A new French documentary with deep access to Saddam's inner circle goes on sale in the U.S. on DVD soon.

Doing the rounds in email these days, erroneously being attributed to John Cleese (it would appear in fact to be written by a staffer at SatireWire), quite funny piece: "Angerred by Snubbing, Lybia, China, Syria Form 'Axis of Just as Evil'." Here are the first two paragraphs:

Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.

Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."

Mark my words, "Fadayeen" will take on legendary proportions in the years to come in the annals of fanatical suicidal terrorists. Newsweek reports on what makes these pychos tick:

They began as what analysts at the time dismissed as a “toy army,” a pet project of Saddam’s volatile eldest son, Uday. He recruited the Saddam Fedayeen (“Martyrs for Saddam”) as a special bodyguard for his father. At first, according to experts on Iraq and defectors from Saddam’s inner circle, they did little more than Uday’s twisted bidding—-picking up girls for him to rape, beating Olympic athletes for losing games, cutting out the tongues of critics of the regime. Meanwhile Uday’s younger and more reliable brother Qusay took charge of his father’s most important paramilitary organizations, especially the feared Special Security Office and the elite Special Republican Guard.

Uday reqcruited the Fedayeen in orphanages and prisons, where candidates for his unique blend of psychopathy and filial devotion were plentiful.

Also contains the kind of quote I love from Rumsfeld: “If their wish is to die for Saddam Hussein, they will be accommodated.”

Short update from independent journalist friend in Iraq on Nick's blog.

At first I wasn't sure whether this was satire, but it is. Quite amusing at that. (Via Dork Z.)

It's been said before, but there is no better way to describe this war than the ultimate in "reality TV".

He is truly the evilest genius of his generation. Dr. Evil has nothing on Saddam. Without a doubt he is one of the sickest bastards Hell ever spawned. An he's winning the PR war? Incredible. But, given his insanely twisted logic, he is a most formidable foe, truly brilliant in his depravity and refusal to give up and die already. What a mind-fuck he's put on all of us.

I'd love to find a full translation of the op-ed piece that Condoleezza Rice wrote for France's Journal du Dimanche that AP reports on. If anyone comes across the full English version, please let me know.

Reader Holly W. wrote (actually, a couple of days ago, but Blogger was sick in the meantime) about my recent cockroach story:

Last roach story I promise (I'm not a blogstalker).

Twenty plus years ago, I was just a kid - I vividly remember my mom getting a glass of water, taking a sip, then spitting it out all over the floor....there was a little roach wiggling around in the water - she'd felt it in her mouth, thank God, and didn't swallow him.

This is not to horrify, but to instruct; ever since then, everyone in my family keeps their glasses and all drinkware UPSIDE DOWN in the cabinets, no exceptions. When my husband and I got together, I turned all the glasses in his apartment upside down (he lived like a typical bachelor, and so his roach potential was quite high) and I insist that all the glasses in our house be stored that way. And when I told him the story, he immediately agreed with me.

Not to be outdone, I know a guy who had to go to the hospital to get a cockroach tweezed out of his ear. Another time, my wife and I and group were at a restuarant in San Francisco, and they served us empty soup bowls upsidedown, inside one of which was a live roach. The barely apologized and gave us nothing for free! (Sadly, otherwise a delicious Thai restaurant, around 26th St. in the Mission.)

Worst of all, a friend of mine witnessed someone at a pizza party bite into a slice and remove from his mouth...(brace yourself)...a BandAid.

Don't know what the problem was, but Blogger.com was not updating posts for the last 24 hours or so, to my and others' frustration. Let's see if their Google investment buys them any better customer sevice and they at least let us know what was up this time. I'm not holding my breath, but I have to say it was quite frustrating, now that I'm an obsessed warblogger these days.

Buddy Ken Pasternak writes:

Rick,

Hi there. I read today's postings, and have this to say to everyone out there who is following the endless media coverage:

Don't succumb to the media's incessant desire to jump to conclusions with every event and detail that is reported.

Let's please remember that the people running this campaign have spent their lives studying war, strategy, tactics, intelligence, and history. There is still no question that we will be victorious in this war, but the rules of engagement we have committed ourselves to means it will take longer than one week.

What the people running this campaign have not spent enough time studying is the media, and the way its audience (us) will react to whatever detail is reported. I believe the biggest problem we have right now is that the people in charge are mismanaging the media, that the embedded journalists are communicating too much, and that there is no way anyone here in the States can put all these disjointed details together to form a big picture conclusion, the way the military leaders in charge can.

While it is difficult, all we can do is trust that the people our country has trained to protect us will do just that, and come home as soon as they can.

Thanks. It's good to hear it. I wrote Ken and told him it was a sobering comment. He said the metaphor was apt, as we're all drunk on too much information.

This is a bad idea. Certainly sends a message that we're occupiers. Call it something local, dumb asses.

Command Post points out a really scary, worst-case scenarios exercise on Strategy Page, dated February 10 and titled Worst Implications If Iraq is Invaded, by Barnett Lerner. Number 3 of 10 is:

Saddam convinces thousands of hard core supporters to fight to the death.

So eminently possible that it ought be taken as a given for planning purposes. If we are not prepared to deal with the aftermath of this state of affairs, someone has been criminally irresponsible.

The whole list is frightening (no duh), and it doesn't even include Syria hinting of war with us.

No word for several days from our independent journalist friend somewhere in Iraq.

Freaky sand storms of biblical magnitude. Makes one think of the defeat of Kubli Kahn's attempted invasion of Japan, when his massive army confronted "kamikaze": the Divine Wind.

Newsday tells the story:

The story begins in 1274, when Kublai Khan conscripted the newly conquered Korean vassal state of Koryo into abetting his first ill-fated military invasion of Japan. The fleet, purported to consist of 900 warships, encountered initial success before abruptly retreating, perhaps wary of Japanese reinforcements or the region's notoriously stormy seas.

Whatever the cause, some Japanese accounts invoke strong winds that shifted course on Oct. 20 and forced the Mongols into full retreat. So began the first stirrings of the mythic "divine wind" sent by the gods to protect Japan, an otherworldly force the Japanese would eventually call the "kamikaze."

The invaders returned in 1281, this time with a fleet that some Chinese sources have numbered as high as 4,400 vessels, the majority procured from the conquered Sung Dynasty of southern China. Historians say strengthened Japanese defenses and a failed military rendezvous forced the bulk of the fleet to set anchor off the southwestern Japanese coast, where the invaders lingered for six weeks. It was there, near the tiny island of Takashima, that disaster struck on July 30 when a typhoon devastated the bulk of the fleet. The boats had been chained together to form a flotilla, pooling the fleet's military resources but effectively bottling up any escape route to deeper water.

Shock and awe? I'm am shocked and awed and how incredibly badly the Pentagon seems to have planned this thing so far. When I backed their horse with great reluctance, I pretty much assumed the U.S. military had thought this thing through and could deliver without any concern on their promise to easily overwhelm Saddam's forces. And now they're surprised by how the Iraqis are fighting? Thanks, once again, CIA. Didn't we learn any lessons from Vietnam? From watching Saddam's willingness to gas his own people? From the seige of Stalingrad? (Hint: Saddam is a big fan of Stalan)

The reason people are reluctant to show their faith in their "liberation"? They understand apparently much better than we do the depth of Saddam's evil genius.

It's times like this I'm really glad for The Onion.

Here's why consolodation of media is a bad idea.

Serious mixed signals: On the one hand, Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday (incredibly) that he does not want Iraqi civilians to rise up against Saddam, because that would oblidge us to a messy defense of their uprising. Meanwhile, Tony Blair is assuring Iraqis they should rise up and that we'll be there to support them (or, the Brits will, anyway, apparently), reported by no less authority than the Voice of America.

What the hell? Do we really know our asses from our elbows in this whole situation?

In a story about the battle against a large column of Iraqi units underway as I write this, AP editorializes: "Coalition forces have made no secret of their hopes to spur such uprisings in the strategic southern city." Hmmm, I don't know that "coalition forces" have let the Secretary of Defense in on that little secret.

An end to a disheartening day, I'm reading this story in the NYT about how the U.S. administration is suggesting that some of the dead members of the convoy captured by Iraqis the other day may have been publicly executed in Nasiriya. This quote particularly struck me:

Later, his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said that the delay in getting aid to southern Iraq was the fault of the Iraqi authorities. "We didn't expect the Iraqis to cease caring about their own people, to cease feeding their own people, to put up impediments to this humanitarian relief supplies," he said.

One thing I really don't understand is why the Bushies made the biggest idiot in the White House the press spokesperson. Ari Fleischer is the only person in the administration who actually sounds stupider than Bush most of the time.

They didn't expet that Saddam would be ruthless and abandon all niceties of war? Excuse me? Isn't this the same adminstration that has building Saddam up as the evilest bastard on the planet, gas his own, etc., etc., as we've been hearing for months? This kind of behavior wasn't a contingency? So what the f--- do we do now that he is fighting this way?

And what was this I heard on NPR today, was it Rummy, saying that if Saddam used chemical weapons, then we had a plan to really show him? What does that mean? I really hope we're not talking going nukular, as our fearless leader would say.

The WSJ reports on the launch of english.aljazeera.net, although it keeps coming up 404 for me so far today, presumably because they've gotten more interest in it from the rest of the world than they can handle so far.

UPDATE:
AP reports that the site has been hacked.

Meanwhile, two of Al-Jazeera reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange have had their credentials revoked: according to the satellite station, the ouster was due to its coverage of the war in Iraq, although NYSE is claiming (unconvincingly) that it is doing so due to "security reasons" that require the exchange to limit the number of broadcasters working at the lower Manhattan exchange since the war began, giving access only to networks that focus "on responsible business coverage."

Boooo.

Well, it's now officially everyone favorite story this week:

• Chicago Sun Times: Web surfing for war junkies
• Washington Post: Blogging the War: A Guide
• Reuters: U.S. Soldier 'Bloggers' Report from War Zone
• Guardian: Conflict of interest: the sites you need to see
• NYT: Reporting Reflects Anxiety
• USA Today: Web logs convey 'raw stuff' of war
• Star Ledger: For war newshounds, nothing beats blogging
• WSJ (via Yahoo): Web Logs: Troops' War Stories In Real Time
• San Jose Merc: Web offers varied perspectives on war coverage
• Boston Globe: On-the-spot blogs from war
• More Boston Globe: Do-it-yourself war coverage
• Canadian Press: The Iraqi war on the Internet

Much as I'm glad to see the topic covered, it just goes to illustrate one of the things most wrong with traditional media today: pack mentality.

Also, the latest issue of The New Yorker has a short feature about everyone's favorite Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, although it is not available online. Frankly, I worry about Salam for all the press attention he's getting. The New Yorker piece, for example, gives a physical description of him (based on photos he sent to his American friend Diane), identifies him as a gay guy, the son of a powerful family and an architect working for a Lebonese firm. How hard with all that info would it be for the Iraqi torture police to track him down, given what a celebrity the U.S. media has made of him of late? While apparently he has ambivalent feelings about the invasion, if I were he, I would certainly be wishing for its swift success, because if the thugs have time to turn their attention back to business as usual, I'd venture he's a dead man.

The above NYT piece further identifies Salam as 28 years old, as well as quoting blog media darling Nick Denton.

That didn't take long:

• Reuters (via Washington Post): War Could Be Big Business for Halliburton
• Houston Chronical: "Halliburton awarded Iraqi firefighting contract"

Another human shield comes to the sad realization that, as he puts it in the headline of an opinion piece he writes for the UK's Daily Telegraph, "I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam." Quoting:

Perhaps the most crushing thing we learned was that most ordinary Iraqis thought Saddam Hussein had paid us to come to protest in Iraq. Although we explained that this was categorically not the case, I don't think he [a cab driver] believed us. Later he asked me: "Really, how much did Saddam pay you to come?"

You know what I don't get, if they were so sure they had Saddam in their cross hairs, why the hell didn't they drop two bunker busters? I bet some Iraqi informant is really pissed off at our half measures.

...check out MailBlocks.com. I've had a trial account for a week, and I am impressed. More on it later today on ExecutiveSummary.com.

On the lighter side of war, were I 18 again, this is rather amusing.

So, Saddam apparently did have chemical weapons factories after all, and Iraqis are thanking U.S. soldiers for liberating them. Next thing you know, democracy will flourish. What were all those great arguments for containment again?

UDPATE/CORRECTION
Alright, I knew that was a risk when I posted this: turns out, it was not a chemical weapons plant, after all. Damn.

Blaahhhhhh!!!!! I just put on my shoes and was getting ready to go out to a movie when I felt something odd under my sock. I had a bad feeling about it. Took off my shoe and a huge cockroach, really one of those water bugs more than an inch long, was in there. Eeeewwwaaahhh!!!

UPI reports:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

Via DrudgeReport

What do you have to say at this point to the Iraqi people?

I haven't asked Nick whether this is our mutual friend I'm letting myself believe it is. Either way, he sent another email which Nick publishes, including the news that Hertz in Kuwait calling him on his cell phone about the SUV that he rent (and is not supposed to be driving in a war zone, due to insurance limitations).

UPDATE:
Confirmation: it is our mutual friend writing Nick, as I suspected.

You must read Where Is Raed, from a guy (who goes by Salam Pax) apparently blogging from Baghdad. Paul Boutin, a reporter for the New York Times among other pubs, does some research and comes to the conclusion Salam appears to be legit. Fascinating reading. I wonder how he gets Internet access. He reports, among other things, that the French apparently getting lots of airtime on state TV.

Slightly worrisome that he hasn't yet posted today.

UPDATE:
Yay! He's back!

Even before discovering "Where Is Raed" (blogging from Baghdad; see above), I had thought that a key part of the reconstruction of Iraq should be free Net access. What better way to let those poor souls reunite with the world than Google, Hotmail and Blogger.

Well, it seemed too good to be true. The CNN journalist Kevin Sites, who had recently started blogging from Iraq, to much fanfare in the blogosphere, was told to stop by CNN:

I've been asked to suspend my war blogging for awhile.

But I don't want let you down -- I'm chronicling the events of my war experiences, the same as I always have, and hope to come to agreement with CNN in the near future to make them available to you in some shape or form, perhaps on this site.

That's certainly going to mute sympathy for CNN's cries of censorship in getting kicked out of Baghdad themselves.

Check out the BBC correspondent blog instead, as well as John Pendygraft's blog, a photographer for the St. Petersburg Times who is blogging from the front lines. And don't forget Where Is Raed, the real Blogger of Baghdad (or so we're led to believe).

Having blogged about the war and gotten a link from InstaPundit, I'd have to say war blogging is better. Graphic stolen from step-brother Jay (coming soon to a city near me and looking to meet interesting new people; call for details on how you can take part in this limited-time offer).

"Splattered through bleeding lips while singing We Shall Overcome," he writes:

Being in opposition to a war that's already happening is like having a massive head wound. Sooner or later, you will realize that it doesn't matter how you got it, or who gave it to you. What matters is that you need immediate medical attention and you want to not have a massive head wound....

I also picked up this little ditty from his site:

The French
They are a funny race
They fight with their feet
And fuck with their face

I feel bad joining in on all the French bashing, as I do love them so, but you have to admit racist insults are funnier when they're dirty and rhyme.

Thanks. Yes, I know I suck at it. Hope I've caught most of it for the last few posts.

Nick Denton published an email from a journalist friend holed up in a Kuwaiti farmhouse 15 kilometers from the Iraqi border, well provisioned (dining a sumptuous dinner the night reported) and looking forward to seeing the "fun" in Baghdad shortly. It's a fascinating first-hand report, very intimate. All the more so because I also have a journalist friend thereabouts, myself. May well be the same guy, tho Nick has lots of journo friends, so who knows. I also have a friend in the military somewhere in the vicinity, whom I haven't spoken with in a month. They are both prominent in my thoughts these days.

We hope to resume normal programming of inconsequential observations about life shortly.

Oh, I'd love to stop being a war blogger already, but of course I'm obsessed now with the news. Listening to NRP constantly. Frightening. Huge international outcry (so much for the foregone-conclusion,-let's-all-make-the-best-of-it approach), and protests in Time Square have reportedly turned violent (according to WNYC radio).

But I've got to finish a project for a client, so I'm trying to remain radio silent at least till morning. Meanwhile, I just figured I'd note this interview Adi sent me, the lead of which begins:

The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."

The U.S. cruise missiles accidentally took out a convoy of evacuating U.N. weapons inspectors.

Ugh. This doesn't feel so good now that it's actually happening.

But how hilarious, all things considered, would it be if that first missile strike took out Saddam. Boom! and we're done. Oh, if only. Something to balm my dreams tonight, anyway, this odd, first official night of war.

I'm not a praying man, I won't lie, but I am in my own way pulling really hard for everyone tonight. Come on, men and women of the U.S., U.K. and international armies of the world, make us proud. Oh pretty please...

And for the Iraqi people, please forgive us. Speaking for myself, I am supporting this war, as I know are many people throughout the world and among most of the soldiers you'll soon be encountering, with only the best intensions in mind. We wish that military victory, the regime's overthrow and you're country's liberation from tyranny will be as swift, painless and just as possible. We wish you restful nights, full bellies, happy children and peace and liberty as soon as humanly possible.

And to Saddam, I wish that your last conscious thought is as ignominious and wretched as possible.

An Irish toast: May God bless all of our friends. And may God also bless our enemies, and turn their hearts so that they will become our friends. And if he won't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so we shall know them by their limping. (With apologies to good-hearted limpers out there.)

Peace.

If you didn't see this PBS Frontline documentary that aired shortly after Bush's 48-hour deadline speech Sunday night, I highly recommend it. It was a very sober, fair and detailed documentary edited together from five prior documentaries they've done on the U.S. history with Iraq and Saddam Hussein over the past several years. Most of the content appears to be available digitally, including lots of additional online-only material.

I heard this piece first last night on the BBC, but now I can't find that story on the BBC's site, but here is the story from AP about a an 80-year-old WWII vet (thrice wounded and captured as a prisoner of war) who is flying to Washington to return his Normandy Medal to the French embassy as a protest over their proposed U.N. veto. The BBC interview was much more detailed than this AP piece, so if anyone knows how I can track that down, I'd love to link to it there. The funniest part was at the end of the interview when the vet said he was going to tell the French where they could put the medal.

Two fascinating pieces:

• "An Arab case for war" - on NickDenton.org, the translated transcript from a program on Al-Jazeera in which an Egyptian historian and an Algerian journalist discussing why Arab countries are so screwed up (short answer: their corrupt rulers who fill their heads with lies)

• The case for colonialism - by British political pundit Daniel Kruger (which my dad called my attention to, via Arts & Letters Daily), who argues that the West has a responsibility to help the Third World achieve the same freedoms we enjoy:

"Slowly, obscurely, enunciated with difficulty in thick Texan accents, a new doctrine of international order is emerging, of which the imminent war is a crucial outing. It is the doctrine of humanitarian intervention — or, to give it its proper name, neo-colonialism. This doctrine is driven by the firm belief — uncluttered by relativist self-loathing — in the universal principles of liberty and justice. It gives expression to our sense that everyone, not just the West, has a right to live in a decent country — and that the West has a duty to help them do so."

Okay, I broke down and did email the link for my pro-war rant below to blog buddies Nick Denton and Jeff Jarvis, both of whom linked to it (though they both have high enough standards that I'm sure they would not have unless they thought it worthy). Presumably Glenn Reynolds saw one of those and linked to it himself, and traffic is now pouring in.

Actually, I don't track my traffic on Bruner Blog, but I've gotten more than a dozen emails from the post, which is rare for this blog. All but two (from an Austrian and a German reader), I'm pleased to say, were in support of my argument (granted InstaPundit probably appeals most to a conservative crowd). To accomodate opinions, I've added a comments field to that particular post.

I'm writing this some hours before Hans Blix is supposed to be presenting to the U.N. his latest report about what Iraq has to do to comply with disarmament demands. Talk about shutting the barn door after the horses are gone...

To hear the popular media spin it, I thought something like 90% of Britains were adamantly opposed to war. In fact, according to to the latest poll from the Guardian, that bastian of English language left-wing reporting, 38% of Brits are now in favor of the war, while only 44% oppose (the rest undecided). Guardian writer David Aaronovitch puts the reluctant UK hawks' position in perspective.

What I should really be doing today, on this most beautiful day NY has seen in many months, is working on overdue client assignments. But here, on perhaps the literal eve of war, I figure I should have the courage of my convictions, such that they are, and for better or worse state publicly my regrettable support for a war to depose of Saddam. So here is my mother of all rants. I doubt I'm going to change anyone's opinions at this point, as I don't pretend to be any great thinker on matters of international politics, and I'm sure this posting will not endear me to my many friends who are in the anti-war camp. In fact, I'm quite sure I'll regret this in the morning. But I feel a responsibility to state my position, or else what is the point of pretending I have opinions worth reading on this blog. So it's come to this: I'm a war blogger at last.

For the record, let me say first of all I genuinely dislike President Bush. Lest anyone have any doubts, I've intentionally left on display here on this blog for many months the picture of a T-Shirt proclaiming "I Still Hate George Bush." His stance on the environment, the economy, tax cuts, the blurring of religion and government and many other of his policies make me sick. I do agree he's done terrible damage to international relations with his ham-handed approach to this whole situation, and I relish the opportunity to vote against him in the next national elections regardless of what nimrod the Democrats put up to contest him.

All that said, I still think he's right on the question of Saddam. I may be naive, but I do believe Saddam is a serious threat to the stability of that region, to the U.S., to the world and, not least, to his own citizens, who seem most neglected by all those who oppose war. Moreover, if the U.N. stands for anything today, I don't see how it can possibly reconcile appeasing him more than it already has for too many years.

Opponents of the war apparently see the long list of reasons that the Bush Administration advances for war as evidence that it does not have any single reason to justify its stance and is simply hell bent on taking the guy out. I, on the other hand, interpret that long list as simply more than enough justification to get rid of the guy. In short, I do buy many of the administration's arguments while none of the arguments from the anti-war camp succeed in swaying me as they're supposed to, given that I've been a life-long liberal to date (the date specifically would be 9/11/01). Therefore, I frame this argument in favor of war by addressing many of what I hear as the anti-war camp's "best reasons" for opposing it:

• We should respect Iraq's sovereignty. Saddam's rule of that country hardly demonstrates respect for his own country's sovereignty, much less that of Kuwait, Iran, Israel or Saudi Arabia, or the U.N. for that matter. He has squandered any claim to respect of sovereignty he might have had. I wrote six months ago about a drunken neighbor when I was a kid who more than once threatened the neighborhood with his arsenal of guns when he went on a bender. I was only too happy when the police came to get rid of him. Although they actually succeeded in talking him out, they were there in flack jackets, and I wouldn't have been sorry to see them kick in his door to do it. He had lost the right to be treated in a good neighborly fashion.

• World public opinion is against it. As a professional researcher, I can assure you that public opinion is a poor gauge of what is right and true. I really wonder if European public opinion in 1938 about whether Jews were human beings or not would have supported Hitler's view, or, for that matter, whether the majority of Americans in the late 1800s would have deemed blacks as more than half persons, at best. Thankfully, leadership is not about doing what is popular, it's about doing what is right. Let history be the judge.

• We should give the U.N. weapons inspectors more time. More time for what? How is it that so many can ignore the fact that the weapons inspectors are not there to play hide and seek? They are there to confirm that Saddam is actively and enthusiastically disarming, which, despite crumpling a handful of missles, he clearly is not. He's playing the U.N. for fools, as he has done for years, and I really don't see the point in taking it up the ass any longer for the sake of delaying the inevitable. More to the point, there is no question that Saddam would not be cooperating at all, and for that matter no other members of the world community would have put the issue of renewed inspections on the table at all had it not been for the U.S.'s clear willingness to advance the very credible threat of force to make him comply. If the French et al had their way, we'd be blithely halfway into the fifth year of no inspectors and no attention to the real threat Saddam's regime represents.

• The US is acting unilaterally. This one really pisses me off, as it's so obviously untrue. Granted, we do not have unanimous world support for a war, but Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, South Korea, Turkey and Uzbekistan are all publicly on board. What are they, chopped liver? I wonder what all those countries think about being considered non-entities by headline writers around the world. The truth is, world opinion is divided, pretty much down the middle, as far as I can tell, but to say we're going it alone is just blatantly false.

• The U.N. should be the forum to solve this. We should get allies behind us first. So what the hell are they waiting for? This is a catch 22. Public opinion in France and everywhere else says that were the U.N. to get behind the war effort, then the majority of all those countries would agree to support the war. So...all that's lacking is France et al supporting U.N. action. And they accuse the Bush administration of circular logic? No one can argue the U.S. hasn't tried to rally its allies. Granted, our approach to diplomacy could have been more diplomatic, but we've been at it for months. At what point do we give up trying? (Tomorrow, apparently.) What is most galling is that those balking in the U.N. are not willing to call a spade a spade. On paper (1441), they have given Saddam one last chance to actively and fully disarm, but it's clear to all (including Hans Blix) he is not doing so. Yet rather than coming out and clearly saying that what the opponents of war prefer to do is appease this ruthless dictator because they don't have the balls to deal with him, they are pretending to be giving him the benefit of the doubt, pretending that inspections are "working" (towards what end?). That is the voice of authority and leadership that should command the world's respect? No, it is not the U.S. that is dividing the world against itself, it is the gutless prevaricators within U.N. who are doing so. Besides, in the 200+ wars the world has witnessed in the last 50 years or so, only three had U.N. blessing, namely Korea (1950), Iraq (1991) and Afghanistan (2001). Notably, those do not include Kosovo, Bosnia or Somalia, where, in each case, it was the U.S. that stuck its neck out to attempt to prevent genocide that it had no direct stake in. And, at the rist of sanctimony, let's not forget WWII, where the U.S. sacrificed thousands of lives to preserve the democracy in Europe that now gives France and Germany the freedom to snub their noses at us today.

• Saddam hasn't done anything reckless in 12 years. Yes, but the only reason he hasn't succeeded in his ambitions of Kurdish genocide or regional domination is thanks to the no-fly zone enforced by the U.S. and England that are so unpopular with peaceniks in the free world. There's that word again: genocide. I love how the media keeps referring to Saddam gassing "his own people." Actually, from his point of view, the Kurds he was gassing are not "his own people." That's exactly the point. Left to his own devices, it would be genocide, pure and simple.

• Saddam has no active nuclear program. With all due respect to Muhammad al-Baradei, we really don't know that. Let's not forget that in 1991, Saddam's nuclear program was much further developed than international intelligence agencies or the International Atomic Energy Agency had imagined. He is a master of cat and mouse. We're never going to know for sure how far along he is until we can gain unfettered access to the place, and that is clearly not going to happen in today's inspection environment. Besides, even without nukes, the large stores of chemical and biological weapons he is widely believed to be hiding are good enough for me to constitute a clear and present danger to the world.

• Al Qaeda wouldn't collaborate with Saddam because they're religious zealots and he's a secular tyrant. Gimme a break. Al Qaeda demonstrated clearly in their planning for September 11th they'll do whatever it takes to smite their enemy, even if that means suffering through lapdances in the strip clubs of the Great Satan. If they can buy box cutters in our Wal-Marts, I'm sure they could suck it up to borrow a few kilos of anthrax from Saddam. And as for Saddam, if his prior support of religious terrorists (e.g., paying off widows of Hamas suicide bombers) were not enough, how about his latest threat to retaliate against an attack "wherever there is sky, land or water."

• France has the moral high ground and is giving voice to world opinion. Hey, I've been to France several times and love the place and its people, but in this debate, France can suck my weener. Please remind me of one time in the 20th Century when France demonstrated moral authority. How about inviting Mugabe for champagne in Paris last month while the rest of the world is ratcheting up sanctions against that bastard? That was a nice move. France is perhaps the only democracy with a worse record than us when it comes to coddling dictators, notably including Saddam (then and now).

• Bush is arrogant. Yes he is. And rather stupid, too. And...so what? This isn't charm school, it's a test of right or wrong. This is a bad time to be arguing about style over substance. France is willing to sacrifice unity in the Western world and reward a vicious despot in order to teach us boorish Americans a lesson in manners? I mean, what really matters here? Don't the Iraqi people deserve better? France's only interest in this whole thing is its ego, pretending they're still a world power. They know perfectly well we're going to do this with or without them (I recently heard someone quip that going to war without France by our side is like going hunting without an accordion), yet they've decided it would be in the world's best interest to let us bear the burden alone while they make us look as bad as possible in the process. What makes me so sad is that this is the right thing to do -- Saddam is a danger to all around him and he no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt; and even if you don't believe that, the bottom line is it's going to happen regardless, as there is no practical way Bush could back down at this point anyway (what message would that send to Saddam and his ilk if Bush did so at this point?) -- and therefore it would be so much better for the whole world in the long run if our "allies" presented a united front with us. You can't convince me that France (and by France I really mean by proxy all those objecting in the Security Council) honestly has the best interest of the Iraqi people or even world security at heart. No, I think they just want 15 minutes of glory in having stood up to "the big bully," regardless of whether what the supposed bully is proposing in this case is right or not. So, from now on it's every man for himself? That's just great. The truth is, we can take care of ourselves, if that's what it's going to come down to. But if the next plane does fly into the Eiffel Tower, packed with anthrax, bon chance, bebe. We'll see how helpful good manners are for you then.

• It's too bad Clinton is no longer president, because he was charming and smart. My opinion on Clinton: what a tragic waste of potential. All those brains and yet he failed to really recognize the opportunity he had to profoundly shape the world order in the obvious power vacuum of the post-Cold War. Nothing makes me angrier than thinking he was perfectly well aware of the growing discontent in the Third World and mounting threat of terrorism, watching as thousands marched through Bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan and yet, instead of recasting the role of the CIA and using his ample charms and intelligence to try to lead the direction for the New World Order -- or even just keep tabs on who Bin Laden was training -- he spent his time gloating about the bubble economy, hand-holding in Northern Ireland, befriending North Korea while they schemed behind our backs, morphing his party into Republicans Lite, and getting blow jobs under the desk. What a sorry self-aggrandizing ass he turned out to be. I'm so glad I voted for Nader in '96.

• What about North Korea? Aren't they the greater immediate threat? Sure, but the problem is North Korea already has nukes, which makes holding them to account for it a lot more complicated. And I can't understand how it makes me a hawk to think so, but I do subscribe to the principle that you don't reward their aggression by negotiating with them on their terms. As long as we refuse to let them dictate the agenda, the ball is still in our court. I can't say I really know what the best course of action is there (although I do like the Chuck Barris idea), but frankly I think that the whole North Korea crisis is that much more reason why we should act now with Saddam instead of waiting till we're in the same situation with him as with Mr Il (a more aptly name crackpot I can't think of, though I do like that Saddam Hussein sounds so much like So Damn Insane).

• Bush is rushing to war. Going to war with Iraq has been this administration's agenda for well over a year (actually, since he first came into office). The inspectors have been in Iraq again for nearly six months. That's a rush? Remind me not to call your fire department. How long should we wait? Another 12 years?

• If we go after Iraq today, who's next? Who indeed. Just because we can't go after all the evil doers in the world (and, yes, I'm using that phrase ironically) doesn't mean we shouldn't confront any of them. We're all guilty of coddling dictators too long in this world. I love that according to the peaceniks we can't win for losing: in supporting the Saudis and other evil bastards, we're collaborating to suppress innocent civilians in those countries, yet when we impose sanctions on Iraq because its bastard is especially evil, then we're starving babies to death. What exactly is the consistent position we're supposed to be abiding by? Should we do business with dictators or not? Or, like France, should we do so and just try to keep a low profile about it? If attacking Iraq is making all the other tyrants around the world right now soil their drawers, terrific. Realistically, we're going to pick our battles. But, in my opinion (as I've suppose made tediously clear by now), this is one worth fighting.

• Our foreign policy created all these monsters in the first place. Maybe. Well, us, together with France, Germany, England and the rest, anyway. But that is supposed to be a good reason why we shouldn't realize the errors of our ways and try to right our own wrongs now?

• We should solve the Palestinian problem first. Yeah, like that's a realistic answer. The Palestinian problem has been there for 100 years or so. It will still be waiting for us in a few months. Besides, if mighty Clinton was no match for it, you actually think Bush is going to figure it out? That said, he seems already to have gone farther towards a commitment to a Palestinian state than I remember Clinton ever doing.

• War is hell. No shit. So is life under Saddam. Besides, better them than us. I was a pacifist when I was 18, but I've lived long enough to realize sometimes you have to do unto other before they do unto you. Yes, many Americans will die in this war, and many more Iraqis, and I'm sad for both cases, but not as many Iraqis will die in a war as would continue to suffer and die under the sanctions and Saddam's dictatorship for another 10 years. More to the point, I'd much rather we bring it to them than wait for Saddam to bring it to us. There are no good options here. It's a crass analogy, but to my mind it's like ripping off a BandAid: it's going to hurt like hell for a little bit, but better to endure that short pain now than let the wound fester any longer.

• Going to war in the Middle East is just going to fuel more terrorism. If September 11th taught us anything it is that we don't have to provoke terrorists for them to attack us. I live in NYC (i.e., likely to be ground zero yet again for future terrorist ambitions). I'm not saying that makes me as brave as signing up to serve on the front lines, but I don't think that cowering in fear from a possible terrorist backlash is the responsible way to face the threats of the new millennium. It's so hackneyed as to almost have lost all meaning, but in that case the terrorists truly would have won. In all likelihood, war with Iraq will help Bin Laden recruit more angry young men to his cause, but it will also doubtless do more to raise the hopes of dissidents and everyday misserable wretches living under the thumb of wicked dictators in that part of the world and elsewhere than would sticking our heads in the sand like so many "allies" recommend.

• It may all go horribly wrong. Yes, that's a real risk. But honestly I believe it's much more likely to go (more or less) the way the Pentagon predicts: swift U.S. victory. So much so that I've decided to go on record here supporting it, come what may. Iraqi soldiers are already tripping over themselves to surrender right now. It's a risk worth taking. Frankly, the status quo in the Middle East is so screwed up today, I say let's go ahead and stir things up and see what happens when the dust settles. Obviously, we can't predict exactly how it's going play out, but I really believe whatever comes next for Iraq can't be worse than Saddam. At this point, better the devil we don't know. Chances are it will not be a flowering of democracy there over night, if ever, but any measure of freedom that may result will be an improvement. And let's just imagine that, like in Afghanistan, the citizens there actually do feel liberated and some measure of gratitude after all is done. Is that such an extreme fantasy? I don't think so. And I, for one, look very forward to seeing what the French are going to have to say for themselves to the Iraqi people then.
  

For the last year and a half (do the math), one quote has guided my thinking in this regard above all else, and I know you've all heard it several times already by now, but it bears repeating: Edmund Burke's "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Vive la resistance!

Listening to a rebroadcast of Prairie Home Companion this morning from their annual "Talent From Towns Under Two Thousand Contest" (from April 2001), I was quite astonished by the talent of (then) 11-year-old Kyle Coolidge. Not only was the piece he played on the piano quite complex for those little fingers to get around, but he composed it himself: "Pahs Gahs Nos. 1, 2, & 3" (RealAudio file). Part Chopin, part Monk. Really remarkable. Unfortunately, he doesn't come up much on Google that I can see, so I don't know if his talent has been much recognized since. Nor did he win the contest, which went instead to (then) 17-year-old fiddler Katie Kerkhover, who, by constrast, is quite web savvy (with her own site that includes a newsletter and downloadable screensavers and wallpaper of herself, no less), and who won, I suspect, in large part because she's a little hottie and was wearing a prom dress.

Fascinating interview (RealAudio file, 8:24 min) on WNYC the other day between host Brian Lehrer (my hero) and Michael Walzer, professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study and author of Just and Unjust Wars. Walzer proposes a "third way" to resolve the Iraq crisis, an "intensified containment regime" short of war (though backed by the credible threat of war...which is where I thought we were already) but beyond the French/German non-plan for appeasement. Most gratifying is how well he articulates that the French stance is really nothing more than a power-play to make the U.S. look as bad as possible without offering up any real viable alternative (e.g., the only reason Saddam has been as forth-coming as he has in recent months is the 250,000 U.S. troops on his border, and France's idea for indefinite continued inspections would rely on our keeping them there indefinitely at our expense and risk). I'd excerpt passages, but it's late and I don't feel like transcribing, and so much of it is so good I'd be hard pressed to pick the best parts. Just give it a listen.

This is rich. Add to all the other right-wingers cautioning the President about his handling of Iraq: his own ex-President dad.

Interesting looking debate in NYC this Tuesday evening titled "What Liberal Media? Truth and Bias in the American Media's Coverage of War and Peace." Free. 6pm at CUNY Graduate Center, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.

Silly. (via Ernie B.)

Since when does The New York Times report stories that Time Magazine covered more than a week before?

Wanna see pudgy Australian girls naked with peace slogans on their boobs? Click here. (via Ken Layne) Never been a better excuse to put pictures of your girlfriend naked on the Internet.

Makes my nostalgic for The Fugs' "Kill for Peace", though. And let's not forget RentMyChest.com.

Gee, with a rack like that, I guess I'd chose peace. (Then again, with Iraq like that, I guess I'd chose war. Har, har.)

Dork Z. suggested the other day I should be blogging about more serious things than pretty girls and their boogers, namely the impending Iraqi war. I've been quite reluctant to do so till now. Partly, that's because I don't feel that I'm such shrewd a political observer, or anyway that I have anything better to contribute than many other bloggers and commentators out there, so mine would be just one more asshole's opinion. And partly because I've been so busy in recent months I've hardly been blogging at all of late, and such political questions, notably that of the Iraqi war, are so complicated I'd be at it for hours if I let myself get started (believe me, I've been running the arguments through my head endlessly). But more than anything, I suppose it's that I've been chicken to actually come out and say what I believe.

Or rather, for the last year and a half or so (you do the math for the precise date), I'm not really sure what I believe anymore. Certainly, the old labels of "liberal" and "conservatives" seem to have lost a lot of their meaning, considering that, in the case of Iraq for example, it's the so-called liberals who are urging we all stick with the status quo, while the so-called conservatives are pushing for radical change. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around in the good old days?

See what I mean about my brilliance as a political observer? *Yawn* (Granted, I'm watching TV as I blog this, which itself is some measure of my commitment to this whole political blogging thing. It's also a measure of how addicted I am to my new wi-fi set up.) So, let me just leave it at this for now: this NYT piece pretty much sums it up for me: "Intellectual Left's Doves Take on Role of Hawks". This piece in the Guardian comes pretty close, too: "Why we should go to war"

Too frickin' funny. Someone mocking the vague warning iconography from the thoroughly mockable Ready.gov.

Caption suggested for picture at right: If you are sprayed with an unknown substance, stand and think about it instead of seeing a doctor.

(via Gawker)

Dork Zygotian wrote to scold me for writing about matters as frivolous as pretty girls and their boogers when the world is on the brink of war, then in the very next sentence links me to a story of a NY Chasid