-
Israeli professor and military historian Martin van Crevel hints at avenging
the Holocaust by raining nuclear death on Europe. `We possess several hundred
atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions,
perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.'
IZ
- 1:
All four of Fermi's backup generators are useless.
CP
(Hopefully they get this fixed before the blackout that come in August. Nukes
can't power themselves and are unstable, requiring active regulation to stay
safe. That is, they go all to h@ll w/o grid or backup power.)
Bush and Blair were supposed to meet at Camp David today, but the next
story overwhelmed nearly all news.
Columbia, eldest of the shuttle fleet, disintegrates in reëntry
over TX. (Actually, CalTech astronomer Anthony Beasley saw pieces come off
over eastern California.
SMH
·
SoSD)
Apparently the Whitehouse squalls `terra! terra!' until someone reminds them
of the `minor' wing damage that had occurred on launch. And furthermore that
the thing was out of reach of all known military equipment at the time of
failure—63 km altitute, about Mach 20. CNN falls all over itself
to laud the Israeli, makes even the 6 Americans into `also losts.' Goes so
far as to point out debris landed near Palestine TX.
When this writer learned that an Israeli was in orbit on NASA's shuttle, the first image that came to my mind was of all the dead and dying in Palestine, and of how America had lost all sense of shame. Now there are other dead strewn across the landscape of an alternate Palestine. It remains to be seen whether from this disaster we learn the sobering message that the Supreme Power wishes to impart, or if we submit ourselves instead to the beguiling electronic spectacle generated by the rulers of this world, who are not yet, for all their space age gizmos and gadgets, masters of the heavens.
H
Nondoctrinal commentators immediately remind their audience of the
Northwoods
plan to exploit loss of Glenn to initiate a war on Cuba,
add that this will certainly be used in the media to bury
reports of the final Whack Iraq preparations.
IW
Before the day is out familiar-sounding headlines appear:
`Nasa chiefs repeatedly ignored
safety warnings'
G
(Gee, wasn't ISO9000, which came out of Challenger, gonna fix all
that? I guess it just proves you can't legislate culture nor cure
bureaucracy with paperwork.
It has become clear that complex systems [such as corporate bureaucracies]
re counterintuitive. That is, they give indications that suggest corrective
action which will often be ineffective or even adverse in its results. Very
often one finds that the policies that have been adopted for correcting a
difficulty are actually intensifying it rather than producing a solution.
[DO
quoting Forrester Urban Dynamics]
For more see
WRH Columbia page.
Wild but not obviously impossible theory about the nuclear material
here.
I'd want to check into changes made between the first-planned and actual
dates for this flight. Start with the fact Ramon replaced Dutch
astronaut André Kuipers.
WRH)
- 4:
Richard Perle dismisses France as US ally. `[NATO] must develop a strategy to
contain our erstwhile ally or we will not be talking about a NATO alliance.'
UPI
Earl Krugel (senior official of JDL) pleads guilty to conspiracy to
bomb King Fahd Mosque in Culver City.
CNN
·
ICH
·
G
Another empty warhead found (north of Baghdad).
DS
-
Network Solutions Inc tries to claim that holding NSI responsible for
its stupidity would wreck the internet as we know it.
R
-
Britain may have hired an Israeli intel agent, Ari Ben Menashe, to set up an
assassination of Robert Mugabe.
A
- 5:
Australian frontbencher Mark Latham describes GWB as `the most
incompetent and dangerous president in living memory' and
Liberal MPs as a `conga line of suckholes.'
Washington predictibly enraged at `antiAmericanism.'
SMH
Party tells ambassador to *ck off.
A
·
HS
John Elliott texecuted despite suspect testimony and pleas for clemency from
the British foreign secretary, home secretary and 100 MPs.
GO
Second bill for revoking permission to whack Iraq tabled by
Peter DeFazio D OR and Ron Paul R TX.
G
·
UR
(There's also one in the Senate by Kennedy, but it's wussy, saying
`should' instead of `must.')
Colin `My Lai' Powell makes big Evil Iraq pitch to UN. CNN spins it for
all its worth and then some ('cause in my opinion it's worthless; the US
lied severely
to get GW1 going—lied to Saddam, lied to Congress, lied
to the UN—and has
lied severely thus far,
no reason to expect a change. `Fool me twice, duh.')
`As a military man Powell should be employing a straightforward equation:
Does the target pose a direct threat to US security? In the case of Iraq in
2003, the answer can be yes only if Powell is prepared to swallow a trio of
Big Lies,'
LAT
Anyhow, it doesn't seem to have swayed anyone.
BBC
Kurdish leaders question some of the claims made;
NYT
the poison-gas lab is actually a bakery
O
and TV studio,
BBC
ultimately spared attack.
ABC
What is so monumentally hypocritical about the official US
position is that literally everything Powell has accused the Ba'athists of
has been the stock in trade of every Israeli government since 1948, and at
no time more flagrantly than since the occupation of 1967. Torture, illegal
detention, assassination, assaults against civilians with missiles,
helicopters and jet fighters, annexation of territory, transportation of
civilians from one place to another for the purpose of imprisonment, mass
killing (as in Qana, Jenin, Sabra and Shatilla to mention only the most
obvious), denial of rights to free passage and unimpeded civilian movement,
education, medical aid, use of civilians as human shields, humiliation,
punishment of families, house demolitions on a mass scale, destruction of
agricultural land, expropriation of water, illegal settlement, economic
pauperisation, attacks on hospitals, medical workers and ambulances, killing
of UN personnel, to name only the most outrageous abuses: all these, it
should be noted with emphasis, have been carried on with the total,
unconditional support of the US which has not only supplied
Israel with the weapons for such practices and every kind of military and
intelligence aid, but also has given the country upwards of $135 billion in
economic aid on a scale that beggars the relative amount per capita spent by
the US government on its own citizens.
A
Powell, in a theatrical query, asked why the Iraqi scientists were asked to sign declarations, with a death penalty if not adhered to, not to reveal their secrets to the IAEA inspection teams. Exactly the opposite is true. The four or five, as I recall such declarations, which I read in detail, held us to the penalty of death in the event that we did not hand in all of the sensitive documents and reports that may still be in our possession! Had Powell's intelligence services provided him with a copy of these declarations, and not depended on testimonies of defectors
who are solely motivated by their self-promotion in the eyes of their beholders,
and availed himself to a good Arabic translation of what these declarations actually said, he would not, had he in any sense been abiding by the truth, mentioned this as evidence.
[YT
by fmr Iraqi nuclear scientist]
-
Australian senate (narrowly) passes its fisrt no-confidence motion on
a sitting PM.
SMH
There is no legal consequence of this.
R
-
World Court calls halt to US executions of three Mexicans,
pending suit brought by Mexico for US' failure to inform of consular rights.
Y!
-
`Madness of George Dubya,' a British farce play mocking GWB as
`pyjama-wearing buffoon cuddling a teddy-bear while his crazed military chiefs order nuclear strikes on Iraq,' so successful it moves into larger
venue for extended run.
CNN
-
Pentagon discarding long-touted US practice of bringing its troops
home dead or alive.
CNN
(It will utter `biological attack' and save money on flag-draped coffins.)
-
Blair's latest Iraq dossier turns out be plagiarised,
`In several places Downing Street edits the originals to make more sinister
reading…Even typographic mistakes in the original articles are repeated.'
C4
·
SFC
·
NYT
·
M
·
DW
·
WRH
`Marashi—the real and unwitting author of much of the document—has
as his primary source the documents captured in 1991 for the Iraq Research and
Documentation Project. His own focus is the activities of Iraq's intelligence
agencies in Kuwait, Aug90–Jan91—this is the subject of his thesis.
As a result, the information presented as relevant to how Iraqi agencies are
currently engaged with UNMOVIC is 12 years old.'
[emphasis added
C]
Other material was stolen from 5-a-old Jane's articles.
TBO
Furthermore, Marashi draws on suspect Israeli sources.
G
#10 `has grudgingly admitted a failure to acknowledge sources—while
insisting that the information remains valid. This misses the point,'
G
esp. that the info is old and presented as current.
The crud Word leaves in its files helped unravel the dossier's dodgy history.
CBM
·
BBC
·
A
-
North Korea claims right to preemptive strikes on US.
`Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US.'
[SMH
citing London (?) Guardian]
(Shoe on the other foot. I've noticed North American media aren't
reporting this accurately; they drop the `preemption' part, hiding
the symmetry with Dubya Doctine.)
-
Bill O'Reilly finally flips on-air, commanding a calm, orderly
guest to `get out of my studio before I tear you to f*king pieces!'
NION
·
MP3
- 7:
Rumsfeld sees quick victory in Iraq.
It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
TD
US hoiks the terror status to orange.
MSNBC
to draw attention from Powell's flop and Phony Tony's fudge.
(Booga booga.)
It's eventually attributed to a bad tip.
FOX
·
ABC
PA law requiring most students daily to drone fealty to the RW&B takes
effect. ACLU is taking it to court. `We see this as an infringement of
[a school's] core mission—to turn out students who can think for
themselves.'
P
-
France and Germany may have an out: send UN troops into Iraq.
D
·
ABC
·
K
The US couldn't attack with those in place.
Russia's favourable.
BBC
(But it probably takes UNSC approval, which the US will surely veto,
because it must have the oil.)
Bush administration reacted with rage last night…portraying the
plan as a thinly disguised attempt to derail the US timetable for war.
(Must be that timetable Fleischer is adamant doesn't exist.)
US anger was compounded by the fact that the first it knew of the initiative
was in a report in…Der Spiegel.
(Aww, feeling left out? Shoe pinches on the other foot?)
G
-
Weyhe-Sudweyhe Rumsfeld family disowning cuzin Donald.
T
-
FDIC closes Southern Pacific Bank.
TBO
-
Forsa poll of Germans: 57% agree `the US is a nation of warmongers',
93% believed Bush was ready to war in pursuit of his interests,
80% said the US wanted war to boost its power.
R
-
NATO stifles proposal of prewar defense preparations for Turkey.
`US fumes.'
R
(It's one thing for GWB to threaten the UN with irrelevancy for not
kowtowing to his dictates. But when the US' dearly beloved NATO is doing
it too…)
- 10:
London's senior MP Tam Dalyell pushed out of the House for refusing to
sit down and shut up about Phony Tony's phony Iraq dossier.
BBC
Howard tells GWB to wait for UN.
HS
(CNN reported the meeting but this point I didn't see.)
yellowtimes.org downed.
Y!
It had just put up an article by fmr Iraqi scientist Imad Khadduri debunking Powell.
I
(The
article.)
-
Iraq grants permission to U2 overflights and plans to ram its antiWMD laws
through (by the end of the week?). Real snag for GWB: The laws are a big
piece of cooperation (and Iraq had been working on them for some time but
they got stuck when a mandated external review failed to happen), and the
Hajj effectively blocks an immediate attack. Even if Iraq takes a little
longer to pass the law, the next inspectors' report is due Friday, and it's
virtually sure to further erode the US case, making sufficient delay likely.
It's the US that's running out of time.
-
Some Australian navymen are refusing the anthrax inoculations.
GO
- 11:
Another dubious Osama tape appears, right on cue.
RNL
Initial reports are that he denounces Saddam*—then
those reports are disappeared.
I
(The Bushblair has been trying to convince that Saddam and Osama are buddies.
Given CIA, FBI, DIS, and Israel's denial of SH-OBL compatibility, this is the
only thing that makes the tape credible.)
What's more curious: Powell said al Jazeera would get the tape before it
arrived there. `Al Jazeera got the tape after Powell told a Senate panel he
had seen a transcript of bin Laden's remarks.'
ABC
`Strangely enough, all the networks, including al-Jazeera, were scooped by
Powell…[who] gave no indication of how he had obtained the information.'
WP
The US eventually cooks up a cover, that al Jazeera has to clear tapes with
the Qatar gov't. But al Jazeera never heard of this.
G
(Some thought there was a clue in `the battle of Tora Bora last year'
which was in 2001; but I calculate that it was last year, 1422, in
the Islamic calendar.)
*It's complicated. Ba'ath is socialist. Using China Post
translation:
`…our faith and our declaration that socialists are infidels.
Socialists' leadership had fallen down a long time ago. Socialists are
infidels wherever they are, either in Baghdad or Aden.'
But also: `It is not harmful in such conditions for the Muslims' interests and socialists' interests to come along with each other during the war against the crusade…' It may be a case of: Syria dislikes Iraq, ditto Iran,
ditto Saudi Arabia, ditto al Qaeda—nevertheless they may come to
Iraq's defence fearing a domino effect of a US conquest.
Washington Times claims Islamics have too much influence
on the Whitehouse.
WT
(Well my BS gauge just offscaled high.)
- 12:
Protest outside Supreme Court against the renegging on promised benefits
for 20 a military service.
They want Americans to know that the bravest and best of its citizens are being refused treatment in their old age by the same government they defended during their most productive years. The legal system now declares that these promises made to these men do not carry the weight of the law! What promises are being made to today's naïve youth?
JR
-
Congress debates barring French wine and bottled water.
FT
(Somehow they think France would be punished by this.)
-
Belgian supreme court decides Sharon can be tried when he ceases to
be PM
R;
Israel pitches tantrum, Netanyahu recalls ambassador for direct consultations
H
-
O'Reilly finally gets in a bit of warm over his ethnic slurs
CNS
-
Phony Tony loses ground: BBC finds 45% against whack Iraq, 10% against w/o UN,
17% for. As for why USUK wanted whack Iraq, the most popular theory was `oil.'
BBC
-
Some German politician gives Rumsfeld a public dressing-down in Munich.
If Rumsfeld's look could kill…
The US will withdraw all its troops and bases from there and end
military and industrial co-operation between the two countries…The
plan—discussed by Pentagon officials and military chiefs last week on
the orders of Rumsfeld—is designed…to make an example of the
country…We are doing this for one reason only: to harm the
German economy
…Rumsfeld and his staff have made no attempt to
hide their fury at Schröder's treachery and
ineptitude
…This is simply not the way to conduct
diplomacy at a moment of international crisis
[said in critcism of Germany]
O
The Germans say the base closures can't happen fast enough—they're
S&Fing tired of the C5 Galaxy overflights. When a Galaxy takes off
at 3 am, all of Neu-Isenburg falls out of bed.
IHT
-
Let me understand this correctly. We, not only here
in New Hampshire, but around the country, are being advised to put a couple
of jugs of water aside, some canned food, and some aspirin and cough
drops—whatever! Then we're to purchase ourselves a roll of plastic and
some duct tape!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!
This is the Civil Defense Plan for US citizens who have spent
billions upon billions upon billions upon untold billions on defense,
intelligence gathering, and bunkers for a [select] group of persons who
will wait out any mayhem and chaos…Who or what will be left to
govern has not been explained.
JR
As it turns out, a k$100 contributor to the GOP, Jack Kahl, has an
Avon OH co that makes about 46% of duct tape sold in US. And his plant
has had to go to continuous operation to meet demand.
WP
-
Powell also paid for Rumsfeld's unfortunate jibe at Old
Europe
at week ago, a remark that turned into a hilarious football at
the Security Council, mostly at America's expense. De Villepin, the first of
the permanent five to speak, gave an eloquent defense of the UN (and the
inspections regime), concluding, In the temple of the UN
we are all guardians of an ideal, the guardian of a conscience,
he
said. This message comes from an old country, France, that does not
forget…all it owes to freedom fighters that came from the US and
everywhere.
His statement brought a sustained ovation from all parts
of the chamber, including the press gallery. The Chinese foreign minister,
speaking next, referred to his country as an ancient
civilization,
and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw comically
countered with: Britain is also a very old country. It was founded in
1066—by the French!
Powell, improvising, came back with:
America is a relatively new country, but it is the oldest democracy
around this table…
Unfortunately, that appeared to snub
America's most stalwart ally, Great Britain, which has had an operating
parliament that outdates America's founding by many years.
MSNBC
The US isn't even a candidate as oldest democracy, since it's not
presently a democracy. Ramsey Clark, fmr Att'y Gen'l:
But we're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a
slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a
plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.
C26c
And it was not created as a democracy.
The Bill of Rights amended the Constitution to uphold individual
and minority rights. The majority has no right to force its beliefs on the
minority in matters of race, gender, or religion. On constitutionally
protected matters there is no majority rule. So America not only isn't a
Christian theocracy, it isn't even a democracy: It's a constitutional
bicameral federal republic.
FLS
- 13:
58th anniversary of a
massive and criminal USUK bombing
highlights doubts about USUK's Iraq motives.
old Europe
has learned from history
AN
-
UMI preliminary February consumer-sentiment index 79.2, lowest since
'93 Sep.
R
- 14:
Saddam issues decree banning production and import of WMD, short-circuiting
the legislative process restarted earlier in the week. US media criticise him
for being dictatorial, something never done when the Rezident issues an
executive order.
Florida appellate court rules that there is no law requiring truth in
TV news.
JR
Blix gives another report, tactfully points out certain obvious holes
in the rubbish Powell dumped earlier.
G
He does point out there is material unaccounted for.
G
(Others point out that the bombings of GW1 and the past few years
hit some of the weapons facilities and that makes precise accounting
impossible.)
French statement gets rare applause. Powell—he who lauded a slapdash
dossier of plagiarised and outdated information, misinterpreted satellite
photos, played poor-quality audio of unverifiable origin, and claimed a
bakery was a weapons lab—said Iraq was playing tricks. He got one
clap. Then the room fell silent, as the clapper realized that he was quite alone.
MSNBC
(I expect the UNSC gallery shall be seeded with US-shill clappers in future.)
Political prisoner Susan Mokdad dies by medical neglect.
- 15:
Another global no-whack-Iraq protest.
(Again I fail to attend, but I have a better excuse this time: advance
polling for a local plebiscite.) I can't get a job and I can't be useful
to my society, but yet [GWB] can afford to spend all of our money on bombs
to create future enemies for me in other countries.
K
Again London's street webcams are cut.
R
Running for president, George Bush described himself as
a uniter, not a divider.
On Saturday he united the people of the world against [him]…For many it was also a day of radicalization. There were many for whom this was the first time in the streets, and many looked dazed as it dawned on them that the police were not there to protect them, but to scare and to silence them…Many eyewitnesses reported angry, brutal cops attacking and beating protesters, smashing heads and ripping off puppets and signs…A number of protesters were attacked and beaten by police officers as they made their way home at the end of the day…Mounted police charged into packed crowds that had nowhere to move, trampling on people and causing injuries and panic.
GO
Hints that Blair,
seeing upward of two million naysayers outside his window, may be weakening
his `f*k inspections' stance. But: `Even if there are one million [on this
march], that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars
[Saddam] started.'
SKY
(I would remind Blair that the Iran-Iraq war was lauded and materially
supported by USUK, and most of the killing in the Gulf War was done by USUK
after they had overstepped their UN mandate. Furthermore, a million is less
than the number killed by USUK-driven sanctions. Saddam may have started the
wars, but they were tremendous slaughter thanks to USUK efforts.)
Spain's PM's political ship is also listing severely.
G
-
It has been rumored [citing testimony of Rumsfeld and Myers to
House Armed Services C'tee
I]
that US forces will use chemical weapons against
civilians in Iraq in the impending International Socialist slaughter for
geopolitical gain. This is in violation of the Convention on non-use of
Chemical Weapons as ratified by the US in 1997. Note that
nonlethal
chemical weapons (the type the Americans will use,
and have used in Afghanistan for example) include fentanyl, the chemical
used during the Russian hostage situation last year. In that instance the
nonlethal
chemical fentanyl killed 128 of the 700 hostages. Note
the hostage-taking here cited is rumored to have been engineered by the
American CIA.
I
-
US debates imposing (more) sanctions on North Korea—which is how this
mess got started, remember. I'm beginning to think the US is now contemplating
shifting the war from Iraq to NK, despite the latter's WMD. After all, the
US still outnumbers them in WMD…
-
Blair's popularity went negative during the protest.
Blair's personal rating has plunged to minus 20. Only 35% were
satisfied with his performance while 55% were dissatisfied, with around
9% don't knows
…ICM interviewed 1003 people by telephone
between Feb 14 and 16.
[IOL,
A
citing Guardian]
-
It is rumoured three more Arab countries have shifted to selling
oil in euros only.
RMN
-
Even if the US gets Iraq's oil, can it afford it?
The Congressional
Budget Office estimates that occupation could cost between
G$17–45/a…Even if Iraqi oil revenues could be increased to
3 million barrels a day, it would only yield G$25 annually.
[JR
citing Nordhaus NY Review of Books Dec 5]
- 17:
Int'nat'l group of inspectors notifies US gov't of intent to examine
Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in MD on 23rd
Y!
-
Crowd turns on LAPD after latter shoots man dead.
ABC
(Someone trying to set up another Watts so as to have a Garden-Plot test?)
- 18:
Several cities have passed anti-Whack-Iraq resolutions…today the city
of Ashland OR unanimously passed an anti-USA PATRIOT resolution.
[ICH
quoting Curry Coastal Pilot
Feb 22]
Chrétien makes up his mind, says no to joining US going `alone'?
A
Nope, just a rumour; McCollum and Graham quick to assure us nothing
has changed.
-
US '03 aid to Israel only 99.35% that of '02.
H
-
London contemplating law for handing Britons to the EU for
thought
crimes
not technically illegal in UK.
JR
-
USUK concocts
three mystery ships
story.
-
Israeli army disbands Messengers of Satan, unit of elite Golani
Brigade—for using bad language to its officers.
P
-
Investigation begins into possible bribing of Blair by GWB.
Cloak and Dagger
has spoken directly with the Investigators who presented the evidence to senior French diplomatic officials today. Bank investigators have shown senior French diplomats documents that corroborate the following.
- That the scheme to grab Iraqi oil fields was in the works over a year and a half ago when several billion dollars was transferred to bank accounts set up for the private benefit of Blair.
- Another document shows that Blair and his wife privately profited for arranging for North Korea to have nuclear capability.
Skolnick
also has stated on his TV show including broadcasting documents showing Hilary Clinton, now US Senator Democrat New York, likewise privately profited from the treasonous North Korean deal.
- The officials said that this will put Blair to the wall and remove his furniture from 10 Downing Street.
S
- 20:
Exactly. Why is Jackson all over the teevy right now?
Well, almost all over. Gotta leave room for that 2-mo-old Paterson story.
Obviously there's no real news going on in the world. =p
Marvellous piece of trash on PBS Frontline. Much about Saddam
resisting inspectors through the '90s, nothing about the inspector's
extracurricular espionage work. (Although some laud the revelation of
extensive Zionist influence on GWB.)
There was a different story at the Massapequa Park office of Rep. Peter King. Instead of meeting with his constituents who offered an opposing view, he called the police to make them leave. Let me repeat that: Peter King called the police on his constituents. He claims that he does not want to be a part of undermining the president
…King serves at the pleasure of his constituents. They are to be heard, not ignored or arrested for trying to speak with him in the office they pay for.
AN
King would later publish a blatant antimuslam smear Vale of Tears
and support Shrub's use of 9/11 in campaign ads.
E
-
Peres questions France's future as permanent UN member.
M
(Wow! If France can get the boot, so can the US, and I'd vote for that.)
The Bush administration plans to take complete, unilateral control of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with an interim administration headed by a yet-to-be named American civilian who would direct the reconstruction of the country and the creation of a "representative" Iraqi government, according to a now-finalized blueprint described by US officials and other sources.
WP
- 21:
GWB claims whack Iraq is the will of
Allah Ya*eh
Sharon the Almighty. Bushmen in general give the world 21 days
to prove its relevance by slaving to the will of the Washington
plutocracy.
HS
Nightclub fire in RI, not quite a week after panic at Chicago club.
Propane barge explodes off Staten Is.
Train wreck in southern Ontario, propane and anhydrous-ammonia.
-
US might renew food aid to North Korea.
BBC
(What? a flash of sanity!? I wonder what strings they'll attach.)
-
GWB:
Sometimes you have to ignore popular opinion and do what's right.
The President must govern, not be governed.
Say what? Excuse me, King George, but this country was founded on the
belief of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
CHB
-
BTW eBay bends over backwards for Big Brother. It even has its own arbitrary
def'n of
normal
so it can flag abnormal
behaviour.
H
-
How to win friends and influence people:
George Will saw fit to include in his latest
Newsweek
column this joke: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried.
That was certainly amusing.
1 400 000 French soldiers were killed during World War I.
As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II.
Nevertheless, 100 000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop
Adolf Hitler.
On behalf of every one of those 100 000 men, I would like to thank
Mr Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned,
out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they
stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.
…For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the USA continued to
have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.
[DFW
who tactfully stops short of pointing out the US interests that backed the
Nazis in the first place]
Sitting behind their thousand mile-wide moats, the US population missed one of the essential experiences of modern war—that of having rival armies looting, pillaging and raping to and fro through their towns while air forces pile the rubble ever higher…Allowing for the difference in population between France then and the US now, it would take 800 attacks of the severity of those on 9/11—one every day for nearly three years—for the US to experience the same level of civilian casualties as France did during the War. I wonder what the despicable worms who have been polluting the commercial media and the more noisome corners of the Internet with an orgy of French-bashing over the last few weeks would have to say after such an onslaught.
IWNGQ
-
Jerusalem academics claim Newton calculated 2060 to be the end of the world.
G
(I can't quite guess what they're up to with that one.
I find it quite interesting that this permeates Google
although it's less than 50 hrs old, yet sites that have been up
for over a year still don't appear there. This also may not actually be
news, there were
old
Google hits
A,
B,
C
which says Newton figured the apocalypse was not before 2060.)
- 24:
Non-Aligned Movement summit opens with Malaysian PM saying TWAT
is a war to dominate the world.
He compared the great
warriors
to the terrorists Bill-Mahr style: The great warriors who press the buttons see nothing of the mangled bodies, the heads and limbs which are torn from disembowelled bodies, the blood and the gore of the innocent people.
And because they don't see, the button-pressing warriors and the people who commanded them go back to enjoy a hearty meal, watch TV shows or morale boosting troop entertainers and then retire to their cosy beds for a good sleep.
ICH
-
GWB's overseas image is actually getting worse.
It is rather
astonishing. There is an absence of any recognition that Hussein is the
problem.
WP
(Compare Albright's recent answer we think we do
to the
accusation the US doesn't listen.)
-
GWB claims
blue-chip
economists back his economic plans. Randall
Moore, editor of Blue Chip Economic Forecast, complained to the
Whitehouse. It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had
endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case.
ND
Meanwhile, 10 Nobel lauretes incl economist George Akerlof take rips
at GWB's economic arsfriken stimulus package.
UCB
-
Via CBS interview, Saddam challenges GWB to a live debate.
(Wouldn't that be fun to watch 8)
-
GOP launches Nixon-style smear campaign against Helen Thomas.
[MWO (d*n generic link)]
RMN
-
Whitehouse insists satirist not pick on Lynne Cheney.
SFC
Not Dick Cheney:
Hell, it's not like my wife is a public figure or
anything…just because she's been a
CNN Crossfire pundit,
Chairman of the NEH,
a leading right-wing strategist for the American Enterprise Institute,
and a prolific author of
sociocultural propaganda,
vacuously jingoistic children's books,
academic blacklists,
and turbo-juicy
lesbian erotica…
WHO
-
Canada proposes Iraq be given until Mar 29 to prove a negative. Fortunately
both sides reject it; USUK saying it's procrastination and the rest saying
it's too fast.
G
·
TS
-
The UN can either rubberstamp the US' imperial ambitions, or the US will
simply ignore it if not outright dissolve it.
You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not.
That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not.
The Lord Truman giveth, the Lord Bush taketh away.
The same happened to the Court of Central America.
But don't dare call the US the rogue state…
ICH
Also mentions trying to make France abstain instead of veto; but an
abstention by a permanent member is a veto according to some,
although that didn't affect GW1.
GBUB
-
Here's where the UN's credibility really lies (dead): USUK
bombed Iraqi ground-ground missile sites. Even were the no-fly zones
UN creatures, they wouldn't cover destruction of non-antiaircraft weapons.
The UN's true credibility issue in the world, is letting the US carry out
this undeclared war on Iraq…although it's now compounded with the
issue of disarming a weakling (esp re the missiles with a slight overrange,
which may be caused by the unloaded testing—it was not overranging in 2000
GP)
so the US can strike with
impunity. Granting the US permission to do it would actually be a
Pullman-type massive concrete
Pharaoh-type massive stone tomb*
for the UN's already-dead credibility.
(Oh, yeah, there's that other little thing about dozens of unenforced,
openly flaunted resolutions against Israel.)
*given the unintended potential Arab connotations, I reverted to
the Pullman reference
-
Oklahoma Highway Patrol tickets man helping others out of the snow
as a
safety hazard
; backfires in public outcry.
KOTV
- 25:
US patent
6523478
granted to US Army for rifle-launched aerosol dispenser
for
crowd-control agents, biological agents, [and] chemical agents
.
Development of such devices is prohibited under any circumstances
by the '72 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
JR
Press corps finally laughs Ari out of the room.
BF
Q—the French press is quoting actually two different
diplomats from the US State Department that—they're
highlighting that the US is giving some sort of agreements or
benefits to Colombia—and other non-members of the Security Council—
MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't seen the story. And you already have the answer,
about what this will be decided on. But think about the implications of what
you're saying. You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable.
And that is not an acceptable proposition. (Laughter.)
WH
They laugh because they know Dollar Diplomacy
is the ugly reality.
ABC
-
Iraq agrees to destroy the al Samoud 2s, even though in practice they
don't exceed the limits
GP
(actually—I just noticed those are
al Samouds
, no 2
),
to avoid giving a pretext for a US-led war.
BB
Rumsfeld: This is not proof of cooperation.
(If the UNSC approves an attack now, it will have become the US' means
to disarm a target so as to attack in total safety, surely not what the
UN is intended to be.)
- 26:
Biggest revolt in [UK] gov't history
—Blair's
casus belli
opposed by 121 of his own party and 78 others as unproven. Straw
shattered,
even though it's apparently not a formal defeat.
M
Ambassador Joseph Wilson explains that Whack Iraq is in line with a plan
Richard Perle drew up for Likud in the '90s.
MOYERS: Tell me what you think about the arguments of one of those men, Richard Perle, who is perhaps the most influential advocate in the President's and the administration's ear arguing to get rid of Saddam Hussein. What do you think about his argument?
WILSON: Well, he's certainly the architect of a study that was produced in the mid-'90s for the Likud Israeli government called a clean break, a new strategy for the realm.
And it makes the argument that the best way to secure Israeli security is through the changing of some of these regimes beginning with Iraq and also including Syria. And that's been since expanded to include Iran.
MOYERS: So this was drawn up during the '90s?
WILSON: Right. During the '90s, absolutely…
MOYERS: And this, you're saying that this has become a blueprint for the Bush Administration?
WILSON: Well, I think this is part of what has been the underpinning of the—of the philosophical argument that calls for basically radically changing the political dynamics in the Middle East and?
MOYERS: To favor Israel?
WILSON: Well, to favor American national security interests and Israeli national security interests which are tied.
PBS
-
C'd'n MP Carolyn Parrish is overheard saying
Damn Americans, I hate
the bastards.
Our parliamentary Bush suckhole (see Jan 5) Harper
immediately decries this honesty and she eventually apologises.
(If Harper would worry half as much about anticanadianism as about so-called
antiamericanism he might have a party. I really think he oughta take his
dog-n-pony show south if he loves the US so much.)
-
Sea King keels over on HMCS Iroquois, forces it to return for repairs.
Sea King had been borrowed from Algonquin, who may now have to go
to Afghanistan sans Sea King.
(I do have to admit one thing about the Alliance's suckholing to GWB:
we're in no shape to fend off a US invasion.)
-
Turkey's price was US sellout of the Kurds.
WP
(When will those poor sods learn? The US sold 'em out a bazillion times
already. One of the great 20th-century genocides was Turkish against Kurds.
So much for
liberating the Iraqi people.
)
-
Alarmed by persistent leaks of nuclear secrets to the media, the
[Israeli] Defense Ministry ordered the confiscation of documents belonging to late Prime Minister Levy Eshkol.
[ICH
citing Ha'aretz]
-
Feds are denying their concentration-camp plans in the face of documentation,
such as what Okanogan County WA Commissioner Dave Schulz has.
KXLY
-
Daniel Spillane, fmr VoteHere engineer, files suit claiming their
software is disastrously flawed and VH twarted the ITA review.
2600
- 27:
Daily Mirror hires helicopter and hovers 450 m over Parliament for
5 minutes with zero interference, proving Blair is not seriously worried about
a terror attack.
We passed the Commons three times, causing so much
noise that guests at a special lunch attended by Lord Tebbit could hardly hear
themselves speak.
M
Hole blasted in wing of JEB's plane by lightning.
MH
(God missed?)
-
Pieces of two 9/11 hijackers allegedly identified.
SMH
Let's see. The hijackers were on a plane full of jet fuel that
crashed into the WTC and ignited a fire supposedly hot enough to melt steel,
collapsing the whole shebang, killing a couple thousand more people and
mashing the remains together under a million tons of red-hot steel and
concrete. Then, without having DNA samples from the thousands of other
victims to check against, and without knowing who the hijackers really were
since even the FBI admits they were using fake IDs with stolen identities,
we're supposed to believe that this particular smear off of the wreckage is
proven to be a hijacker's DNA. If you believe this one, I have a war to sell
you. By the way there is no DNA in hair, only in the follicle if the hair is
pulled out, not cut. DNA is also destroyed by heat much lower than that of
fire.
WRH
(Hint: if this is legit, then the towers didn't collapse because of
the fire. Rivero says melt
but even the temperature to merely
weaken the steel is too high for DNA.)
-
Some members of Congress have expressed concern about the independence of the [Columbia] investigation board and have called for a Presidential commission…
CNN
(Oh, yeah, there's a good way to get independence.)
- 28:
Watson marks the 50th anniversary of his codiscovery of DNA by declaring
stupidity should be cured.
NS
Isn't that more or less what Hitler tried to do? Furthermore, if stupidity can
be cured, so can the much greater threat to the ruling classes, intelligence.
Applied Digital Solutions, of the implantable tracking chips, misses M$46.2
loan repayment, jockeys for extension.
WND
-
John Austin MP:
Whilst Iraq is sanctioned and bombed, Israel is given funds and arms.
PT
- 1:
Turkey votes on hosting US troops: it passes 264 to 251 with 19 abstentions.
The opposition challenges on the grounds it lacked majority support (268).
No immediate plans for a revote.
ABC
(This is exactly why the US hates democracies.)
The US says it'll withhold aid without troop deal.
WP
Turkish citizens say
America can stick its money and its troops up its backside.
T
Phony Tony switches again, vows to go to war w/o the UN.
SOS
(But will he go w/o Parliament?)
-
Like Chamberlain assuring the world Hitler'll be okay if we let him have
Sudetenland, Blair is busy trying to assure the world the neoHitler will be
happy with Iraq.
T
-
Pakistan apparently manages to resurrect al Qaeda's alleged #3,
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, reported killed in a raid last Sep 11.
AT
CIA eventually gets hold of his kids too (Yousef, 9; Abed, 7), to try to pry
info out of them all.
A
- 2:
Guardian-Observer reveals US'
dirty tricks
against the
UN delegates, eavesdropping on phones and emails according to doc
leaked from NSA.
GU
Healthy, young
army specialist Rachael Lacy inoculaated
for anthrax and smallpox; is ill within days and dies Apr 4 at Mayo.
UPI
- 3:
North Korea harasses US military aircraft over int'nat'l waters. US sends two
dozen heavy bombers to Guam in response, claiming it doesn't want to raise
tensions.
Crossgate Mall near Albany NY has police eject Steven Downs for refusing to
remove a pro-peace t-shirt made and sold at the mall, claiming he had
disrupted other shoppers (but never specifying how). A week of protest
eventually convinces the mall to drop the charges and fire Robert Williams,
their rentacop who had brought in the police. (The firing draws more anger.)
R
·
CN9
-
No, not Stephen Harper; Germany's opposition leader
Dr. Angelika Merkel of the CDU portrayed at the Rhineland carnival.
[via WRH reader]
- 4:
Iran sys the US' main aim in Whack Iraq is protection of Israeli interests.
IRNA
(They must've been watching Bill Moyers (see Feb 26).)
Controversy over the role of US troops in antiterror efforts in the
Philippines has thrown the joint operation into limbo. Rumsfeld, yesterday:
We have
to find an approach that will help them w/o violating their constitution.
MSN
So today a big bomb kills 19 in a Philippine airport.
ABC
(Isn't that conveenient.)
-
Canadian farmers call for Monsanto blockade.
CW
- Mar 5:
Minor global protest.
-
GWB tries using the Vietnam domino theory in reverse:
A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.
VV
-
In reaction to Treasury Sec'y's comment he isn't
paticularly concerned
about his currency's slide, and reports the US lost nearly twice as many jobs
in Feb as it had gained in Jan, the greenback reaches 4-a low against euro
and swiss franc.
FT
·
R
(And how old is the euro? 3½?)
Small jump in Au.
R
-
George Doughty, Lafayette CO, blows away his laptop for crashing once too often.
BBC
- 6:
US admits two
suspects
died under interrogation
.
I
Panorama presents fresh evidence implicating US troops in the
massacre of Taliban prisoners.
WSWS
More blither from GWB.
Mike Rivero: You [GWB] claim to hate Saddam because he tried to kill your
father. Why is it inappropriate for Arabs to hate you for all the fathers,
sons, daughters, wives, and children killed with weapons the US supplied?
The callow, smug, inarticulate man who was the lead player in a farce called White House News Conference
gave us no new reasons to go to war, no sense of the dangers involved and no confidence in his leadership. The television appearance itself-more a blustering tape loop than exchange with the press-could only be called a national disgrace; President George W. Bush's performance in front of a docile collection of game-show hosts posing as reporters ought to frighten all of us. We live in terrible times, dangerous times, and all this man can do is mouth platitudes and assertions put on his podium cards by his war-crazed handlers. Eight times he interchanged the war on Iraq with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and eight times he was unchallenged.
Amazingly, in the immediate aftermath of the President's disgraceful performance, news outlets described him as solemn
and determined.
These pieces must have been put together before the President actually spoke, because there was nothing solemn or determined about him; clueless
and lost
would have been closer…
Rather than worrying about what Saddam Hussein is up to, maybe we should be worrying about where people around the world are putting their money. Foreign investment in the US is down 85 percent since 2000, from $300 billion to just $46 billion. And that's before Mr Bush sends American troops into Baghdad. The tumbling foreign investment is coupled with a sharp decline in stock purchases by foreigners. Now when the US needs money, anxious foreigners lend it to us instead of investing it in assets or shares. If the trend continues and foreign money keeps flooding out of this country, we're in for big trouble.
[NYO Mar 17]
- 7:
Another report from Blix. UNSC mood generally
no need for war yet.
USUK seethes.
Iraq asks for the sanctions to be lifted, USUK denounced as liars, and
Israel stripped of its WMD and withdrawn from Palestine.
ABC
(Ahh, that must've been what the Iraqi delegate was agitatedly saying.
I could see him, but Powell was standing out in the hall babbling at the
press at the same time, and CBC gave us his audio over the Iraqi's handwavy
visual.)
There is speculation about whether, if the SC gets the 9 votes but there's a
veto, the US won't argue it has the moral support and go to war that way. Not
that it even came close to that, but myself it'd be neat idea; because then
the veto which the US loves to wield
could be also nullified.
For 30 years, America's veto policy in the UN has been central to its foreign policy. More than 70 times the US has shamelessly used its veto in the UN, most recently to crush a Security Council resolution condemning the Israeli killing of the British UN worker Iain Hook in Jenin last December.
Most of America's vetoes have been in support of its ally Israel.
ICH
-
US Supreme Court decides 5–4 that a 50-a sentence imposed by CA for
stealing a couple of videos is not
cruel and unusual
.
Davis: This is good for California.
G
-
UK troops are complaining of equipment shortages, food shortages
(one meal per day), low morale.
ICH
US troops, with
burger bars and Pizza Huts,
refer to the UK troops
as The Borrowers
and The Flintstones.
TiL
-
Pentagon claims Iraq may be prepared to destory its oilfields in the
event of war.
VoA
(So? It's their oil. I thought this wasn't about oil?
Oh, eco-terrorism…like the US gives an eco-f$#@k.)
-
Iraqi embassy in Moscow claims about 10 000 Russians have applied for visas
to go defend Iraq.
P
(I admire anyone willing resist the US, doubly so anyone doing
it for someone else; I wish I had such guts.)
-
Charlie Daniels posts a flaming rebuke of antiwar Hollywood persons;
Connie Chung creams her jeans.
-
IAEA verdict on the USUK's story that Iraq has been trying to get U
from Nigeria:
Close scrutiny and cross-checking of the documents, the letterheads on them, the signatures on them, led us to conclude with quite absolute certainty that the documents were false.
They were fabricated,
G
·
G&M
(Admin's riposte? We got tooken.)
-
GWB refuses to speak to EU parliament because a standing ovation would
not be fabricated.
M
-
You hear voices in the National Post and I'm afraid
sometimes all you hear in other papers is the news.
[ad for the Nat'l Post]
(In other wors, NP is a bunch of schizophenia, go elsewhere for news.)
- 9:
Chrétien describes Saddam as
boxed in
and thus no immediate
need for war.
TS
·
CBC
Rice had to e brought in to repair the damage.
-
Compare the two nations. How many nations has Iraq invaded under its present leadership?
Answer: Two. First Iran, with the eager backing of the US, which supplied it with chemical and biological weapons (and now proposes to use the same weapons to attack Iraq for using chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction). Second, Kuwait, which was stealing Iraqi oil, and anyway, the claim that it is a part of Iraq is legitimate; Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia were all created arbitrarily by the oil companies.
Then, how many countries has America invaded and used weapons of mass destruction against during the same time period?
Answer: Try 13. Grenada 1983, Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets), Libya 1986, El Salvador 1980s, Nicaragua 1980s, Iran 1987, Panama 1989, Iraq 1991-2000, Somalia 1993, Bosnia 1994, 1995, Sudan 1998, Afghanistan 1998, Yugoslavia 1999. (Thanks to William Blum, Rogue State.)
So when those mostly white men (they're all white at heart) gather around the table at the UN and make their judgment that Iraq needs to be invaded, they're just pulling out the same story that the Western powers have used ever since the Crusades were started to go and loot the dark-skinned natives. The lie is so colossal that it just makes me want to throw up.
GO
-
Broadway musicians' strike.
I came all the way from South Dakota to see the show and now I wont get to see it! That's so unfair! Why do we have to suffer like this?
CNN
Suffer? Suffer?
You call that suffering?
Grow up for once in your lives!
If that is suffering, what are the Palestinians going thru?
How bloody insensitive if you ask us.
People are dying by the bushels, being killed by our bombs and tanks and jets and helicopters funded by our taxes and we have the gall to complain about missing a show?
Suffering?
And we ask why do they hate us?
Grow up America!
Wake up America!
RMN
-
It appears the US may use Turkey as a base without Turkey's
consent; 700 US troops had to be disarmed and repulsed.
US ambassador tries to make a distinction between
war troops
and armed soldiers.
JR
-
Clare Short dampens Blair's UN bluster by confirming there'll be a
rash of important resigations if he goes to war w/o the UN.
T
Dalyell wants Blair to resign.
We are extremely angry at the positions taken by Britain and the US…Germany and France are right. I hope another prime minister would speak seriously with Germany and France.
N24
-
Santa Cruz libraries post warnings that USA PATRIOT subjects reading habits
to FBI surveillance, and
Questions about this policy should be directed to
Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Rep. Bernie Sanders has tabled a bill
for repealing this particularly onerous
provision.
SFC
-
Sen. Frist blames antiwar vote on
hackers.
R
-
Pentagon threatens to fire on
satellite uplink positions
of independent
journalists in Iraq. Kate Adee of BBC:
And what actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness.
The Americans…and I've been talking to the Pentagon…take the attitude which is entirely hostile to the free spread of information.
I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if [media]
uplinks…were detected by any planes…of the military
above Bhagdad, they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists.
[The officer] said:
Well…they know this…they've been warned.
This is threatening freedom of information, before you even get to a war.
The second thing is there was a massive news blackout imposed.
In the last Gulf war, where I was one of the pool correspondents with the British Army, we effectively had very, very light touch when it came to any kind of censorship.
GF
- 10:
First release of
Contiki,
an OS and desktop w/web browser for 6502 systems like the C64.
(Yegods, more WWW boxen for the underprivileged.)
-
GWB declares Blix has
not been negative enough.
[ABC World News Tonight]
(Any f*ing idea what that's supposed to mean?)
- 11:
Delegation from Wollongong incl Lord Mayor Alex Darling planned to today
ask the French Consul General in Sydney if their city could defect to France,
since the French gov't is in better tune to Australian will than the
Australian gov't.
AN
MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) tested at Eglin AFB.
PNJ
[CNN confirmed 2pm test]
-
In desperate bid to get someone to pay attention, North Korea threatens to
nuke New York if the US tries anything against their reactors.
SMH
CIA confirms NK missile can hit US.
CTV
-
How big is the US military? It is by far the largest and most potentially destructive in the history of the world. The US this year will spend in excess of $400 billion (not including much spy spending). The next largest spender is Russia, which spends only 14% of the US total. To equal US spending, the military budgets of the next 27 highest spenders have to be added together. If you consider this, and also consider the disparity of the US nuclear stockpile and the 120 countries in which the US keeps its troops, you begin to see why the US is so widely regarded as an imperialist power and a threat to world peace.
ICH
-
I have twice seen the same film clip on CBS news: an Iraqi citizen buying what looks like a machine gun (Kalashnikov), and another citizen trying out a semi-automatic pistol's slide action. Both times, the voice-over warned of Iraqis preparing to defend themselves. Nobody mentions the obvious: unless the film clip was staged, Saddam Hussein lets Iraqis buy guns and ammo. This testifies against the theory that Saddam fears an organized uprising. If he fears assassination—his supposed use of look-alikes in public—he doesn't fear it enough to impose complete gun control.
…From what the US media report, citizens of Baghdad are armed. An
armed citizenry threatens American troops. For a decade, the US military has
trained to deal with urban occupation
[with a largely-disarmed public; see Frank Morales' essay on Garden Plot etc],
but a real-life situation [with armed citizens] has yet to occur.
…How much money will it cost to win in Iraq? Lawrence Lindsey was the Administration's senior economic advisor when he estimated G$100–200.
Then he was sacked. Career-wise men learn. With no evidence presented, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget now says G$50–60.
LR
-
Dixie Chick Natalie Maines:
Just so you know, we're ashamed the president
of the US is from Texas.
Country fans miffed.
Y!
(I should say so; GWB is from CT, not TX.
IMDB)
-
FOX poll of
900 registered voters nationwide
finds
46% never heard of Chirac,
58% never heard of Schröder,
71% support Whack Iraq,
75% think soldiers do more to achieve real peace in Iraq than protestors.
FOX
-
74-a-old Sister Antonia Anthony speaks against violence, citing her Pope;
is flagged
criminal extremist
by Denver police.
PBS
(Apparently GWB is all for spiritual leadership so longs as he's the leader.)
-
Aussie gov't
rocked
by resignation of senior intel analyst Andrew Wilkie
who sees no justification for Whack Iraq. I'm convinced a war against Iraq at this time would be wrong. For a start, Iraq does not pose a security threat to the US, or to the UK or Australia, or to any other country, at this point in time.
- 12:
Serb PM Zoran Djindjic assassinated. He may have been about to expose the
truth about the Milosevic show trial and NATO's Bosnia motives.
[ENC
citing Der Spiegel 2001 Jul 15]
-
Eugene Kaspersky says the 'net needs to be strictly regulated or the
worms and viruses will kill it.
IDG
(Which is exactly why the US pushes Winduhs so hard and so many worms and
viruses are running around; they need an excuse to rein in their creation.)
- 13:
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite tables bill that'd permit families of servicemen
buried in France or Belgium to repatriate the remains.
US gov't makes no contest of the Sanders' suit (EDNY case #01-CV-5447 JS)
alleging corruption of the TWA800 investigation, or something like that.
WND
Fleischer refuses to answer two simple questions re Perle:
Given Perle's conflict of interest, and given the widespread public belief that this war is being driven by corporate interests—war for oil, and war for defense contracts, war for construction companies—does the President believe that Richard Perle should resign from the Defense Policy Board? And second question, do you agree with Richard Perle that Hirsch is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist?
WH
-
Unlike George W. Bush, who gave one euthanized press conference before diving back down the rabbit hole, Blair appears before angry British crowds on a fairly regular basis to defend his stance on Iraq. His answers never satisfy, and Bush always looms above him like the shadow of the raven, but at least Tony stands up and takes his beatings like a man.
Some might call this brave. Others call it the maddening squawk of a parrot who hasn't gotten the message yet. Either way, you have to respect Tony a bit for this. Once upon a time, America enjoyed leaders who had enough respect for the people to speak to them. Those leaders could be wrong—they often were—but they didn't hide…
Many Britons fear a war without Security Council approval will destroy the UN, an event they view with disgust. Europeans like the UN; it gives them a collective voice within the American echo chamber.
TO
- 14:
WHO issues global alert re
atypical pneumonia
outbreak in Hong Kong.
WT
Rumsfeld annoyed Spears wants to be a Baghdad human shield. This is not helpful…I've spoken with Brittney's mother, and my only hope is that she can talk some sense into her daughter.
I
-
Minor legal victory: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decides Caltrans
can't fly the stars-n-bars unles it also permits antiwar flags and
signs, etc. Caltrans had banned all flags pending the decision;
it's not clear whether they'll stick to that or drop it.
SJMN
-
The current Bush Administration, many of whom served in the Reagan
and the first Bush [pro-Saddam] administrations, refuse to acknowledge that
their policies toward Iraq at the time backfired and we may be paying a price
for it now. But at this point, Iraq does not pose a threat to the US and
threats against the nation appear to be purely personal…
Armitage admitted in 1990 that the Reagan and Bush administrations were well aware of Hussein's brutality, but still, the US was more interested in maintaining a healthy relationship with Iraq because the country's vast oil reserves was beneficial to US interests.
ICH
-
What to do when one of the UNSC permanent members goes rogue;
eg, if the US whacks Iraq anyway? Trot out UNGAR 377!
ICH
-
Howard (plainly smoking dessicated dingo droppings) claims France had
destroyed any chance of peaceful disarmament.
A
- Mar 15:
Major global protest.
-
Spanish and USUK warmongers gather on Azores (just what's been spent in jet
fuel in all this!!) to blither about rescuing the Iraqis from the evils of
their overlord Saddam. Not a peep about rescuing the Palestinians from the
evils of their overlord Sharon. [Rivero]
IDF drives bulldozer over American in Gaza, Rachel Corrie, twice
EI;
Gazans mourn but GWB far too obsessed w/Iraq to notice.
H
Israel covers itself by claiming to have photo of Corrie burning The Flag
INN,
and then disrupts her memorial service with guns and tear gas.
G
Rivero
points out how the world considered the lone man in front of the tanks in
Tiananmen square a hero, and the woman who stood (not sat, as the
scurrilous prozionist media claim) in front of a bulldozer
stupid
.
UMD
And I'll be trotting
this one
out the next time blaming the victim
is cried when someone criticises
Israel.
- 15:
19 arrested in protest at Buckly ANGB; only 18 charged. The 19th
was a plant by the Aurora police.
I
- 16:
Carp identifying itself as the soul of a passed local Hasidic
warns its handlers to prepare for the end of the world.
BBC
- 17:
Der Führer sez FU to the UN and goes on TV to tell the world how
things're gonna be. He tries to claim there was no point going to the
SC if France was just going to veto anyway. I figure it's more a case
of he wouldn't get the nine votes anyway and to have it on record would
just be another humiliation. He gives Saddam 48 hrs to leave or there'll
be war. Saddam says he won't go; which is a pity, I would love to see the
tantrum GWB would pitch when that excuse was taken away.
(There is no question of such a thing stopping the war; the Whitehouse
said as much.
BBC)
NC 'baccy farmer Dwight Watson parks his tractor in the pond of
Constitution Gardens; it sports Salute to Veterans
and
God Bless the Troops
banners and an inverted US military flag.
CNN
·
WP
Chrétien seems to make up his mind: no UN, no Canada.
Robin Cook quits, saying he can't back a war with no domestic or
int'nat'l support; gets unprecedented
standing ovation.
BBC
I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted.
Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.
BBC
(I understand CNN omitted that part of his speech.)
He promises not to keep quiet.
BBC
BBC airs
docco on Israel's WMD
and the double standard of the int'nat'l
community; Israel considers lodging vehement protest.
H
BBC's appeasement is to switch the docco from Sunday prime time to Monday dead
time because of the Azores summit
; but this draws ire from the viewers.
DS
·
I
-
A US Army web server has already been hit with an exploit of yet another
Winduhs bug, this one in WebDAV.
BBC
(I just hope they don't use Winduhs to launch the nukes.)
-
Santos stevedores plan to refuse to handle USUK ships.
R
-
Mordechai Vanunu is denied parole. He's done about 16½ a of
an 18-a sentence for blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear WMD. His
lawyer:
The prosecutor said that if Vanunu were released, the Americans
would probably leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel's nuclear
weapons—which I found extremely ridiculous.
In an Israeli documentary in 2002, Dimona workers said accidents
had been routine. They spoke of explosions, fires and liquid and toxic gas
leaks that they had to clean, often without protection. The authorities
denied they had worked with radioactive materials [and] have refused to
compensate them or their families for their years of loyal service.
BCC
-
Israeli mother and two sons suffocate in room they had sealed
(Ashcroft style?) against chemical attack.
A
-
The scum who like to grind women and children up with bulldozers and bomb
schoolyards, and whom the US pays M$7/d to do it, call Whack Iraq
just.
P
-
Rep. Pete Stark blasts GWB for his Blitzkrieg plan,
act of extreme terrorism.
SFC
- 18:
Two months to the day after Clark starts an impeachment campaign,
it arrives in the House.
WND
-
Harb Dhaliwal expresses disappointment GWB thumbed his nose at the UN.
I think it's really regrettable and unfortunate that he's [GWB] made this
decision [to whack Iraq] when the whole world is crying out for
peace…The world expects someone who's the President of a superpower
to be a statesman. I think he's let not only Americans, but the world, down
by not being a statesman.
Harper suckholes: another stupid comment by a very senior minister of the
government…[the comportment of the Liberals is] juvenile.
Clark calls for a retraction or a resignation.
G&M
(God help me, I'm defending Dhaliwalidoodlealltheday. He was the fisheries
minister that told us, in essence, to play nice or he wouldn't let us play
at all, typifying Ottawa's attitude to what was Atlantic Canada's prime
industry until Ottawa let all and sundry in with big draggers and killed it.)
-
One of those severely oppressed Iraqi women preparing to leave Baghdad.
-
US whines about Belgium's
genocide law.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Washington that if such prosecutions proliferated, it could be difficult for senior officials to visit Belgium, home of the NATO headquarters.
E
(This from the man with a showy
War Crimes ambassador-at-large
who claims to assist in the creation and operation of other courts and
judicial mechanisms to bring offenders of international humanitarian law to
justice.
If the NATO guys don't want to prosecuted they ought not do the
crime.)
- 19:
US media spend a great deal of time explaining to Iraqis how to surrender.
(
We promise-womise not to bulldoze you into trenches or gun you down like
sheep in a pen while you're surrendering this time.
)
Klein TX Independent School District notifies parents ther children will
be state hostages in the event of extreme crisis:
One emergency plan involves an arrangement called Shelter in
Place
in which students and school personnel might need to remain at
school beyond the regular school day. In an extreme crisis situation, judged
by school district personnel and/or governmental officials, access to the
schools by parents or guardians may be limited…we are requesting that
you discuss with your child the possibility of such a major change in family
routines…parents need to resist the instinct to pick up students from
school if it becomes necessary that students stay in place when access is
prohibited.
WRH
-
(For this fact
, try The Economist 2003 Feb 22–28 p13)
-
Just before the Iraq war, David Dimbleby came to Washington to interview Donald Rumsfeld. They talked for half an hour. As you would expect, the questioning was persistent, forensic. Americans who heard the interview were shocked. The world's most powerful nation does not have the world's most powerful press. Specifically, it has no daily forum for the close questioning of politicians—no Today programme, no Channel 4 News, no Newsnight.
Incredibly—in this cultural and political superpower, in this supposed beacon of world freedom—radio stations were reduced to running interviews with experts from the BBC on their airwaves; a plucky station in Boston laid on an hour-long discussion and phone-in to follow the broadcast, during which I had to explain to the listeners that this kind of thing happened all the time in Britain.
What surprised people most was the style. Mr Rumsfeld's answers were followed up. His reasoning was tested. He was put on the spot and not allowed to leave it. When Dimbleby asked him why he had repeatedly referred to the so-called
occupied territories of the West Bank, Mr Rumsfeld said he might have done it once but certainly not repeatedly. Dimbleby had the dates and occasions in front of him. The Defence Secretary was forced to concede the point.
What a far cry it was from the Donald Rumsfeld Americans know and love. Strutting his stuff on the Pentagon podium, Mr Rumsfeld is lord and master of all he surveys. The Defence hacks titter nervously at each other and hope to get off with as light a beating as possible. Difficult questions are avoided; difficult questioners are lampooned. Anyone who persists is taken out and beaten senseless. (I made that up, but the atmosphere is genuinely one of laughing menace; a truly independent spirit would not enjoy being a Pentagon correspondent. The Today programme's Andrew Gilligan would not get through the door.)
So why the transatlantic journalistic rift? Are American journalists simply spineless? Do they toe the line because they love the President? Or because their employers do? The answer, I think, is more complex. Americans in all walks of life have a respect for authority that the cynical Brits jettisoned somewhere around the time of Profumo and Christine Keeler. Americans, remember, still go to church. For all their rhetoric of freedom, there is nevertheless an acceptance of a higher power here in the US.
I
- 20:
Intel engineer and US citizen Mike Hawash arrested at gunpoint in Intel's
parking lot and thrown into solitary at federal prison Sheridan OR.
CN
No charge is laid until Apr 28.
ADH
World War Three officially begins circa dawn in Baghdad;
may Allah have mercy upon us.
(I must say, tho, that was no shock and awe.
Maybe they're saving that
for a good dark night; it's nearly full moon. Or maybe they're trying to egg
Saddam into firing some of those alleged WMD so they can shout see? see?
we were right!
to the world. It might be because the US has
realised the world would consider that overkill; I doubt it, but I have no
historical precedent to work with, the US has never before so massively botched
the engineering of consent.)
The US apparently flung a few missiles at a bunker they thought Saddam was
in—turned out later the bunker didn't exist.
Y!
Accusations Iraq flung Scuds, denied by Iraq.
(I bleeve Scuds are banned to Iraq as too-long-range.
I read later they're identified as Silkworms, not Scuds.)
Unprovoked and unnecessary
teargassing by Swiss police of crowd of
antiwar children, witnessed by WHO workers. Report of a fatality denied by
the cops.
S
·
I
US calls on all countries to sever diplomacy w/Iraq.
(Canada does not comply. [CNN])
Security Councillors blast US.
CBC
US does much crowing about the 20…30…40 countries in its
coalition of the willing
…most of them, frankly, 2-b (or less)
countries like Eritrea
G
and only three (US, UK, AU) actually providing any military.
(Whoops! nope: about 400 Czech troops and 60–70 Slovak, in the
Guardian article.)
One country conspicuously unlisted: Israel.
Connie Chung quits CNN when they deprive her of her own show.
WP
(Hooray! She was way too proBush.)
Dusty Wood suspended from North Crowley High TX for two days over
his Stop the War
t-shirt.
DFW
-
Two small flasks
with traces of ricin
found in left-luggage depot of
Gare de Lyon.
R
(Of course we're supposed to think Saddam is so stupid as to attack a country
opposed to Whack Iraq.)
It turns out to be barley and wheat germ. Announcing the laboratory test results [Apr 11], the judicial officials said the ground up bits of wheat germ and barley have certain chemical similarities to ricin and initially produced misleading findings.
ND
Ricin also found in London flat.
R
-
Having told the UNSC to go f*k itself for not whacking Iraq for allegedly
telling the UNSC to go f*k itself, the US now wants the UNSC to clean up the
mess the US is making in Iraq.
SMH
-
Thai hotel,
Pavilion Resort
on Koh Samui, gives US guests the boot over Iraq.
MSNBC
-
Whitehouse vows
strong retaliatory response
on the BBC for showing
117-s video of GWB w/o his makeup ready.
Henceforth the Whitehouse, not the networks, will decide what gets to the air.
WP
Pity they didn't broadcast his fist-pumping I feel good!
M
·
LAT
-
Richard
Darth Vader
Perle is delighted with the death of the UN.
G
-
There have been pockets of resistance already in the south, where Saddam's most ill-prepared troops are ranged with defenses pulverized by months of US and British attacks in the no-fly zone.
While the US 3rd Infantry Division advanced from Kuwait at least 150 km
into Iraq on Friday and British commandos took the Faw peninsula on Iraq's southern tip, US Marines met tougher resistance at the port of Umm Qasr.
Reuters correspondent Adrian Croft said the Marine unit to which he is attached was pinned down for two hours just inside Iraq by anti-tank missiles and small arms fire, and only advanced again after calling in British artillery support.
They have experienced more resistance in the south than they expected,
John Rothrock, a retired US airforce colonel who fought in Vietnam, told ARD television's Washington studio. It has not run as easily as expected.
LF
-
US nat'l anthem booed roundly at Montréal hockey game.
BG
[CTV news]
-
Iraqis killed under white flag. They must not have gotten the US' memo on
how to surrender.
-
B52s leave England,
portending major nighttime air strikes against Iraq.
WHTM
·
WBIR
·
DW
(So much for surgical
bombing.)
- 21:
Spain detains 16 it suspects are al Qaeda; later releases 14 of them
when it's found their
chemical weapons material
was laundry soap
and/or detergent.
R
(Hey, go look up—don't try it!!—what happens when
you mix Tilex and ammonia. Them houshold kemikals is murder.)
US begins something it calls shock & awe
but is nowhere near the
advertisement of 10× what was done in GW1. Either they've decided the
world won't abide it or they've been caught unprepared by the weather.
(More intense sandstorms expected next week.
SPI)
Though some who weren't watching on teevy were impressed:
It is as if Buckingham Palace, the White House, Parliament and Congress had all been wiped off the map in 45 awful minutes. The main symbols of sovereignty in one nation obliterated. A power denuded in less time than an episode of West Wing. The emperor's suit of clothes just a molten hanger.
I have been in many places, in many wars, but never had to endure anything close to the 45 minutes which has just taken place…
March the 21st is Nowruz, celebrated in Iraq and even more so in neighbouring Iran as the real beginning of each year.
It is an anniversary as old as springtime. It celebrates the spring solstice.
Two months ago I idly announced among my colleagues that the bombing would be on this very day. I take no pride in being right.
As I look out of the window now, quiet has returned. But nobody is celebrating. A pagan festival which predates Islam but has resided in the hearts of people ever since the sun rises and the moon sinks.
M
(That's in general consistency with what the US has always called
liberation,
though…cf Dresden and Tokyo.)
People are starting to wet their pants over what red terra status
might mean. Alex Jones:
I talked to the parents of two different children who are attending school in Milbourne, Arkansas. For the last week their children have been put through what can only be described as brainwashing more severe than the conditioning undergone by Hitler youth.
The children in the Milbourne Elementary School have been denied breakfast and lunch while being forced to watch terrifying video of terrorist attacks and archived battle footage.
[Compare A Clockwork Orange]
On Friday, March 21, 2003 the children were supposed to get out early from school for spring break at 12:15. One of the parents only lives a mile away from the school in the rural community of only 1500 people. He became concerned when his 10 year-old son did not arrive home on time.
As he was calling the school, his son rode up to the house on his bicycle an hour and a half late. The distraught father told me that after his son told him that he was denied food and was forced to watch the red alert
videos for three or four hours a day. He reported that school employees told the children that they were not going to be allowed to leave. Then men in dark blue uniforms with rifles locked the children and their teachers in their classrooms. The children's fear intensified when they noticed that their teachers did not know what was going on and were afraid themselves, trying the lock in vain attempts to get out.
The children were then marched outside where flat faced prison-style school buses were waiting. The parents I talked to said their children clearly saw US ARMY
on the side of the buses. The children were then marched back to their classrooms and the uniformed men (not local police) disappeared. The children were only then allowed to go home.
IW
A general coercive policy that denies the right of parents to rescue their own children is so hideous and repulsive that one should question the love of any parent, that is willing to accept such a fiat pronouncement.
iGO
The day after American and British troops began their illegal
invasion and occupation of Iraq, an embedded
CNN correspondent
interviewed an American soldier. I wanna get in there and get my nose
dirty,
Private AJ said. I wanna take revenge for 9/11.
To be fair
to the correspondent, even though he was embedded
he did sort of weakly
suggest that so far there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government
to the 9/11 attacks. Private AJ stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down
to the end of his chin. Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head,
he
said.
NFB
-
US military flag hoisted over Aluboor Marine Terminal; lowered shortly
thereafter for reeking of imperialism according to the prime trademark
holders, the British.
G
-
Basra taken, maybe, but only after hard battle that
killed 50.
(Other
than a family of 4, I can't make out who.) Iraq denies USUK is taking military
surrenders, but kidnapped
civilians who'll be dressed up as soldiers
for show. (I've seen a couple of these surrenders
on the teevy where
the only things resembling uniforms were US.)
i
On the other hand:
First contact disappoints some marines…initial combat was less intense than…imagined.
WT
Initial resistance as the US Marines swept into southern Iraq early yesterday. One of the first encounters of the ground war was more like a massacre than a fight.
SMH
- 22:
Police attempt murder of 52-a-old law-abinding US woman in front of Whitehouse.
CD
(DC EMS Incident Rpt F030031265 cited separately as confirmation.)
GWB admits A campaign on harsh terrain in a vast country could be longer
and more difficult than some have predicted
in a radio address.
ST
McChrystal says Iraqis have not fired any Scuds, and US forces searching
airfields in the far western desert of Iraq have uncovered no missiles or
launchers.
[JR
quoting
FAIR
citing
AP/DFP]
McChrystal…told a briefing that none of the missiles
fired by Iraq so far in the war had been a Scud.
R
(Thus the `Scud' attack of the 20th is assumed to have been legal missiles
such as Silkworms.)
Pentagon confirms three cruise missiles dropped on Iran.
CoD
(One would be an accident. Three in a bunch is deliberate.)
Iranian air is also being used w/o consent.
KPLC
·
AN
Dennis sold my soul for career revival
Miller spues a prowar
epistle.
WT
My replies:
- SADDAM BAD GUY WITH NO KNOWN WMD. BUSH WORSE GUY WITH HALF ALL KNOWN WMD,
AT LEAST ONE GRANDPARENT WHO LOVED HITLER, AND A STATED PREFERENCE FOR
DICTATORSHIPS.
- MUSTA BEEN BECAUSE ISRAEL AND THE US WERE ALL BOOKED UP IN WAR PLANNING.
- YEAH, YOU REALLY SHOWED HOW VIETNAM SHOULDA BEEN FOUGHT.
- AND IF YOUR PRO-WAR SLOGAN HAS NO MORE SUBSTANCE THAN
HE TRIED TO KILL
MY DADDY
YOU SHOULDN'T BE ROBBED OF THE PRESIDENCY YOU DIDN'T WIN ANYWAY.
- MAYBE NOT, BUT THEY'LL PROBABLY MAKE SURE THE CIA'S CHEQUE CLEARS.
- pending
- pending
- pending
- WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT
- THEN THEY SHOULD BE SHOOTING AT THE TRAITORS WHO PASSED USA PATRIOT
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
71% of Canadians support staying out of the war; 60% object to it altogether.
EKOS found the greatest support for the Liberal position in Québec,
among women, those who are university educated and who described themselves as
Canadian nationalists. Those most fervently opposed to the Chrétien
position lived in Alberta, were among the country's most affluent, and
overwhelmingly are Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative
supporters.
TS
(Myself, I've renounced my involvement in the PC party.)
-
Russia refuses US demand to freeze Iraqi assets for lack of evidence;
planning to demand UN ruling on legality of Whack Iraq.
DT
-
People are wondering when those hyped-up Iraqi WMD are coming.
The Iraqi military has not lived up to its fearsome image…Some analysts have said Saddam's chemical arsenal, which was formidable in 1990, may be in poor shape, and perhaps unusable, after years of UN sanctions and inspections.
BN
(I doubt they exist in serious quantity, but Saddam might hold onto them for
the main Baghdad defense. On the other hand, my own mother thinks it's past
time Saddam used them.)
-
Bizarre, muddled incident at La Guardia: powder found in TX-bound Israeli
woman's checked or carry-on luggage is harmless but made ten persons ill.
WRH
·
WRH
·
WRH
·
WRH
·
WRH
·
WRH
Then she becomes Texan returning from Israel with Cream of Wheat
and a present from her grandchildren.
NYP
Later transmogrifications:
diatomaceous earth
ZW
and packing material.
TL
-
Iraqi terrorist
attack on 101st Airborne camp: hand grenades thrown
into two officers' tents. (If there was ever proof of what we do
is war; what you do is terrorism
, this CNN report is it. And as
if shock and awe
is not intended to terrorise. It's war, you a*les,
and it's exactly what you asked for.) CNN describes it as a
possible attempt on the commander's life.
(Like, I thought it was
just to make him soil his Haineses.)
It later turns out to have been a Muslim US soldier, reviving a Vietnam
tradition
called fragging
.
[S
citing BBC via NPR]
-
GWB drafting EO to further delay release of millions of embarassing documents.
G
-
Palau is one of the willing, but will provide no military 'cause they have
none. Ditto Iceland.
WP
(Palau's a place I had to look up.)
-
The French know history: the US has beat up dozens of penny-ante countries
in the past century and never once left a democracy.
In new debates, books and columns, French analysts are going back
to the days before 9/11 to recall US interventions from Chile to Guatemala to
Vietnam. Historian Christine Durandin argues in
La CIA en Guerre
(The CIA at war) that the US secret services intervened in all Latin American
countries since the 1950s, and that everywhere these interventions prepared
the way for brutal military dictatorships
.
The interventions never led to nation building
, Durandin said by way
of challenging US claims that the war against terrorism
can be used to
build the foundation of modern societies in the Arab world. Durandin's book has become a bestseller. The first edition published earlier this month is already
sold out.
Other books look at the background of many US leaders, particularly the Bush
family. Prize-winning investigative journalist Eric Laurent looks at the
dealings of the Bush family since the 1930s in
La Guerre de Bush (Bush's War). Laurent digs up
dealings with Nazi industries in Germany, and with Saudi Arabian business
houses accused of financing Islamic terrorist groups. Bush dined with the
devil
, Laurent says.
Based on his own investigations and on material published in the US,
Laurent says that President George W Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was
a banker who invested in industries rearming Nazi Germany. Laurent says that
in 1942 the US government placed sanctions on four companies of the Bush
family—the Union Banking Corporation, the Holland-American Trading
Corporation [sic—most sources say HAPAG-Lloyd], the Seamless Steel
Equipment Corporation, and the Silesian-American Corporation.
AT
- 23:
Fresh gunfire over Umm Qasr. (So much for those Iraqis rushing to embrace
their
liberators.
)
Patriot takes out British Tornado. (Wow, a Patriot hit something!)
US starts squalling that Iraq is violating the Generva Convention by
showing POWs on teevy.
WP
The outrage follows on the heels of extensive, and I repeat, extensive
footage of Iraqi POWs, sometimes with cameras panning in for extreme close-ups
of blank-staring Iraqi soldiers, dishevelled and fatigued. [CNN's excuse?]
Because their families wouldn't be watching.
Not true [and
irrelevant].
S
Pretty rich from the President who sanctioned the release of photos of
Afghan POWs in their hoods and shackles at Guantánamo Bay. A move that
the Mirror campaigned against at the time precisely because it breached the
Geneva Convention and would therefore compromise our troops in the future.
M
(Ah, but the poor sods they captured in Afghanisten weren't classed as POWs.
By the US. Everyone else but not the US. Anyway, I now know there are
major and minor war crimes. The US' premeditated destruction of civilian
infrastructure in GW1 was a major war crime. Iraq's teevying of POWs is a
minor war crime. George Monbiot cranked out an
article
that draws about the same conclusion.)
Premature
claims US has captured chemweap plant in Najaf.
SW
(The plant was already well-known to the West.
Rivero suggests that the very
fact the plant was captured intact is proof there was nothing there to hide.
And there wasn't.
CBS
ITN reporter Terry Lloyd killed; US claims by suicide bomber,
others convinced by Allied fire.
M
Michael Moore blasts GWB at the Oscars; speech was cut short as show
producers drowned him out with music from the orchestra.
New-minted
American Jim Carrey stayed home in protest.
He was given a standing ovation and hearty applause; but in replays the
audience was overlaid with jeer sounds.
BI
(Compare
Jan 13.
My mother wondered what had happened.
She happened to catch that part and thought that guy's going over big
and not in the sarcastic sense. She wondered why next day it sounded all
different…Teevy gets closer and closer to The Running Man model
the longer I follow it.)
M
Moores' next film will cover the Bush-bin Laden partnership.
O
Terry Jones: Since the Second World War, the US has bombed China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Guatemala (again), Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala (third time lucky), Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia—in that order—and in not a single case did the bombing produce a democratic government as a direct result. Why do you think it will be any different in Iraq? Or did your fairy godmother promise you this along with a golden coach?
O
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
- 24:
Mortarfire pushes British back from Basra.
TO
We're currently taking stock of
the situation. We were expecting a lot of hands-up from Iraqi soldiers and for
the humanitarian operation in Basra to begin fairly quickly behind us, with
aid organisations providing food and water to the locals. But it hasn't quite
worked out that way.
BBC
British shift to defending Basra from Iran.
BBC
Blitzer: 7th Cavalry stalled for 2nd day running.
USUK blasts busload of Syrian civilians returning from Iraq 160 km
inside Syria.
M
·
ATT
·
P
(Tho I wonder if the Pravda report slipped about the location.)
Yellowtimes.org shut down again—this time for showing pictures of
inappropriate graphic material
(photos of real war casualties).
S
·
SMH
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
US encountering urban resistance they
didn't want
—and they're
only to Nasiriya.
OT
(The Iraqi strategy seems to be, let the invaders go by, then hit them
in the soft supply line. Stretches out that ¼M…)
-
GWB picks fight with Russia, for providing GPS jammers
TMT
and possibly also over weapons found in an Iraqi cache—cheek-by-jowl
with British weapons which are ignored.
S
-
CNN:
The Bush administration has warned the Iraqi regime not to use WMD or
face a massive retaliation.
English: GWB begs Saddam to use WMD so USUK
can have some real fun with the world's blessing.
-
Sandstorms slow advance to Baghdad.
HC
(Allah doesn't seem to be on Bush's side.)
However, the weather has not prevented US B52 aircraft from dropping huge payloads of bombs south of the capital.
BBC
(So much for precision, low-collateral-damage bombing.
)
-
Cheney may be making a stopover in Jordan to try to convince his
lesbian daughter Mary not to be a Baghdad human shield.
AB
- 25:
Leader of main Iraq Shi'ite group warns Washington there'll be armed resistance
if the US stays after Saddam is gone.
R
Mohammed Baqir Hakim, head of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shiite opposition movement in Iraq issued a statement quite specifically telling the Shiites not to aid the US in any way. And his admonition, broadcast on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television network, is being heeded.
UPI
(The US had clearly assumed that at least the Shia would support
them…apparently forgetting that time they encouraged the Shia to rise
up and then turned their backs. Just because Der Führer can't get his
head around fool me twice, shame on me
doesn't mean the Iraqis can't.
BBC
And when the US says things like failure is not an option
, it
means it: it must control the oil fiat; to quit Iraq would signal
all the US-oppressed peoples to rise up; fail to deliver liberation
again and noöne will ever buy the line again…The US
wins or dies on this.)
US eBay cuts off buyers in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, and other
countries not supporting Whack Iraq.
W
(That's fine; I don't wanna buy Nazi crap anyway.
And a chunk of the world agrees.
R)
Tractor-trailer aimed at group of protestors on sidewalk; driver
pretends he didn't want to hurt anyone. (He stopped about 3m short of them;
one was in a wheelchair.)
CE
Snotnose Cellucci demands Ottawa silence war critics.
USEC
·
R
(The Aussies told the US ambassador what to do with himself for saying
such things. Ottawa hasn't the guts. Although they dabbled with the idea.
CBC)
Patriot battery locks onto US F16, which fires on targeter in defense.
G
Suspicions arise about bugs in the discriminator.
SMH
Belgium tables amendment to leave GWB off the hook for GW2.
DT
It shortly passes.
GO
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
That day [Sunday], two dead marines were brought to the
hospital and he [surgical assistant Mustafa Mohammed Ali] made this
admission: When I saw the dead Americans I cheered in my heart.
And
yet he did not support Saddam Hussein: We don't want Saddam, but we don't
want them [the Americans] to stay afterwards.
Meek quoted another man, a farmer named Said Yahir, as saying that the
marines had come to his house and had taken his son, his rifle, and 3m dinars
($800). This is your freedom that you're talking about? This is my life
savings,
he said. Said Yahir himself had taken part in the uprising of
1991. He is not cheering in 2003.
BBC
-
It is believed 500 dead USUK troops from Afghanistan have been kept hidden
at Shebhaz airbase in Jacobabad.
[LF
quoting
PT]
-
The US may have wasted megabucks pounding decoy
planes
in Basra.
[CB
citing Kavkaz Tsentr Mar 22]
-
Jack Straw admits
that the West has been guilty of double
standards, on the one hand saying the UNSC
resolutions on Iraq must be implemented, on the other hand, sometimes
appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel
and Palestine.
Israel seethes.
INN
-
Fmr supreme allied cmdr of NATO Wesley Clark roasts Rumsfeld for insisting
on a
smallier, lighter
Whack Iraq force than actual military men asked
for.
SKY
(Also
P)
In pure coincidence, Rummy calls up another 30 000 troops.
Y!
-
The 8000 Iraqis the US claimed to have captured are off battling the British.
AN
-
MD woman dies of heart attack, six others ill after vaccination.
NBC
- 26:
UAE paper Alittihad reports US delegation on way to Baghdad to
negotiate immediate ceasefire.
AJ
US paratroopers try for airbase in the North of Iraq.
(How much fuss will the Kurds kick up? Do they know the US tried to sell
'em out to Turkey for Whack Iraq bases? Actually, I may have to stop calling
it Whack Iraq…Aha! Thanks to a German satire show via WRH reader:
Operation Iraqi Liberation, or OIL.)
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (in Teheran) denies there's
a revolt in Basra.
P
Solomon Islands deny being part of the coalition of the willing.
NZH
(Boy, the US is desprit.)
US blows up childrens' hospital in Rutbah.
B
Nat'l Guardsman dies of heart attack 6 days after vaccination.
R
God misses again (see
Feb 27)—Tony
Blair this time.
LF
There was something very different about Day 6 in the continuing wave of demonstrations in the Syrian capital. Not only was it far larger—perhaps by a factor of 10—than any that preceded it, this protest was the first to receive the wholesale blessing and organizational heft of the Syrian government.
TS
Atlantic TV news runs a quick do-you-support-the-war telephone poll. The
1500 calls are 2–1 for. Newscaster clearly doubts it reflects
reality.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
Our office received the following email from the office manager who is an avid listener of an Atlanta radio talk show host (Libertarian / Warmonger):
WSB 750 is collecting personal items tomorrow via a huge truck at the Walmart on Ashford Dunwoody to deliver to Ft. Benning and which will be sent to our military troops over in Kuwait. They are asking for items such as toothbrushes, disposable razors, Q-tips, baby fresh wipes, individual packaged snacks, stationery, hand lotion, sunscreen, etc. I will be making a trip to Walmart tomorrow at lunch to gather some items together. If anyone would like to make a donation, I will gladly pick up as much stuff as we have money. Let me know. Thanks!!
Is the Pentagon so improvident that our troops are reduced to begging for basic necessities and care packages? Or is this a scam to boost Walmart's war profits? I'd be interested to know if other readers have heard similar calls for donations.
[letter to
WRH]
And the UK troops are so poorly equipped they're begging off the
Americans. Yet they claimed the Americans had burgerbars, Pizza Huts, and
minimalls with them. So I lean toward scam.
-
US media are very busy spinning stories why the Iraqis aren't welcoming them.
All ignore the Iraqis' own testimony, which is backed by history:
you
screwed us once already.
-
US postpones the Battle of Baghdad to stabilise the southern ructions.
The resistance has been so stiff that commanders have concluded
that this Iraqi threat has to be addressed first,
Gordon writes…The
plan to bypass the southern cities, or for them to fall easily, has been
replaced by a plan which commits allied forces to some form of urban
warfare in southern Iraq.
[RMN
citing NY Times]
-
US soldiers are
shocked at Iraqi resistance.
R
-
Ann Wright, deputy chief of mission to Ulan Bator, quits over GWB's BS.
BBC
All my adult life I have been in service to the US…This is the only time in my many years serving America that I have felt I cannot represent the policies of an Administration of the US. I disagree with the Administration's policies on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, North Korea and curtailment of civil liberties in the US itself. I believe the Administration's policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place.
BM
[Alleged] Jubilation turns to hate as aid arrives…We want you to go back home. We do not want your American and British aid,
…sudden burst of gunfire from a nearby building left no one in any doubt.
G
-
Iraqis stubbornly persist in not welcoming the invaders with spiced unguents
and virgins.
G
US Navy aircraft dropped 40 000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. But a navy spokesman in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, denied that napalm—which was banned by a UN convention in 1980—was used…The navy admitted to using napalm as late as 1993 in training exercises on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, but the last cannister of a vast US naval stockpile was reportedly destroyed in a public ceremony in April 2001.
SMH
- 27:
Superfireball lights up sky over four states.
NBC
(God's getting miffed. Seriously, this is the kind of thing smart people have
been scared of for years; some lower-middleclass bang from space that could
get confused with a military attack. There was a bigger one during GW1 that
would likely have started a nuclear exchange except it was over the Pacific.)
M1A1 Abrams tank falls off bridge, drowns crew in Euphrates.
It is claimed the driver was shot by an Iraqi
R,
which would mean standing orders to be buttoned-down in hostile territory
were not followed.
SwissAir 111 report
released. Concludes entertainment-system wiring probably ignited flammable
thermal insulation.
Coalition
forces whacking each other.
A
More antichemical suits found in Iraq; much frantic spinning that this proves
Iraq and not the coalition plans to use WMD.
R
A child could see through it, and at least one PhD can too.
ABC
(After all, the US has 30 Gg of chemical weapons it needs to get rid
of…
V
·
LS)
GWB proposes to eliminate overtime protections for millions.
AFLCIO
To hear the Republicans tell it, you'd think these were family-friendly bills, something like Clinton's Family Leave Act, designed to help you balance the difficult combined demands of work and family. With such a smarm of butter over their visages do the Republicans go on about the joys of flexibility
and freedom of choice
that you would have to read the bills for maybe 30 seconds before figuring out they're about repealing the 40-hour workweek and ending overtime.
TP
It
turns out there are Canadian troops in Iraq.
CBC
John McCallum refuses to indicate where the exchange troops are, let alone
retrieve them. (Some enlisted themselves w/USUK; that's a different fish.)
CBC
(Well that's fine, Mr McCallum. Any of 'em what come back dead we'll just
exchange for a British corpse, how's that?)
Richard Prince of Darkness
Perle partially resigns one of his
conflicted interests; relinquishes chair of Pentagon policy board.
Y!
·
Y!
British say they're seeing the biggest tank battle since WW2. [CBC]
Negroponte walks off Security Council; can't bear to hear the truth.
UPI
Rep. Kucinich: This war is illegal and we should get out now.
[CNN]
Still asking is that really Saddam we see on TV?
(At this point the US media wouldn't admit Saddam was alive if he bit 'em on
the ass and they got a DNA match from the spit. On the other hand, they
believe it was Hitler's ashes in that ditch even though the dental records
don't match.)
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
Vaccine gives second woman fatal heart attack.
SFG
-
US figures to call up 100 000 more for Iraq war.
ITV
Correction: 150 000.
AN
-
Slovenia declines M$7.5 to be accidentally part of the coalition of the
willing.
ABC
-
Iraqis try to sneak into Crawford TX from Mexico.
NYDN
(Hey, GWB said heads of state were fir game.)
-
Chemweap defense school found near Kirkuk.
Gas masks, chemical
weapons decontamination kits and detailed instructions on how to use chemical
weapons protective suits were found at the site, which appeared to be a
training center. No evidence of instruction in the use chemical agents as
offensive weapons was found in an hourlong search of the complex. The course
work appeared similar to what American and NATO soldiers are taught about the
use of chemical suits and gas masks as protective equipment.
NYT
(Headlines carefully omit defense
part.)
- 28:
Whitehouse works hard to convince it never implied this was going to be a short
war.
Rummy warns Syria and Iran not to help defend Iraq.
(Wait your turn, gawldarnit!!
)
Assad figures he's on the regime change
list.
WT
Missile kills 62 in Baghdad market; code number on shard indicates
Raytheon-made.
JR
Basra nowhere near yet in our hands.
Wallace: The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against.
G
(Actually it's very like it; remember the US forces relied on their
game's reset
button several times. The US was determined to do this on
the cheap, convineced itself it could be done on the cheap by such fantasies
as a grand Iraqi welcome, and now they're gonna pay for it.)
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
Powell rules out significant UN influence on postwar Iraq
We didn't take
on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have
significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future.
GO
(Tell us and the Iraqis again how this isn't about conquest,
but liberation?)
-
One megaäbsurdity dawns on me, reading this:
Q) But aren't we trying to give them humanitarian aid?
A) Humanitarian aid such as missiles into their market places, homes, and the destruction of the water purification system?
MF
If it's about humanitarian aid, wouldn't it've been a f*kload cheaper
and more effective to just stop the damn sanctions, which were hurting the
Iraqis more than Saddam anyway?!?
[Economist Feb 22 p13]
Are the Iraqis going to say thank you for
bombing us all to h*ll just so you can give us what you could've let us have
all along if you weren't imperialist antisemitic SOBs running out of
oil
?!? Is that what USUK thought?
-
I also realise today this really could blow up into WW3. Syria and Iran are
itching for a piece of the action, they know they're
next on the list
anyway, they might as well take the fight to the enemy; clearly this is going
to get too big for USUK to handle. Will there be an uprising in some USUK
outpost, which a USUK ally leaps in to quell? Does Russia come to protect its
Iraq investments? Just what comes next I can't tell…But the US is
win-or-die on this; and winning's going to be tough.
-
BBC believes it's getting more truth from Baghdad than the Pentagon.
We're absolutely sick and tired of putting things out and finding
they're not true. The misinformation in this war is far and away worse than
any conflict I've covered, including the first Gulf war and Kosovo. On Saturday
we were told they'd taken Basra and Nassiriya and then subsequently found out
neither were true. We're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon
at the moment. Not because Baghdad is putting out pure and morally correct
information but because they're less savvy about it, I think. I don't know
whether they [the Pentagon] are putting out flyers in the hope that we'll
run them first and ask questions later or whether they genuinely don't know
what's going on—I rather suspect the latter.
G
-
Gen. Eric Shinseki, head of US Army and Franks' superior, having a good round
of
I told you so, civvie punks.
For the past two years Gen Shinseki has been in total eclipse
after what appears to have been the most spectacular bust-up with his civilian
bosses, in particular Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary. Hardly any of
this reached the public domain until last month when Gen Shinseki told a
congressional committee that he thought an occupying force in the hundreds of
thousands would be required to police postwar Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld publicly
repudiated him, saying he was far off the mark
. In semi-private, the
Pentagon's civilian leadership was far more scathing. A senior
administration official
told the Village Voice newspaper that
Gen Shinseki's remark was bullshit from a Clintonite enamoured of
using the army for peacekeeping and not winning wars
.
Then the general said it again. It could be as high as several hundred
thousand,
he told another committee. We all hope it is something
less.
Most of the media were too distracted by the build-up to war to
notice. Serious analysts, however, were staggered by the insubordination.
This appears to have been round two of another, more immediately relevant,
dispute about how many troops are needed to win this war. In this case, the
military prevailed over the original civilian notion that fewer than
100 000 could do it. As even more soldiers rush to the Gulf to bring the
number closer to 300 000, the original Rumsfeld plan looks in hindsight
to be what the army said at the time: a recipe for possible catastrophe.
G
-
Spanish PM faces 91% opposition.
G
It is telling that the much-ballyhooed coalition of the willing
turns out to be a vapor. Few nations are providing substantial military assistance for Gulf War II.
Poland and Spain each offered 200 troops. Denmark offered a submarine and a destroyer. Turkey and Italy, is allowing US planes to land or fly in their airspace. The countries of New Europe
—such as the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia and Romania—have offered to help with the post-war cleanup.
And there are the great world powers such as Afghanistan, Albania, Azebaijan, Columbia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Philippines, Rwanda, Soloman Islands, Uganda and Uzbekistan. They've all offered moral support, but little else. In the words of London's Daily Mirror newspaper, they're a coalition of the bribed, bullied and blind.
Then there are the secret admirers
list of pro-US nations in the Persian Gulf—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates—that have refused to associate themselves publicly with the war. Israel is supporting the war, but the US is trying to keep that fact quiet…
There is a reason why so many nations are not wholeheartedly embracing the invasion of Iraq. They don't want to find themselves in violation of international law.
AR
(That last is very interesting. Iraq attacking the US anytime in the past four
years could be justified, given the near-continuous bombing not authorised by
the UN. But the converse?)
-
US denies reports of a halt
(R);
Reuters embeddeds have rations cut.
Y!
-
C. N. Pogue's design and lab notes for 200-MPG carburetor recovered.
T
- 29:
Pentagon: 49 nations now support OIL. [CNN]
USUK blasts to smithereens food-storage depots and Basrans seeking aid there.
IRNA
Show-of-support protest in Ottawa. If your friend gets in a fight, you
help them.
(And if a sometime friend the size of Arnold Schwartzenegger picks a fight
with an asthmatic amputee dwarf in a wheelchair with flat tires, what kind
of friends have you got and what are you if you go help him?)
Blast at Kuwaiti mall; Chinese Silkworm according to US, US cruise
according to Kuwaitis reading its markings. (Photos of the pieces have shown
English markings but no Chinese. And I think the missile came from seaward.)
[O
citing
NYT]
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
-
Half of Sir Galahad's cargo is guns and bullets.
I
- 30:
USUK special forces report in: ten prime-suspect sites checked, no WMD.
[G
citing Washington Post]
Rogue Yank pilot out on a jolly
with A10 antitank craft strafes
UK armour convoy, twice. He had absolutely no regard for human
life…There were four or five that I noticed earlier and this one
had broken off and was on his own when he attacked us. He'd just gone out
on a jolly. I'm curious about what's going to happen to the pilot. He's
killed one of my friends and he's killed him on the second run…He
was about 50 m off the ground. He circled, because he can turn on a
10-pence. He was no more than 1000 m away when he started his attack
run. He was about 500 m away when he started firing. On the back of
one of the engineers' vehicles there was a Union Jack. It's about
[45 cm×30 cm]. For him to fire his weapons, I believe he
had to look through his magnified optics. How he could not see that Union
Jack I don't know…It is something friends and family
joked about—Don't worry about the Iraqis, it's the Americans you
want to watch.
M
All this kit has been provided by the Americans. They've said if you put
this kit on you won't get shot. We can identify a friendly vehicle from
1500 m, yet you've got an A10 with advanced technology and he can't use
a thermal sight to identify whether a tank is a friend or foe. It's
ridiculous.
T
(Musta been a Speed-induced Revolutionary hallucination.)
C
Editor of La República of Uruguay explains to the ambassador
from the US of North America
why the ambassador's el presidente is
well compared to Adolpho Hitler.
DLR
·
English
(Notice the inclusion of the euro motive.)
US Information Machine now busily spinning that, eg, it's easy to say
in hindsight we needed more troops.
Except it's not hindsight;
the US Army's topmost general told Congress months ago it could take
several hundred thousand. (CNN also touched on the Van Riper war gaming,
totally misconstruing it in order to disappear it.) Also frantically
claiming Saddam has the population brainwashed into fighting. Perhaps a few
are, but that explains neither the Shia leaders' orders nor the hundreds
of Iraqis returning to Iraq to defend to the country. [CNN]
(Honestly, I ROTFLMFAO watching this stuff.)
They suggest the Iraqis are bombing themselves to try to frame the US; how
much you wanna bet they'll make the parallel suggestion if there's a gas
attack on USUK troops?
CA Nurses Ass'n calls for vaccination halt; IL and NY have already
suspended it.
JR
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
- 59-a-old Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar, Baghdad, US-educated, lost his livlihood to
the US-led sanctions that were supposed to start a revolt against Saddam.
He's got his gun ready to go.
The more of those American bastards I get the happier I will be.
You stupid fools [with your sanctions] have done the exact opposite.
You have alienated the people in Iraq who used to be your friends.
I loved both Britain and America but you idiots have turned me against you.
You impose punitive sanctions on this country which bring us to our knees.
And now you want us to roll out the red carpet for you—you must be joking.
Saddam Hussein is no friend of mine. But when your troops come down my street I'll be shooting at your boys all the way.
It won't be for the president. It will be for Iraq…You say Saddam Hussein has killed many people—I say the UN sanctions have killed our children. Does Saddam Hussein kill children? No.
You weren't calling him a ruthless dictator in the '80s when this place was dripping with money.
Now you say you are bombing us into democracy. Yet since you've unloaded thousands of missiles on us I don't feel more democratic.
So you should unleash another thousand—or double that, triple that or more. Maybe then I will feel more democratic.
You give me the choice between Saddam Hussein or George Bush. I take Saddam Hussein every time.
M
-
Indonesia ponders switching its trade currency from US$ to euro.
AT
If oil producers insist on payments in Euros, the dollar could plunge by over 30 per cent almost overnight.
OI
(The euro-v-dollar theory is gaining attention.)
-
UK refuses to send more troops.
CBC
(It can't supply the ones already there; it would be an admission the plans
were botched; it would inflame the public. And maybe they're sick of being
US-bullet catchers.)
-
This wasn't actually supposed to be a war, you see; the Suits were
planning a media event, complete with television cameras, celebrities and
babes—the most thoroughly-hyped product rollout since Windows95. For
Jagger's Start Me Up
just dub in Shock and Awe
and, presto! From
BushCo, it's all-new, compatible, reliable and user-friendly. Introducing
Iraq2.0! But the Suits' InvasionLite™ Regime Installer turned
out to be vaporware. And despite the special delivery, it seems clear that
Saddam didn't get the script.
DU
-
God Bless America
booed at Blue Jays' 7th-inning stretch. [CBC]
- 31:
Mindy Kleinberg, 9/11 widow, testifies.
It has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once: they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate…
911C
(She seems to have missed something, though: she claims to have in her hand the
visa applications of the terrorists who killed my husband
even though
Müller has said there's no evidence against them.)
US troops spread the hearts and minds of seven Iraqi women and children
all over the desert and fail to win those of six others.
H
·
RI saw the heads of my two little girls come off.
SMH
The troops are sorting into those two bins all find themselves
eventually: human, monster.
Lt Matt Martin: Did you see all that? Did you
see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I
could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being
killed like this, but we had no choice.
Corporal Ryan Dupre: The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy.
I am
starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi.
No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him.
[TO
quoting
TO]
This act enrages Arabs for some reason.
R
The embedded's account is quite different than the Pentagon's.
G
Bullied by US into choosing a side, Syria choses Iraqi.
Syria has chosen to align itself with the brotherly Iraqi people who are facing an illegal and unjustified invasion and against whom are being committed all sorts of crimes against humanity.
CNN
NBC dumps Peter Arnett for telling it like he sees it; Daily Mirror
snaps him up.
R
·
CNN
·
FOX
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
New edition W'm Thomas Chemtrails Confirmed.
This is a great way for the US to win friends in Canada: dust us with
poisonous Al and Ba. And apparently it's all the brainmonster of the
Kissinger of science, Edward 
Apparent crosswalk, in Korea?
Huffington
Pigs at the Trough: how corporate greed and political corruption are undermining America
About a dozen old, empty warheads found in Iraq.
Iraq and inspectors dispute whether they're conventional and declared or not.
(The US threw away Iraq's declaration, so it's now impossible to know.)
CNN is fair enough to be `wait and see' about it;
FOX jumps to `smoking gun! invade! invade!'
CIA concludes 11 of the 12—the number seems to have settled
at 12—never contained lethal chemicals.
ND
(Note the videos of how the inspectors handled the shells: no gloves,
no masks…no danger.)
Britain's insurance companies refuse life coverage for troops and
reservists likely to be sent to mideast.
(Sounds like the insurers are expecting a messier war for the USUK
side this go-round.)
