Rummy in a spin
This is just such a great clip of Donald Rumsfeld saying he never said Saddam was an imminent threat - then having his statements of those very words read back to him on US prime time. Great to see him floundering in the face of some simple journalism. Enjoy.....
Top Secret Reality TV
My favourite story of the week that I first heard on the radio this morning: The Israeli military has accidentally broadcast top-secret missile tests to anyone with a satellite dish. A recording of the transmission apparently includes operators in the missile silo passing passwords around happily claiming no one can listen when in fact the test was being broadcast across the Middle East where these missile could be aimed. Some technician looks like he will need to be making himself scarce.
Answers please, Mr Bush
Any chance that Michael Moore's new book "Dude, Where's my country?", will lead to at least a small puncture wound in the rhino skin that shields the US Administration from acknowledging what the rest of the world has known for a long time?
The Guardian published the 2nd excerpt today.
WMD?
I know the search for those supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is getting a bit desperate but - US Defence Threat Reduction Agency spies on Whiskey distillery through the distillery's own web cam because making whiskey is almost like making chemical weapons?
"do as we say and not as we do"
Looking on from the outside war in Iraq always seemed like a bad idea. But its not often you get dissent from inside the ranks of the US army that reaches the media. Read why Tim Predmore serving in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division belives operation 'Iraqi Freedom' is a lie not worth dying for.
Democratic propaganda
Enlightening article by Brian Eno on how western propaganda has been disguised as a democratic process. I wonder how come many are still blind and keep believing the lies told us by our countries.
Best quote is by someone in the article who says that during the russian Breznev era there was also propaganda but the difference was that "they knew it was propaganda". Now, instead, we still believe in fairy tales.
War games
I feel bad for having neglected the blog for so long, I'll try to make it up to you all, especially to Tom and Tracy who, seemingly enjoying it, kept high the standards of the entries.
Now, onto the war games business. I'm not talking about the mother-of-all-the-war-games, but those games that now fill the shelves of video game retailers. Let me tell you, it's disgusting.
Although sometimes I feel the geek lust of purchasing a Playstation, I'm scared by the use I or, even worse, my son can make of it. It was fun at the beginning when Castle Wolfenstein (no link, figure it out yourself) came out, a novelty, now probably half of the games released have some kind of war theme.
Some might say that even Space Invaders was a war game, but at least was dealing with something completely unreal, now war games are trying to be way too realistic and actual.
As someone properly said in a comment on the last ink: "This just takes it to a whole new level of war porn. We ain't seen nothing yet."
Again, disgusting.
"What napalm? - not us gov"
US army uses napalm in Iraq, reporter reports it, Pentagon denies it, soldiers confirm use, Pentagon squirms. Sounds very familar.....
World gone mad
Everyone knows that summer always turns up some strange stories - this weeks classic is the very real plan from the Pentagon to bet on terror stocks. Maybe the world hasn't gone mad but someone at the Pentagon definately has!
Nuke pills
Silly me! I forgot to remind our team in Iraq to bring their Nuke pills with them. What's this??? Read on.
Well it seems that Potassium iodide (KI) could help in case of radiation exposure, if you're not blown up with everything around you obviously. The text on the link bewares that the pills "this may not protect you from the radiation of a terrorist "dirty bomb" made of spent nuclear waste". Obviously.
I decided to go further and it just got better as soon as I saw that the link to the pills company goes to the domain NukePills.com, how cool is that? Plenty of info there: a report on Chernobyl; a map of the US nuke reactors and, to know more, three nice links:
- Nuclear blast mapper
- Nuclear power plant demostration
- The Atlas of Nuclear Waste Routes
A must read is also the Nuclear Power Plant emergency preparedness, which informs us to bring cash and credit cards in our bunker, because maybe you'll still want to trade a piece of bread for your Mastercard.
Take the pill Sara! Take the blue pill!!!!!!
Who da man? Wolfowitz da man!!
Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil
The thing I usually hate most of wars are the lies behind them. But listening to the words of people like Wolfowitz (who cannot be considered a pacifist anyway) should give a better picture of the reasons why wars start, end, and continue somewhere else. Besides these info can just help all of us to take a decision for the next elections...
Update: it seems the article contained wrong information, please refer to the comments in this entry for more info.
However, although the accuracy of the quotes might have been wrong, I'm so glad to see that so much interest has been raised about something that we all already knew but wasn't actually in the public yet.
Dick's blog
It's good to finally see politicians talk openly to the public. Cheney's Blog is a true example of transparency, methinks. Looking forward to see Georgy's one.
ACT: May 14, Operation Strangelove
1) Invite your friends for May 14
2) Purchase/Rent the movie
3) Buy wine and, for once, buy decent ingredients for a proper pasta
4) Greet the friends in your home with the sentence: "Peace, dude!"
5) Have a nice dinner, talking about how the world would have been a better place if it wasn't for people like Bush
6) Prepare a good espresso
7) Sit on the couch
8) Take your purchased/rented copy of "Doctor Strangelove" DVD (better than VHS) and put it in your DVD player
9) Think for a moment about your children
10) "Enjoy" the movie
Operation Strangelove: Peace Is Our Profession
And remember: "War is too important to be left to politicians."
You must be joking!
I think this Norwegian parliamentarian takes something I'm still unaware of... Bush & Blair as nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize? Right.
Quality Spam
Heard about the Greenpeace "Most Wanted" Playing cards? Played the Nuclear Solitaire game? Can't afford to bid for one of the last remaining original decks on ebay? Then it's time to read this Quality Spam I'm drafting at Gillo's suggestion, based on the GENUINE SPAM that went out offering the Saddam deck!
Get the Iraqi Greenpeace "Most-Wanted" Deck of Playing Cards for only $5.99 the cost of becoming a 'card carrying' member of Greenpeace.
Get yourself a piece of history TODAY; show your patriotism sanity and support American troops the Americans who exercised their right to free speech and stood up to say no to war, and the wonderful job they did to keep America safe from looking like a homogenous land of head-up-their-butt Islam-despising Neocon Hawks.. This offer is valid while quantities last.
This is a regulation size real deck of playing cards, printed on Casino-Quality stock. Don't be fooled by imitations! jingoist chest-thumping versions!
These are the same cards featured on the nightly news. Now you can own the one true collector's item from Operation Iraqi Freedom the Peace Movement that isn't going away. It's the same 55-card deck that was given to our troops delegates at the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in Geneva, featuring Iraq's 52 "Most-Wanted" leaders the world's known possessors of nuclear weapons, and that is responsible for capturing about 7 publicly exposing the hypocrisy of these promise-breaking, wolf-in-sheep's clothing, violence-promoting, unilateralist evil doers.
Don't wait on this one! We can barely keep them in stock! Set of 4 6 & 8 quantity-priced decks also available. Buy them for poker night playing in jail with your fellow dissenters or to give out to your friends and family! The item makes an unforgettable great gift for anyone anyone except maybe a right-wing police officer, government official, or other defender of American freedom who might throw you in jail for being unpatriotic.
BE A PART OF AMERICAN HISTORY THE RISE OF THE SECOND SUPERPOWER OF PUBLIC OPINION, NOW!
The Smoking Gun! The holy host and fries!
We found the weapons of mass destruction that the US and UK couldn't find. Silly buggers, they were just looking in the wrong place.
Meanwhile, back in the real world where things make sense, McDonalds is sponsoring the Pope's next tour of Spain. Pay 28 Euros to see His Holiness through a pair of binoculars, and you get a free McDonald's lunch and dinner. No word yet on the possibility of Holy Meals, but the ticket does come with a backpack, a "You will be my witnesses" cap, a prayer book, rosary, and a CD, all paid for by a generous grant from the hamburger heathens.
Our pal Max at Karmabanque watched McDonald's stock jump 5% on the announcement of the new alliance between the world's biggest religion and the world's biggest fast-food chain. Dividing the market capitalisation that represents by the number of Catholics worldwide, he reckons the Church has set thegoing price for a human soul at about .78 cents.
Now what? Here's what...
Great. It's been 14 years since the United States produced a new plutonium weapons core, now they're gearing up for as many as 500 a year by 2018. But hey, in a world where America is making itself popular by walking away from multilateral treaties, sabre rattling at everybody and their dog, and creating a new "we do as we please" world order, 10,000 Nukes is certainly not enough.
Predictable
And now what? I dunno if I'm more scared or pi@#ed off.
Wanna job?
Apart from complaining that they haven't been nominated for a Webby - unlike us, Woohoo! found this cushy job ad on Metafilter - bloody frightening!. All you need is US citizenship, a truncheon and to be able to speak English. You don't need to know the place where the job is based cos they give you a map. Apparently you don't need any skills such as an appreciation for the culture, sensitivity to the current situation or speaking the local language to be able to do the job.
Bye bye Baghdad
When the Red cross decides to suspend the operations in Baghdad, it makes me wonder how terrible must be the situation there if an organisation like that considers it " too dangerous to continue". But I also wonder how many other NGOs will keep staying there, doing an incredible work that we won't know about...
Peace action in Australia
To voice public opposition to the war, two Greenpeace activists attached themselves to the HMAS Sydney to prevent it from departing for Iraq. Read more.
It is amazing how much the conservative Australian media has twisted the story, but what is even scarier are the public's comments. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a comments section asking, "What do you think of the Greenpeace anti-war protest that stopped HMAS Sydney today? " The opportunity for comments have closed, but take a look anyway.
War crimes
This requires Flash, so apologies for those who cannot see it. It's a movie made by Eric Blumrich about the horrors of war and how civilian casualties are the real victims of wars. I don't care about who's right or wrong, I don't care how "intelligent" or quick a war can be, I just don't like it and I never will.
A week in the war
Having spent more time avoiding mainstream coverage tainted by patriotic and 'our boys' bias two things caught my attention. First was my quote of the week from Arundhati Roy:
"It may well be that if Saddam's regime falls there will be dancing on the streets of Basra. But then, if the Bush regime were to fall, there would be dancing on the streets the world over."
Second was a cartoon that made me smile anyway -
Rumsfeld to media - "Don't worry everything is going exactly to plan!"
Two generals in the background -
"What does he mean everythings going to plan?"
"Ahh yes, he means everything going according to the 'under no circumstances admit it's not going to plan' plan"
We meme what we say...
Gee whizzakers, something that came out of my keyboard and landed among the Greenpeace cyberactivist community is being cited by The Register in an article about memes.
Andrew Orlowski reports what he believes to be the first documented case of "Googlewash." Like greenwash, "googlewash" is the twisting of a powerful piece of language into a meaningless, neutered dollop of truth-free noise.
An example of greenwash would be Dow Chemical, the makers of Agent Orange and the folks who won't take responsibility for cleaning up the Bhopal disaster, stating on their website that "protecting people and the environment is part of everything we do and every decision we make." It's also called bullshit.
The Register's googlewash example takes what it considers a 42-day old meme that began with a New York Times op ed. The Times took a look at the massive global protests against the war in Iraq and declared that world opinion was becoming a second "superpower."
I hadn't read the op-ed, hadn't heard the phrase two days after it premiered. But Gerd Leipold, our Executive Director, in one of his rare visits to the web-team crows-nest high on the sixth floor of GP HQ, mentioned the Times piece and the coining of the term in passing. I thought it was a great phrase, great concept, and a couple days later sliced it into a communication I had been working on about the Uniting for Peace resolution to our cyberactivists. It was only AFTER I'd written it that I went back to source and read the Times piece on the web.
The Register cites the Greenpeace article, followed by a subsequent use by Kofi Annan, as evidence of the vigorous propogation of a potent phrase among NGOs and the peace movement -- the rise of a meme. (Cool. Thanks, Andrew!)
I'm fascinated by memes -- how they spread, how they move, how they warp. I remember reading a study of children's communication in England back in the 70s, and how a new song or joke could leap from mouth to mouth and playground to playground to the point that something which started in Sussex could pop up in Scotland in four days -- unassisted by the web, telephone communications, or anything other than the communication tools available to school children.
What I like about the "Second Superpower" example is that I can personally attest to how that phrase got into the Greenpeace article -- and it was only secondarily due to the web -- it went from web to casual face to face conversation and back to web. (Unless of course Gerd read the original in a real newspaper, in which case the link gets even more extended out beyond the technosphere.)
But the core of The Register story is that the phrase then got murdered by an essay entitled "The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head" by James Moore.
Essay is too kind. Orlowski calls it a "mound of feel-good styrofoam peanuts." (Fact: Styrofoam is manufactured by Dow Chemical)
Moore's essay hijacks a powerful, apt description of the anti-war movement, this particular anti-war movement, and boils every bit of life out of it, turning the phrase into a highly saccharin, American, depoliticized vision of a zippy web community. There's no edge, no conflict, and the essay seems to occupy that dreamy space which considers itself radical-left but has no real argument with anybody, and no real agenda other than to pat itself on the back. It sits effortlessly in the status quo, claiming the mantle of opposition not by action or hard personal choice, but by right of enlightenment and membership in a club. This is precisely what drove me nuts about the so much of the American disarmament movement in the 80s. The love of being the underdog was such a disempowering force, and led to so many missed opportunities. For too many people, the object wasn't really to win, it was to whinge.
"Revolution Lite" sez Orlowski, noting that all it took was a few well-placed weblog links and discussions to make Moore's definition primary in the eyes of Google's PageRank ® technology: Google now gives priority to the definition of "Second Superpower" as nothing more than another breathless "gee ain't the web just great" vision of how we're all part of this beautiful, peaceful, networked mind. The first reference I found to the original Times description is five pages of bloglinks back; a wilted meme.
Much of the blog community is outraged at the suggestion that they've been part of "dumbing down" the phrase. But Andrew's right, as far as I can see, about the effect of Moore's article, though I don't see intent. (Greenwash is pretty deliberate, usually the product of a spin campaign by a PR company, this to me looks like the simple Herd Effect on language. Moore didn't set out to mangle the phrase, he just found a larger audience with a soap-opera version.)
But the Superpower we saw on February 15th and thereafter isn't a pretty, anodyne scrap of political wallpaper rhetoric. It's the real thing -- a change in the power relationships of the world. Seeing it wake up was like watching an infant who has been waving her arm around aimlessly, smacking herself in the face, suddenly realise that her hand is connected to her, and she can move it at will. What we've seen so far is only the faint recognition of power, not its expression.
The second superpower isn't a technological infrastructure -- it's a bunch of human beings at this moment in history who had the moral clarity and the will and the determination to try to stop an unjust war, no matter what their leaders fed them and how much propoganda they got bathed in, because they knew there was an alternative.
The war began despite those voices. But that doesn't mean we're going to go quiet.
There's a storm brewing, and it's rumbling out there in the night at the edges of the Empire, a bit beaten down at the moment, but learning that it has strength. When it starts moving again, you can bet there's already a few people thinking about how they're going to stay out of its way.
This ain't the garden of Eden. This ain't the summer of love.
--b
K-Dog
K-Dog is a dolphin, while by nature he should be a free mammal, swimming in the oceans and enjoying his life, instead he's been given a s*!t task: he must look for mines and mark them!
You thought those dolphins in the dolphinaria look sad? How sad is to be considered good in this terrible task because "unlike robots, the dolphins do not run out of power, nor do they go missing or have problems communicating from the sea bed"?
Media map of Iraq
It doesn't really cover the journos from all the countries, but it's quite a useful map to get an idea about the media concentration during the conflict.
War is not a videogame
I might cover the eyes of my 2 yr old son watching those scene (I won't anymore in a few years, this is for sure), but I cannot believe that Mr. Blair expressed "horror" at the deaths and the broadcast of pictures of the bodies on Al Jazeera. If he doesn't want to see it on the telly, he better go there and watch with his own eyes. But this will never happen obviously, the times when country leaders where on the frontlines of their armies during wars are over, now our leaders are showmen waiting for their makeup to be done before the war bulletins.
Scary
I was reading yesterday a few rather dull, predictable articles about how this was the first "internet war" where people could get more information faster without the censorship of established media.
Well it doesn't seem to have lasted long now the war is going a bit 'off message' with like, surprise, dead bodies (that is what war is about - dead people and lots of them, not 'collatoral damage' and 'precision weapons').
CNN wasted little time in forcing their reporter in North Iraq to cease his weblog as soon as the invasion started.
Yellowtimes.org was shut down by it's ISP yesterday for showing "inappropriate graphic material". Yep you guessed it - that's censorship speak for dead bodies. From google news -
"Yellow Times - 19 hours ago
Somebody doesn't like hearing the truth. ... We are sorry to notify
you of suspending your account: Your account has been suspended because ... "
Al Jazeera published pictures (as did Dutch news channels here) of what really happens to 'the boys' on both sides in a war and innocent people mutilated by the bombs and now its website is stuggling to stay up. Some say its is under attack from the US, others say its just too busy because people want to see what really happens, not the gung ho sanitisted CNN version. Even their reporters are being thrown out of the New York Stock exchange.
What is Bush allegedlly fighting for - freedom, liberty? Funny doesn't look like that mixes to well with censorship? Bit like the words Rumsfeld, Geneva convention and Camp X-ray....
Something worth watching
Finally, that body of safe conservatism gets an acceptance speech with a real message!
Moore for US president in 2004?
Very good article
Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan writer, wrote a very good article for an Argentinian newspaper called Página/12.
It's in spanish, if you understand the language, I seriously recommend you read it... Worth it.
A friend, John, found that ZMag translates most of his columns and you can find the one I mention here.
Their translation is much better than my pathetic attempt to translate it ;)
Thanks John!
Ready.gov
An absurd war has to be accompanied by absurd information.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security encourages all the Americans to get ready for terrorist attacks.
They probably didn't expect that, in order to maximize the message, people decided to contribute in many visible ways. Some might argue about the usability of their visual guides, thus tried to help with more accurate instructions.
In any case, whatever happens, follow the main advise: stay calm!
Tomahawks at dawn
This morning at 4am Amsterdam time I woke up, unable to sleep. My four year old son was sleeping the sleep of a child, exhausted from a day of imagining "Power Ranger" combat scenes alongside picnics with Winnie the Pooh, in his world of extraordinary make-believe violence and beauty.
I walked downstairs, switched on the BBC, and saw the world had changed utterly.
More than a war began a few hours ago -- a new era of American empire is slouching toward Baghdad to be born. An empire of military might, built of the very weapons that in other hands belong to "terrorists." I thought about
the children, like my son, waking up in that city to the fear of being attacked for
nothing they have done wrong, and trying to understand it.
Doon woke up at 6:30, walked into the living room and found me watching the Baghdad skyline flashing with anti-aircraft fire. As he cuddled up on the couch he asked what I was watching. I said "You remember when we went on the march, to tell those guys not to fight?"
"Yes. We yelled."
"That's right. Well those guys didn't listen, and they're fighting now. See that city? In that city there's real bombs falling, and little kids that are probably really scared right now."
"Are they going to be dead? Really dead?"
I heard the worry in his voice and took a breath. There's death in his pretend world every day -- but when he said "really dead" he said it as if he knew the difference. This was a tough moment: take the edge off or tell him the truth.
"Yes, some of them are going to be dead."
"Because we didn't yell enough?"
I felt like somebody had hit me full on in the stomach.
"No, Doon, it's not because we didn't yell enough. It's because somebody didn't listen."
Blix on Climate change
"To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war. We will have regional conflicts and use of force, but world conflicts I do not believe will happen any longer. But the environment, that is a creeping danger. I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict." Read the full article.
Good for the goose?
So, the French say that if Saddam uses chemical or biological weapons it will change their perspective on whether or not to join in the war efforts.
Well, now, I support opposition to the use of chemical and biological weapons. And maybe we should alert France that Tommy Franks refused to rule out American use of "non-lethal" weapons, illegal under the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1928 Geneva Protocol, like the "harmless" sleeping gas that was used in the raid in Moscow which killed 67 people and put another 42 in hospital.
Alors, mes amis! What's bien for the ganso is bien for the gander! There's compelling evidence that the US has illegal weapons, and that they plan to use them... new world, new rules: Why not launch a pre-emptive war on the US RIGHT NOW -- that will stop the US using biological or chemical weapons, and stop Saddam at the same temp. Liberate all those freedom fries and french toast! Allons!
Good for the goose?
So, the French say that if Saddam uses chemical or biological weapons it will change their perspective on whether or not to join in the war efforts.
Well, now, I support opposition to the use of chemical and biological weapons. And maybe we should alert France that Tommy Franks refused to rule out American use of "non-lethal" weapons, illegal under the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1928 Geneva Protocol, like the "harmless" sleeping gas that was used in the raid in Moscow which killed 67 people and put another 42 in hospital.
Alors, mes amis! What's bien for the ganso is bien for the gander! There's compelling evidence that the US has illegal weapons, and that they plan to use them... new world, new rules: Why not launch a pre-emptive war on the US RIGHT NOW -- that will stop the US using biological or chemical weapons, and stop Saddam at the same temp. Liberate all those freedom fries and french toast! Allons!
Best no-war quote
By the always-great Michael Moore:
"Dear Governor Bush,
...
5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what ? we don't think so either!"
Now what?
Second resolution withdrawn. It doesn't come as a surprise but still it's upsetting to hear threats of the kind "diplomacy is dead".
Plus I start to feel (already) overwhelmed by all the info about this war (no-war), newspapers, tv news, magazines and obviously weblogs are proliferating. Will there be one single place not smelling of gun-powder in the near future?
The Theater of the Absurd
Despite the seriousness of the impending war on Iraq, its hard not to laugh at the absurdity of some of the arguments and statements being bandied about. Here are a few of my favourites:
An article in the Washington Post quoted Rumsfeld on the issue of peace activists who have traveled to Iraq as peace shields: Deploying human shields is not a military strategy. It's murder, a violation of the laws of armed conflict and a crime against humanity, and it will be treated as such," Rumsfeld said last week. Now thats an interesting twist I hadnt considered.
The article noted that the activists, who number about 200, according to one organizer, reject that notion and point out that they are volunteers. They accuse the U.S. government of war crimes, if it attacks. Id like to know how the US intends to prosecute anyone for war crimes given that Bush unsigned its accession to the International Criminal Court shortly after he assumed the Presidency. Oh, I forgot the Bush Administration doesnt need to prosecute anyone, they just invade, round up the suspects, lock em up and throw away the keys.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle of 26 February says: The retired general [Jay Garner] tapped by the Bush Administration to oversee rebuilding of post-war Iraq was, until just a few weeks ago, an executive at a leading defense contractor working on missile systems that would be used to bomb Baghdad. The article goes on to say Bush administration officials said Monday that a new Gulf War could produce 2 million Iraqi refugees. Garner's deputy, Ronald Adams, told reporters that the government is "stockpiling blankets, water, ladders, shelter supplies, medicines and other relief items at this point to serve about a million people. Um, and the other million are going to do what precisely?
I especially liked this one from the Financial Times in early February: Downing Street was forced on to the defensive yesterday as critics questioned the legality of the "undeclared war" being waged by British and US aircraft patrolling Iraq's southern no-fly zone. Number 10 said attacks in recent days on "legitimate military targets" were justified self-defence, rather than attempts to soften up the Iraqi defences ahead of an invasion. Ummm, American and British patrols over the no-fly zone, which have regularly bombed Iraqi targets since the last war, have never been authorised by the UN and are therefore minor point I realise illegal. How so self-defence?
This one WOULD be funny if it werent so utterly depressing. According to an AFP headline: US plans preliminary tests of new-age nuclear weapons a reference to so-called bunker busters. The article says, These bombs, capable of penetrating deep underground and eviscerating enemy command and control centers, ammunition dumps and secret leadership hideouts, are seen by some military experts as useful tools in fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Can these people really not see the irony in this?
The US has responded favourably to suggestions from some Arab countries that exile for Saddam Hussein could prevent war. This option was recently repeated by Kofi Annan in an interview in Al-Hayat, and reported by AFP. If the guy is really as evil as hes reported to be, and regime change is an act founded on moral principles, why would anyone agree to a solution which did not force him to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court? Oh sorry, I keep forgetting... But how about the UK? The ever-moral Tony Blair apparently isnt really as morally motivated as he appears. AFP reported last week that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein can stay in power if he fully complies with UN Security Council demands that he disarm, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday. "In an ideal world, we would like to see a different government running Iraq," Straw told a news conference. "But the purpose of council Resolution 1441 is to secure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," he said, adding: "That and that alone." It would appear that the British public may soon be hoping to see a different government running the UK as well.
The EU perspective is hard to figure out considering various stories which ran last week. AFP reported that EU Foreign Affairs envoy Javier Solana said no military intervention against Iraq should occur without authorisation from the United Nations, and that this position was shared across the 15-member European Union. Another AFP story reported on the joint press conference held by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder the same day that Solana made his comment. According to that article, Berlusconi said "A second resolution is not necessary but desirable just the same," and noted that Resolution 1441 allows UN weapons inspectors to continue their work "not only for months, but also for years." Isnt this the same guy that signed on to Aznars letter backing Bush? You could forgive Solana for being confused about the Italian position, but the UK's? The Financial Times reported on March 5th that Britain is prepared to join the US in a war against Iraq even if France and Russia veto a new resolution at the United Nations Security Council, Tony Blair said yesterday. In a sign of mounting diplomatic tension over French-led efforts to block a new resolution authorising military action, the prime minister made it clear for the first time that - like the US - Britain would not be held back even if there were more than one "unreasonable" veto. I wonder how Blair would define a reasonable veto. And I wonder how Solana defines should perhaps therein lies the answer.
Finally, in the category of Who are These People Trying to Kid comes (from AP also last week), Bush said he had not decided whether to invade Iraq. On top of everything else, I wish they wouldnt insult our intelligence.
The Value of bombing Iraq
Here's a nifty multiple choice questionairre to demonstrate the value of bombing Iraq. There's only ONE question, so it's quick and easy. Thanks to Stephanie for this.
World History 101 - Mid-term exam
Here is a one question multiple choice test. In the answer you will
find the value of bombing Iraq.
This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question (so you better
get it right!) Here's a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed
since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991-99
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
----------------------------------------------
In how many of these instances did a FREE government, respectful of
human rights, occur as a direct result?
Choose one of the following:
(a) 0
(b) zero
(c) none
(d) not one
(e) a whole number between -1 and +1
Saddamnation
Tom Robbins wrote in one of his books that there are only three mantras in life: "Yum, Yuck, and Yikes." If we can apply that to periods of history, I know which one we're in now.
Today's New York Times carries a Journalistic self-confession op ed which claims the mainstream media is out of touch with the American Mainstream, since 46% of the American public are evangelist Christians. According to the article, there are more Americans who believe in Satan than who believe in evolution. Now the truly scary part is that the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth is one of them, and those beliefs are informing his war on Iraq.
Who needs the United Nations when you have God on your side?
Who needs allies when you have God on your side?
Who needs to worry about picking up the pieces in Afghanistan or Iraq when every story featuring Christian Soldiers has a happy ending and God will sort it all out in the end?
Who needs to worry about enemy casualties when you're never going to see THOSE heathens in heaven?
Bush greets late arrivals at White House meetings by saying "We missed you in Bible Class this week..." Personally, I think that if Bush has been going to Bible class he's been listening the wrong lessons. Maybe he should consider canning Richard Perle as his spiritual advisor.
Everyone has a right to their beliefs. It's when that right isn't conferred on others that things get messy.
And messy is what things are going to get if the White House continues to consider Revelations the primary text governing their nuclear weapons policy rather than the text of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Fundamentailist Nooklearism (Bush word, Bush pronunciation) states that God's chosen must defend the Christian world against infidels, and therefore Nukes shall be used to deter Communists, Ayrabs, Ko-reans, and other such heathen forces from getting God's Weapon.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the covenant that the US made with the world in 1965. The Non Proliferation Treaty was a direct challenge to nuclear fundamentalism, saying no country had a right to nuclear weapons and all would renounce them. Fundamentalists believe they're special, chosen, Right, and therefore subject to different rules. Whether it's Christian, Islamic, or Nuclear, that's the line that, once crossed, always gets us into trouble.
That's when examples like February 15th and Turkey's recent refusal to cow-tow to the Bush administration are truly inspiring: they remind us that while you can never underestimate the depths to which ultimate power will stoop, you can never underestimate the resistance that power will engender.
I should have been arrested...
... at least a thousand times in my life, since it seems that in Guilderland, New York, near Albany, wearing a "peace" t-shirts is almost a crime. I wonder what would happen to go there wearing any Greenpeace t-shirt.