Mar 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Iraq also handed over videotapes of mobile biological weapons laboratories to inspectors. Iraq says the videos show the laboratories do not violate U.N. resolutions. [Associated Press, 3/17/03]
This was buried at the bottom of an AP article. This means the Iraqis are admitting they have biological weapons laboratories--even mobile ones--and are now claiming they don't violate UN resolutions? The chutzpah! Why even make biological labs mobile unless you are developing weapons you are trying to hide from inspectors? ("There there," says Mother Sarandon, "I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason...")Mar 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Olympia, Washington--home to self-liquidating terrorist sympathizer Rachel Corrie--is a hotbead of anti-war stupidity:A man spent hours chained to the wrong building Tuesday in an ill-planned effort to protest war with Iraq, police said. Jody Mason padlocked himself to an entrance of the Washington State Grange building at 924 Capitol Way S., thinking it was a sub-office of the U.S. Department of Energy...
...Grange employees explained that he was at the wrong building. The Grange is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for residents in rural areas.
.. Police officers used heavy-duty bolt cutters to free Mason. "He asked for help because he didn't have the key," Olympia police Cmdr. Steve Nelson said. [Olympian]
Oh this is so classic. Thanks to CM reader Brian Harburg-Thomson for this sighting.
Mar 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, is facing recriminations for the "major blunder" of pushing for a second UN resolution, according to White House sources.
After announcing Monday that "the time for diplomacy has passed", Powell launched a passionate defense of his performance, reeling off numbers of telephone calls made, meetings held and rejecting accusations that he had traveled too little....One administration source said: "Powell led us up the primrose path and it turned into a debacle. In the White House, Powell's stock has never been lower than it is now. It was a major blunder. There are plenty of people saying, 'I told you so' and pointing out the diplomatic mess we are in."
... Powell has long referred to Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary, as "the others". He is said to be seething about Rumsfeld's utterances, particularly his characterization of "Old Europe" and the claim that the U.S. could go to war without Britain. [Daily Telegraph, 3/17/03]
Mar 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
[W]itnesses said Mohammed a-Sa'afin, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, took to the roof of his home after Israeli special forces surrounded it. "Give up, think of your children," an Israeli officer shouted at him. Sa'afin replied with pipe bombs and a volley of bullets from his Kalashnikov rifle. He was shot dead.
Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials said six other Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including a 13-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, whose age medical officials initially put at two. At least 12 people were wounded. [Reuters, 3/18/03]
Mar 18, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Saddam Hussein should have been deposed in 1991 but he wasn't. He should have been deposed when he violated the terms of the truce but he wasn't. He should have been deposed last Fall (or whenever the military could have done it) but he wasn't.
The Bush Administration shouldn't have cared about the UN last Fall, but they did. They shouldn't have gone after a second resolution, but they did.
Given all of these mistakes and where we are now, Bush's message and tone in last night's speech was appropriate, and I suspect he'll be a good commander-in-chief for the invasion.
Might I add that among the UK, Spain, and Portugal, Americans can get as much as tourists as they could if they visited France. You can get exposure to Old World history and culture, museums and theater, wine country, a riviera, excellent food--everything that France had to offer. Please remember that in the future when you're planning European vacations.Mar 18, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Boston.com:After watching President Bush's address, [Janet] Reno said, ''We will not solve the world's problems by might....''
Yet she settled the Elian Gonzalez issue wiith guns in the faces of his unarmed family members.
Reno also criticized the White House's policy toward enemy combatants.
''Two citizens today are being held incommunicado in military brigs in this country, without being charged, without access to counsel, by the simple fact that the president has declared them what is called 'enemy combatants,''' Reno said, referring to ''dirty bomb'' suspect Jose Padilla and the Louisiana-born Yasser Esam Hamdi.
She sent Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba to live in a similar situation--and he wasn't a terrorist but a boy.
''What has happened to the Bill of Rights? What has happened to due process? What has happened to the Geneva Convention? If they're not prisoners of war, what are they? And what rights do they have?'' she asked.
Funny you ask, Ms. Reno. I had similar concerns about Elian.
