Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Michael Ledeen in today's New York Sun on the strings that come with UN humanitarian aid:
[H]ere's an excerpt from an e-mail I got today from a reliable source: "There is now $12.5 billion repeat billion in funds held in escrow by the UN in the ‘oil for food' program--the escape clause in the sanctions that let the Iraqis market about three million barrels a day ‘to feed the children, etc. since 1996. The French and the Russians are refusing to let the Security Council turn it over to the U.N. agencies to send in humanitarian relief because that would ‘legitimize the US-British war.' And (expletives deleted) Kofi Annan only makes sanctimonious statements without indicating what the real problem is." [New York Sun, 3/28/03]
Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Syria is granting free passage across its border with Iraq to volunteers who wish to join the fight against the U.S. and British forces. Thus far, dozens of volunteers, primarily Palestinians from the refugee camps in Lebanon, have crossed over into Iraq through Syrian-controlled border posts. The passage of volunteers with Damascus's consent has given rise to the theory that the U.S.-fired missile that struck a Syrian bus traveling in Iraq was an intentional attack on a busload of such volunteers....
[T]he Syrian military analyst, Hitham al-Kilani, said in an interview on Al Jazeera, on 24 March, that "the Syrian border was opened to Syrian, Arab and Muslim volunteers wishing to reach Iraq and participate in the fighting against the American invasion." ... The Syrian mufti, Ahmed Kaftaru--a government official--recently called on Muslims worldwide to employ all means, including suicide operations, to defeat the American-British-Zionist aggression....
Syria's active support for Saddam Hussein has been particularly evident in recent months, with Damascus even purchasing military equipment on behalf of the Iraqi army. ... The purchases were made from a number of East European countries, and the equipment included engines for Russian-made tanks and aircraft. Also purchased were tank carriers, probably from Germany.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has made extensive preparations to flee Iraq, and he and several of his most senior aides--including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz - have already smuggled family members out to Syria, the British Daily Telegraph reported on Friday... [Syria allows dozens of volunteers to cross into Iraq to fight coalition, Ha'aretz, 3/28/03]
...Donald Rumsfeld issued a warning to Syria, saying it would be held accountable for shipments of military equipment--including night-vision goggles--that have been moved across the border into Iraq. [CNN, 3/28/03]
Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Saddam Hussein's death squads are executing both deserters and civilians, according to Donald Rumsfeld:"They dress in civilian clothes and operate from private homes confiscated from innocent people and try to blend in with the civilian population. They conduct sadistic executions on sidewalks and public squares, cutting the tongues out of those accused of disloyalty and beheading people with swords. They put on American and British uniforms to try to fool irregular Iraqi soldiers who surrender to them and then execute them as an example for others who might contemplate defection or capitulation....We will take them at their word and if their wish is to die for Saddam Hussein they will be accommodated. As the regime deploys squads to slaughter its own citizens, coalition forces are trying to save Iraqi lives. We do this because, unlike Saddam Hussein's regime, our nations and our people value human life." [Daily Telegraph, 3/28/03]
Question: Now how can any human being living a in a free country equate U.S. forces with Saddam's Regime? Answer: They--the moral relativists--are not human in the moral sense of the term. One can disagree with the war, but to equate the two is absolutely miserable. [Thanks to the heads up on this news item from Paul Blair who comments "I Bet Al-Jazeera Won't Substantiate This."]
Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Columnist Robert Samuelson points out a fascinating polling discrepancy. The Pew Global Attitudes Project polled people in various countries earlier this month on the war against Saddam. Huge majorities opposed it: 87% in France, 85% in Germany, 83% in Russia, 79% in Spain, and 76% in Italy. But at the same time, Pew asked if "the people of Iraq will be better or worse off in the long run" if Saddam is deposed. Again huge margins: 73% said yes in France, 71% in Germany, and 61% in Italy. In other words, Europeans are perfectly happy to consign an entire people to misery and oppression rather than support a war to liberate them. And they claim to be supporting the people of Iraq. The awful historical record will be that most Europeans knowingly put their fear of American power before their hatred of Saddam. Damning. [Andrew Sullivan, New York Sun, 3/28/03]
Or to put it another way, they're willing to oppress Iraqis to spite Uncle Sam.Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra. At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war....The connection would give credibility to the argument that Tony Blair used to justify war against Saddam - a "nightmare scenario" in which he might eventually pass weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. [Sydney Morning Herald, 3/28/03]
Mar 29, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Frum's column in Thursday's New York Sun yesterday but forgot there were a few things in it I wanted to highlight:
You may know the names of these antiwar conservatives. Some are famous: Patrick Buchanan and Robert Novak. Others are not: Llewellyn Rockwell, Justin Raimondo, Joe Sobran, Charley Reese, Jude Wanniski, Eric Margolis, and Taki Theodoracopulos....The Web sites of the antiwar conservatives approvingly cite and link to the writings of John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Ted Rall, Gore Vidal, Alexander Cockburn, and other anti-Americans of the far left....Justin Raimondo, an Internet journalist who delivered Mr. Buchanan's nominating speech at the Reform party convention in 2000, alleged in December 2001 that Israel was implicated in the terror attacks of September 11: "That the Israelis had some significant foreknowledge and involvement in the events preceding 9/11 seems beyond dispute." ...The writers I quote call themselves "paleoconservatives," implying that they are somehow the inheritors of an older, purer conservatism than that upheld by their impostor rivals. But even Robert Taft and Charles Lindbergh ceased accommodating Axis aggression after Pearl Harbor....The accusations culminated in a March 2003 article by Mr. Buchanan in The American Conservative that fixed responsibility for the entire Iraq war on a "cabal" of neoconservative office-holders and writers: "We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland of their own." [New York Sun, 3/27/03]
Buchanan's statement by itself is enough to show how these conservatives are in favor of oppression. There is no such thing as a "right to a homeland"--no group has a right to its own government by virtue of its religion or ethnic group: not the Palestinians, and not the Jews either, for that matter. The only kind of state that has a right to exist is a free one. By that standard, Israel has a right to exist; a Palestinian state doesn't.