Mar 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ..., listing mistakes he said had brought the Arabs to "this dangerous stage," started with Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which he said "opened the door wide for an intensive foreign presence in the region."
That was followed by "the absence of any real Iraqi efforts to address the crisis of trust" with its neighbors, Mubarak said in the nationally televised address.
"My hope is that the Iraqi government will realize the seriousness of the situation in which it put itself in--and us in--and that the different international forces will realize the dangerous repercussions of any military action on the safety and stability of the Middle East region as well as on the safety and stability of the world as a whole," Mubarak said. [Associated Press, 3/19/03]
Does he have a glimmer? Not really. He went on to reject the prospect of ousting Hussein, saying "the ruling regime is an internal affair that concerns every state taking into account its cultural, religious and social peculiarities and its political and economic development without external intervention to impose a certain type or model."
Wrong. Dictatorships quite simply have no right to exist and no legitimate claim to sovereignty; any free nation has a moral right to invade them and topple their governments.
Mubarak's statement merely betrays his own autocratic sympathies. We're taking notes.Mar 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
This is what the anti-war protestors tried to prevent:"You just arrived," [an Iraqi in liberated town] said. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave."
"For a long time we've been saying: 'Let them come'," his wife, Zahara, said. "Last night we were afraid, but we said: 'Never mind, as long as they get rid of him, as long as they overthrow him, no problem'." Their 29-year-old son was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran.
"He was a farmer, he had a car, he sold tomatoes, and we had a life that we were satisfied with," said Khlis. "He was in prison for a whole year, and I raised 75m dinars in bribes. It didn't work. The money was gone, and he was gone. They sent me a telegram. They gave me the body."
Mar 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The "Great Satan" has invaded Iraq but students at Tehran University seem pleased at the prospect.
"It will be a good thing to have American troops in Iraq. Perhaps that will bring change to Iran," said Namin, a lanky engineering student strolling to class.
"Maybe that will put more pressure on the regime here." Unlike fellow Muslims in the Middle East or their predecessors 23 years ago who seized the United States embassy, students today are not seething with anger against America and are unmoved by the government's daily references to "the enemy" in Washington. [Guardian, 3/21/03]
Mar 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
This in from Baltimore:
Americans who love Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but hate Ben & Jerry's politics, now have an alternative. The Star Spangled Ice Cream Company was founded by three veteran members of the vast rightwing conspiracy who previously knew absolutely nothing about making ice cream. Today, they begin offering consumers super premium ice cream in four politically incorrect flavors: I Hate the French Vanilla, Iraqi Road, Smaller Govern-mint, Nutty Environmentalist.
"We offer conservatives guilt-free ice cream," said Star Spangled Vice President Richard Lessner. "Our super premium ice cream is superior to Ben & Jerry's in flavor and value. Plus, a portion of every purchase of Star Spangled Ice Cream goes to charities that support the great men and women in America's Armed Forces. At last, conservative Americans have an alternative to supporting Ben & Jerry's wacko liberal political causes from world peace utopianism to radical environmentalism. Conservatives now can enjoy a top- end, gourmet ice cream while supporting patriotic causes they truly believe in." [PR Newswire, 3/17/03]
Mar 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
As a Canadian, I strongly condemn the decision of our prime minister, Jean Chretien, not to support America and its allies in the justified war against Iraq. By adhering to the U.N. charade, he effectively and shamefully placed Canada on the side of abject appeasers, anti-American leftists, brutal dictators, and Islamic terrorists.
History demonstrates that the root cause of war is dictatorship and its appeasement. Only a dictatorship can force its people to attack other countries. Only a dictatorship can extort money from its citizens to buy weapons of mass destruction and support terrorist organizations.
The United Nations is an inherently destructive organization -- the worst enemy of global peace and prosperity -- because it legitimizes dictatorships and grants them the power to undermine a free country's sovereignty and right to self-defense. The United Nations should be the next to go after Saddam Hussein.
America is on the side of peace and prosperity because it is on the side of liberty and the right to selfdefense, which includes the right to strike against threatening dictatorships, especially if they possess weapons of mass destruction. America is Canada's -- and the world's -- greatest benefactor. It deserves our wholehearted support and gratitude.Mar 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told the Security Council on Wednesday that no U.N. resolution authorized military action or "the violent overthrow of the leadership of a sovereign state." [Associated Press, 3/20/03]
Wrong. Iraqi sovereignty is a fiction. No government that rules its people by force has any legitimate claim to sovereignty; in fact, it is the obligation of its people to overthrow it. If they are unable, and if a foreign power has reason to help, it has every right to do so. The article continues:
... Declaring that military intervention "has no credibility," Germany's Joschka Fischer also stressed, "There is no basis in the U.N. Charter for a regime change with military means."
If that's true, then all it means is that the charter has to be changed. Any putative law that recognizes the legitimacy of dictatorships is an oppressive, unjust law that deserves no respect. When government becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established, as our founders wrote, it is the right of the people "to alter or abolish it."
There are also "no indisputable facts" to demonstrate that Iraq threatens the United States, [Ivanov] said. If there were, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush could exercise its right under the U.N. Charter to respond in self-defense.
What does "indisputable facts" mean? The fact that foreign powers are unwilling for their own political reasons to accept evidence put before them doesn't invalidate that evidence. Ivanov's standard means that we would have to wait until Manhattan was a smoking hole in the ground before we could act, and even then we wouldn't be allowed to do anything unless we had "indisputable" proof that Saddam Hussein had orchestrated the attack. But no further justification is needed for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime than that he is a murderous dictator.
Does this mean we should go and overthrow every dictatorship in the world? It means that doing so is permissible--not that it is obligatory. Only someone on the false premise of altruism would confuse the two.Mar 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
There's drama and some heroism in this story of a Clinton-like opportunist who grasps a fact and is willing to hold to it against all comers:
Tony Blair secured the backing of Parliament last night to send British troops to war against Iraq. An anti-war motion was defeated in the Commons by 396 votes to 217, a majority of 179, despite a substantial Labour rebellion. As many as 139 Labour MPs voted for the rebel amendment....Opening the most critical Commons debate since he became Prime Minister, [Blair] indicated he was ready to resign if MPs voted against military action....
Mr Blair said Britain could not afford to back down in the face of the "clear and present danger" to its national security posed by Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction, particularly a "dirty" radiological bomb.
If troops were pulled back "at the point of reckoning", Saddam and other tyrants would know the will confronting them was decaying and feeble. To retreat now would "tell our allies that at the very moment of action, at the very moment when they need our determination, that Britain faltered.
"I would not be party to such a course," Mr Blair said. It was time "to show that at the moment of decision we have the courage to do the right thing". As he ended, many Tory MPs and Labour backbenchers, waved their order papers in admiration and support.
MPs on both sides of the Commons said it was the most powerful speech Mr Blair had delivered, and he departed from his prepared text to deliver an emotional, hand-written peroration appealing for backing for military action. [Daily Telegraph, 3/19/03]
I hold no brief for most of Blair's politics, nor for his attachment to the UN. But his backing of the US position in Iraq despite great opposition within his own party deserves much praise.
Mar 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.
The most blatant act of sabotage took place 20 miles south of the north Iraqi city of Mosul when members of the Iraqi opposition blew up a stretch of track on the Mosul-Baghdad railway, causing the derailment of a train....
Demonstrations were also reported to have taken place in Kirkuk, where an estimated crowd of 20,000 marched on the Ba'ath party's main administrative headquarters demanding Saddam's overthrow. Three posters of the Iraqi leader were torn down and a grenade was thrown at the government building. One senior Ba'ath official was reported killed in the attack.
There were also unconfirmed reports that another demonstration by Iraqi Shi'ites in the holy city of Kerbala last weekend was violently suppressed after the intervention of militiamen loyal to Saddam.
The escalation in attacks by Iraqi opposition groups has also been accompanied by widespread acts of anti-Saddam vandalism. Posters of the Iraqi president, which adorn every public building, are being openly defaced and vandalized throughout the country.
Until recently anyone caught carrying out such acts would have received the death sentence. [Daily Telegraph, 3/16/03]
The report also includes a graphic description how Saddam's thugs killed a civil servant who was accused of preparing to leave the country; I'll spare you. I'll also spare you the graphic descriptions of other Iraqi tortures reported by Ann Clwyd, a British Labour MP. If you have the stomach, read them. As a friend wrote, "OK, now I'm convinced."
Mar 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Unlike the New York Sun, I oppose tuition vouchers, which amount to public funding of private schools--a move that would destroy what little independence they have left as they came under the regulation that inevitably accompanies government money. However, I do support tuition tax credits as a way of letting people keep their own money to pay for education. Here's what's happening in New York:The only bit of movement--and it is slight--comes in a modest education tax-credit bill that has been introduced in the state Assembly and Senate. The bill has 18 sponsors in the Senate and 11 in the Assembly, and would provide a modest tax credit for 50% of the value of donations to public schools (including charter schools), school districts, and scholarship funds that pay for private schools. Under the bill, individuals could get up to $250 for a $500 donation, and corporations could get up to $25,000 for a $50,000 donation.
The bill does not allow donations directly to private schools, however, because, as one of the architects of the bill, the president of United New Yorkers for Choice in Education, Timothy Mulhearn, told us, "That would be the kiss of death…You have to be public-school friendly in Albany."[New York Sun, 3/18/03]
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
[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 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
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 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
Listen to this caller, an Iraqi national in the USA, tear apart an anti-war protestor on a radio show in Seattle.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.
Mar 17, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
More about the 23-year-old American defender of terrorists who was killed when she put herself in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza:
Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Wash., a member of the 'International Solidarity Movement,' burns a mock U.S. flag during a rally in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah in this Feb. 15, 2003 file photo. [Associated Press, 3/16/03]
Mar 17, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The deadlines for ARI's essay contests on Ayn Rand's novels are fast approaching! The last day to submit your 9th and 10th grade Anthem essay is March 18, and the last day to submit your 11th and 12th grade Fountainhead essay is April 15.