, October 30, 2001
This is basically the obituary of just one man killed in the war.

'"You can only fight a person who is attacking you. He thought that every civilian should help the Afghans because they are being attacked. But we are not extremists or terrorists as the media say."'
[by Beth]

12:43 p.m., Tuesday, October 30, 2001
I just don't believe the sheer stupidity/idiocity/*insert appropriatewordhere* of this. The cluster bombs (dubious that they can be justified anyway) and aid packages dropped over Afghanistan are both bright yellow and of a similar size. Easy to confuse? You bet. But it's OK, because the US has been broadcasting messages to let Afghans know that the food packages are rectangular.

I also found out from this article that 'Cluster bombs are canisters which break open on impact with the ground to scatter, smaller so-called "bomblets". It is estimated that these bomblets have a dud rate of about 5 per cent and can lie buried "live" in the ground for years until something detonates them. They have been condemned by various humanitarian organisations for the indiscriminate way they can injure civilians.'

Yeah, it's terrible that they haven't yet invented a bomb that doesn't kill civilians that happen to get in its way.
[by Beth]

04:55 p.m., Monday, October 29, 2001
My update list can now be joined at the bottom of this page. If you're still having difficulties (Marjorie and Erin!) email me and I'll add you myself.
[by Beth]

04:37 p.m., Monday, October 29, 2001
An article about exaggeration, its moral position and whether it blunts messages to people. It's interesting. Read it, and keep it in mind while watching the news. The important stuff is important enough to hold your attention even without the exaggeration.
[by Beth]

04:28 p.m., Monday, October 29, 2001
According to the FBI and CIA, it's unlikely that the anthrax attacks are related to bin Laden's Qaida network. They are probably the work of US extremeists.
[by Beth]

04:04 p.m., Monday, October 29, 2001
This will be a long war. The war against terrorism part might even last fifty years, like the war against communism. And this article talks about the ISI, Pakistan's secret intelligence service, and how the Taleban might be more firmly in place than we might like to believe - as I posted last week.
[by Beth]

03:57 p.m., Monday, October 29, 2001
Immigrants to the UK and refugees may have to take citizenship classes before they can become British citizens. This would supposedly 'promote a positive induction for those who settle in Britain' - important because in some parts of the UK society has apparently become segregated on ethnic background.

Oh, and to make sure that the immigrants know that 'practices such as forced marriages and genital mutilation are not acceptable in Britain'. Maybe I'm naive, but I think that most immigrants know that this is the case, and it's not going to have the slightest bit of effect on the few who want to do it.
[by Beth]