Archived
news and commentary: March 24 - 30, 2003
2003/03/24 - 2003/03/30
2003/03/17 - 2003/03/23
2003/03/10 - 2003/03/16
2003/03/03 - 2003/03/09
2003/02/24 - 2003/03/02
2003/02/17 - 2003/02/23
2003/02/10 - 2003/02/16
2003/02/03 - 2003/02/09
2003/01/27 - 2003/02/02
2003/01/20 - 2003/01/26
2003/01/13 - 2003/01/19
2003/01/06 - 2003/01/12
2002/12/30 - 2003/01/05
Sunday,
March 30, 2003
News and commentary:
"Photo Gallery: Psy-Ops"
(Newsweek, March 2003)
A fascinating gallery of Coalition leaflets, found via Blogs of War: "Coalition planes have dropped millions of leaflets with messages to Iraqi citizens and soldiers, offering everything from advice on how to 'avoid destruction' to assurances that the 'noble Iraq people' are not targets.""Guardian Lies Through Its Teeth" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/03/30)
"In a sleazy smear piece dripping with hatred for Israel, the Guardian’s John Sutherland tries his level best to blame the photos of Rachel Corrie teaching Palestinian children to burn American flags on the evil Jews.Pictures had accompanied the news reports of Rachel's death, megaphone in hand, standing in front of the menacing bulldozer. A pose inescapably reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Another picture showed her fallen in front of the murderous blade. Questions were asked as to whether the images had been "manipulated".
Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.
This is an outright lie, and a hideous distortion. There is nothing mysterious about the "provenance" of this photo, Sutherland, you dishonest anti-Semitic rat: It comes from the Associated Press. I assume you’ve heard of them?" (See also: "Rachel Corrie died under a bulldozer for her beliefs..." (John Sutherland, The Guardian, 2003/03/31) and "Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia..." (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, 2003/03/17))"Two U.S. Soldiers Stranded in Desert for Seven Days" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2003/03/30)
"Two young American soldiers have been rescued by marines after being stranded in the southern Iraqi desert for seven days.
Specialist Jeffrey Klein, 20, and Sgt. Matthew Koppi, 22, both mechanics with the Army's Third Infantry Division, were in good spirits, if thirsty, hungry and tired, after their rescue on Friday, when marines in Chinook helicopters spotted them dug into trenches in the flat sand. ...
As days passed without rescue, the soldiers dug trenches to defend their position, alternated night watch, and drew S O S in the sand. They said they gave away much of their food to hungry Iraqi civilians who approached their truck.
During the day, Sergeant Koppi, of Asheville, N.C., wrote poems to his wife, who had their first child 10 days before his deployment.It has been weeks since we have spoken,
I know her heart is close to broken,
Defending our nation isn't always fun,
There are only a few who can get the job done.
It strains our honor and our lives,
It hurts our children and our wives.
Often the people of the nation can't see
That we sacrifice so that they may be free.
But ribbons and medals can't compare
To the love of home waiting there."
"U.S. body may reveal 'torture hospital' secrets" (Brad Hunter, New York Post, 2003/03/30)
"At least one of the bodies of the four American soldiers discovered in a shallow grave was "brutalized and mutilated," Pentagon sources revealed yesterday.
The corpses were unearthed in the vicinity of the "hospital" at Nasiriyah where U.S. Marines found evidence that the Iraqis had operated a torture chamber. ...
Officials would not immediately confirm whether the dead soldiers were members of the mechanical unit who had taken a wrong turn and were ambushed by Iraqi forces.
Two members of the convoy are known to be dead while another five are listed as prisoners of war.
"We're not sure who it is [in the graves] at this point," said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
U.S. forensics experts and mortuary personnel are now trying to determine the identities of the dead soldiers. But officials fear the worst.
Inside the hospital, the shocked Marines found bloodied pieces of an American female soldier's uniform. Her name badge and American flag were missing.""Moroccans Back Suicide Attacks as War Anger Flares" (Reuters, 2003/03/30)
Found via Little Green Footballs. I thought no chant could outdo "Down with beauty" for pure Orwellianism, but this does and actually sums up their current ideology pretty well:
"About 150,000 Moroccans, chanting "suicide attacks lead to freedom," poured through the streets of Rabat on Sunday as protests against the war in Iraq flared again around the Muslim world.
In the first major demonstration to be approved by Moroccan authorities since the start of the war, protesters accused the United States, Britain and Israel of plotting to control Iraq before attacking other Muslim countries in the Middle East.
Skirmishes broke out between police and protesters, with one policeman reported to have been seriously hurt. Police dispersed the march ahead of schedule as tension rose.""Belgian premier denounces US as 'very dangerous'" (IRNA, 2003/03/30)
"Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt Sunday toughened his position against the war in Iraq. Speaking at a meeting of his liberal VKD party in the city of Antwerp, Verhofstadt denounced the US as "very dangerous."
"America, a power deeply injured, and has become very dangerous,
and it thinks to take over the whole Arab world," Belgian RTL TV
quoted him saying. He said the US regards the Arab world responsible for all terrorism. "This is a logic which I do not share," he said.
An estimated 30,000 Muslims mainly from North African countries
live in the port city of Antwerp. Verhofstadt added that everything must be undertaken to restore the international legal order.""Islamic Jihad claims attack near Netanya cafe in which 58 hurt" (Roni Singer et al., Haaretz, 2003/03/30)
"Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Sunday's suicide bombing close to a cafe in Netanya, calling it "a gift" to the Iraqi people, and said some of its own suicide bombers had reached Baghdad to prepare to attack U.S. forces.
Some 58 people were wounded, two of them seriously and four moderately, when the terrorist blew himself up at 12:55 P.M. near the London Cafe. ...
An IDF soldier was seriously wounded in the attack when he successfully prevented the suicide bomber from entering the cafe. The bomber consequently blew himself in the street outside the cafe.
The soldier was hospitalized in Netanya's Laniado Hospital and is listed in critical condition.""Allies prepare for decisive attack on elite Saddam force" (Sean Rayment, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/03/30)
"Forget the whining of the gloom-mongers. The war in Iraq is - and remains - a remarkable military achievement. ...
In war there are two unpleasant facts of life to remember: soldiers die and accidents happen. Sorry, three: at some point during its early stages, lots of people will start saying that the strategy is not working, that it's all going wrong, that we're losing.
Invading a country the size of France with an enemy army of almost 500,000 troops was never - despite what the politicians might have said - going to be an easy task.
Even the most successful of military campaigns will be dogged by setbacks and changes, and Operation Iraqi Freedom is no different.""Live From Baghdad" (Melinda Liu, Newsweek, from the 2003/03/31 issue)
"Baghdad has always been a strange place, but in Saddam Hussein's last days, it got more surreal than ever. Ordinary Iraqis gave up pretending to have faith in their government and began talking, quietly at first, about how they really felt. At about 5:30 one morning at the Rasheed Hotel, I bumped into a floor attendant. "I'm so scared, so scared," he whispered, wringing his hands. "Please help," he said. "Please." He was obviously looking for sympathy and a bit of easy cash. But he had good reason to be scared. The hotel's multilevel basement, a labyrinth of VIP bunkers and tunnels that reportedly include a government command-and-control hub, could make the place a coalition target. (Actual slogan: "Al Rasheed — It's More Than a Hotel.") ...
During a lull in the bombardment, Tlala went back to his room to turn in for the night. I was thinking of going to the hospital, to ask about casualties, when an Iraqi acquaintance arrived. He sat quietly for a moment. Then he smiled. "I'm very happy about this bombing," he said. "Nobody will fight to defend him." He was talking about Saddam Hussein. I gestured at my visitor to watch what he said. The room was almost certainly bugged. My friend only chuckled. "Everybody feels the same way, believe me,"he said. He's a patriot, a veteran of two Iraqi wars. But this time he’s rooting for the Americans. He says Iraqis have no country because Saddam stole it from them.""A chronicle of a war foretold" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2003/03/31 issue)
"Like a river with many tributaries, the opposition to war against Iraq flows in countless lands. The French pour into this opposition a congenital anti-Americanism, the repressed anger of a decade - the 1990s - when America sat astride the world. French power is a distant memory, the pretensions to it pathetic in the extreme. The opposition to the United States indulges a French fantasy of grandeur. The Germans, for their part, are eager to put behind them the horrors of the Second World War, the limitations placed by those great crimes on their role in the world of nations. It is no accident that Germany has picked up this new anti-Americanism at a time when a rampant revisionism about the Second World War now tempts many in Germany. Germans, too, were "victims" of that war, younger people in that country now eagerly proclaim. Closer to the terrors of Iraq, Arabs have found in this opposition to the war the perfect opportunity to walk away from the terrors of Sept. 11, 2001, and from the verdict on Arab life that these terror attacks delivered." (Note: Thanks to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer.)"French Rallies Against War Shift Focus To Israel" (Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 2003/03/30)
They simply seem to be oblivious to the fact that Hitler certainly not killed in the name of God and blind of the irony that their own martyrs are the archetypal example of killing in the name of God facing the world today: "The antiwar movement in France has turned anti-Israeli, as demonstrations against the war in Iraq have evolved into a battleground for French Arab Muslims to attack Israel and even Jews to protest Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Today, as tens of thousands of protesters against the American-led war took to the streets in Paris, 5,000 police officers and a team of marshals were stationed alongside them. Their goal was to prevent a repetition of an event during last Saturday's march in which protesters marching with a pro-Palestinian group attacked members of the left-wing Zionist youth group, Hachomer Hatzair. The group said two members were beaten with metal bars and treated for injuries at a hospital. ...
But even as protesters hung a huge banner that read "No to racism and anti-Semitism" on the Place de la Concorde near the heavily guarded American Embassy, one huge banner read "Hitler, Bush, Sharon, in the name of God we kill."
Young French Arab teenagers from the poor suburbs chanted slogans pledging war and martyrdom in the name of both Palestinians and Iraqis and against Israel. "We are all Palestinians, we are all Iraqis, we are all kamikazes!" chanted one group of teenagers, no older than 14 or 15, from the suburb of Garges-les-Gonesses. Others chanted: 'We are all martyrs! Allah-u Akbar! God is more powerful than the United States.'""Iraqis Threatening New Suicide Strikes Against U.S. Forces" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/03/30)
"Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, ranked No. 3 in the Iraqi hierarchy, said at a news conference that the soldier who killed four Americans in a suicide attack earlier today outside the holy city of Najaf was the first in a wave of Iraqis and other Arab volunteers ready to become "martyrs." Arabs outside Iraq, he said, should help "turn every country in the world into a battlefield." ...
Although overheated polemics are a feature of the Baghdad leadership, no member of the group around Mr. Hussein has ever explicitly embraced suicide attacks as a potential Iraqi weapon. Mr. Hussein announced last year that he would pay $25,000 to the family of any Palestinian suicide bomber, and rallies have been held on the West Bank to celebrate the Iraqi funds. But in its efforts to avoid a new war with the United States, the Baghdad government vehemently insisted, up to only 10 days ago, that it was not a rogue state — that it had no banned chemical, biological or chemical weapons, and no ties to terrorist groups. Today, that insistence was effectively abandoned. "Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used," Mr. Ramadan said."Added in archive:
"A survivor of Saddam Hussein's terror argues for war" (Freshta Raper, Tallahassee Democrat, 2003/03/17)
Saturday,
March 29, 2003
News and commentary:
"A wounded Iraqi girl is treated by U.S. marines..."
(Reuters/Damir Sagolj, 2003/03/29)
"A wounded Iraqi girl is treated by U.S. marines in central Iraq March 29, 2003. Confused front line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family on Saturday after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards U.S. marines positions. The four-year old girl, blood streaming from an eye wound, was screaming for her dead mother, while her father, shot in a leg, begged to be freed from the plastic wrist cuffs slapped on him by U.S. marines, so he could hug his other terrified daughter.""People have to know the horrors I've seen" (The Times, 2003/03/29)
An instantly classic confrontation between Freshta Raper, a survivor of Saddam's regime, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, an anti-war columnist for the Independent:
"'Look into my eyes. Look into my eyes!' With these impassioned words, Freshta Raper mesmerised viewers during Question Time on BBC1 on Thursday night. As one of the Iraqi Kurdish community in Britain who believes that the war on Iraq is absolutely necessary, she confronted Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, one of the panel, whose anti-war sentiments galvanised Mrs Raper, 37, into speaking with fire and fury.
Her experiences, she told the programme, had included all the worst outrages perpetrated by President Saddam Hussein’s regime. During the Iraq-Iran War, she was imprisoned three times and was raped repeatedly by "Iraqi thugs". She has been burnt and blistered by a chemical bomb: 21 members of her family and thousands of others were killed or buried alive in that attack on her native Halabja, which was meant to punish the Kurds for siding with Iran against Iraq. She endured a "horrific journey" to escape from her homeland in 1991.
"People have to know what I have seen," she said. "I have been made to witness a teenage execution, and the mother of the boy was asked to pay 32p for the bullet. I have seen a mother witnessing her own child chopped in pieces and fed to dogs. In what century do we live?" ...
'What incensed me was Alibhai-Brown's assertion that she knew what life was like in Baghdad, and that I was using 'emotional blackmail' by telling what I knew. She should be grateful that as an Asian immigrant she has a British passport and not an Iraqi one.'" (Note: The Thursday edition of BBC's Question Time is available online until 2003/04/02. The exchange between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Freshta Raper ("You haven't got a clue!") starts at appr. 6:45, but see also 4:15 ("We want this war more than anything on this planet.")
Also: "A survivor of Saddam Hussein's terror argues for war" (Freshta Raper, Knight Ridder Tribune/Tallahassee Democrat, 2003/03/17)
UPDATE: Douglas also points out this telling exhange between an Iraqi survivor who asks a simple question to an anti-war spokeswoman on KOMO Radio, a Seattle station: "'How exactly will leaving Saddam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?'" (KVI AM, 2003/03/06))"Vision and Division" (Mamoun Fandy, The Washington Post Outlook, 2003/03/30)
"The formats used by the growing number of 24-hour, satellite-based Arab news channels would be familiar to American viewers. There is a mix of news talk shows, press briefings, anchors reading headlines and then turning to video footage of the war. But the messages are uniformly anti-American: Americans are barbaric, and here are the pictures to prove it. We Arabs are heroic, and here are images of us downing their planes. Shots of Iraqi civilian casualties are a highlight of the coverage, as are those that show the "invading" forces suffering routs and setbacks. ...
Some Arab journalists say they have little choice but to go along. "The cost of speaking out now - even to simply say that Saddam is partially responsible for what is taking place - is very high. It could cost you your job and could even cause you physical harm," said one.
The Arab world has experienced that before. In 1967, Egyptian reporter Ahmed Said announced that Arab guns were bringing Israeli planes down like flies. A week later Arabs woke up to the fact that their armies had been roundly defeated. With that, Arab media lost credibility and audiences turned to foreign stations. It would take almost 25 years for the Arab media to regain some credibility. Their coverage of this war could well cause them to lose it once more.""Iraq: Suicide Attacks Are Military Policy" (Alman Karamehmedovic, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/03/29)
"A bomber posing as a taxi driver summoned American troops for help, then blew up his vehicle Saturday, killing himself and four soldiers and opening a new chapter of carnage in the war for Iraq. ...
An Iraqi official said such attacks would be "routine military policy" in Iraq — and, he suggested chillingly, in America.
"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a Baghdad news conference. "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later." ...A taxi stopped close to the roadblock; the driver waved for help. When soldiers approached the car, it exploded, Capt. Andrew Wallace told Associated Press Television News, killing the driver and four soldiers from the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. ...
The names of the Americans were not immediately released. But Ramadan identified the bomber as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a noncommissioned army officer and father of several children.
Iraq's state television reported that Saddam posthumously promoted al-Noamani to colonel, and bestowed on him two medals — Al-Rafidin, or The Two Rivers, and the Mother of All Battles.
"It's the blessed beginning," said the statement, alluding to the suicide attack. ...
Ramadan said Iraq, like many other nations, cannot match American weaponry. 'They have bombs that can kill 500 people, but I am sure that the day will come when a single martyrdom operation will kill 5,000 enemies.'""U.S. Says It Has Stopped a Plot to Attack Americans in Mideast" (James Risen, The New York Times, 2003/03/29)
The United States has broken up suspected plots by Iraqi intelligence agents to attack American targets in two countries in the Middle East, American officials said today. It was the first publicly disclosed effort by the United States to block Iraq from using terrorism attacks to respond to the American-led invasion.
The American officials said the Iraqi operatives had been arrested before they could carry out their attacks, which were to be conducted with conventional weapons, rather than chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. ...
Officials said that one of the suspected plots was broken up in Jordan, and another in a country in the Persian Gulf that they declined to identify. Last Sunday, Jordan expelled five Iraqi diplomats, accusing them of undermining the nation's security.""'A million Mogadishus'" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com, 2003/03/29)
"In the Boston Globe, James Carroll explicitly denied any moral difference between the regime in Baghdad and the administration in Washington. He described the "shock and awe" air campaign as if it were the direct equivalent of 9/11:"And what, exactly, would justify such destruction? What would make it an act of virtue? And is it possible to imagine that such violence could be wreaked in a spirit of cold detachment, by controllers sitting at screens dozens, hundreds, even thousands of miles distant? And in what way would such 'decapitation' spark in the American people anything but a horror to make memories of 9/11 seem a pleasant dream? If our nation, in other words, were on its receiving end, illusions would lift and we would see 'shock and awe' for exactly what it is - terrorism pure and simple."
This lazy form of moral equivalence is not rare among the radical left in this country. ... There is, in fact, no comparison whatever. That is not jingoism or blind patriotism or propaganda. It is the simple undeniable truth. And once the left starts equating legitimate acts of war to defang and depose a deadly dictator with unprovoked terrorist attacks on civilians, it has lost its mind, not to speak of its soul." (See also: "America the destroyer" (James Carroll, The Boston Globe, 2003/03/25) and "Radicals Speak Out At Columbia 'Teach-In'" (Ron Howell, Newsday.com, 2003/03/27))
"Alone in his world of lies ... the last days of Saddam" (Ben Macintyre, The Times, 2003/03/29)
"We have not yet found Saddam, but surely we can see him. The ageing tyrant is hunkered down in his bunker. His back aches from an old slipped disk, and it is getting worse without exercise. With American spy planes snooping overhead and bombs falling, he cannot now take his habitual long walks in his walled private estates, or swim in one of his many swimming pools. ...
And so he sits in his hole, being lied to, and lying to himself, preparing fresh volleys of the defiantly meaningless verbiage that coat his regime, like the dye he uses on his secretly greying hair. "On this basis, and along the same central concepts and their genuine constants, together with the required revolutionary compatibility and continuous renewal in styles, means, concepts, potentials and methods of treatment and behaviour, the loyal people of Iraq and their valiant armed forces will win victory ..."
Embracing martyrdom, predicting impossible victory, but wondering if his soup is poisoned and whether the next bomb will be even smarter than the first, the patriarch in his labyrinth smokes one of the dwindling stock of cigars sent by Fidel Castro, and watches his all-time favourite movie, a six-hour epic about his life edited by the James Bond film-maker Terence Young. The film is called The Long Days. Waiting underground, insomniac and insecure, threatening and threatened, Saddam's days must be long indeed, and his nights still longer.""A Butcher, Indeed" (David Skinner, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/04/07 issue)
"But it is in regard to civilians that Iraq may be making its darkest contribution to military history. To say that Saddam's forces do not put a premium on human life hardly does justice to the use of men, women, and children as shields, decoys, and crowds to hide among. And it bears noting that even, or rather especially, in wartime, no Iraqi is safe from torture and execution.
Consider some of the stories reported in the first week of the war: a woman in Basra hanged for waving hello to Allied troops, an American officer told reporters; families in Najaf threatened with execution, according to General Vincent Brooks, unless the male family members (children included) joined the fight; Iraqis in Basra firing at their own people, say the British troops fighting there. It would appear that agents of the Iraqi state view human beings as simply disposable. ...
Then, there are stories that defy classification. The Washington Post of March 28 recounted an episode outside Nasiriya. A Marine defending the supply lines saw some Iraqis appearing to surrender. Told to put down their weapons, 'they ran back into the building and pushed the kids out the windows and doors. The kids started running because they were scared and then the men ran out shooting.'" (See also: "A 'Turkey Shoot,' but With Marines as the Targets" (Peter Baker, The Washington Post, 2003/03/28) and "U.S. Shifting Focus of Land Campaign to South" (Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2003/03/26))"Don't take my name in vain" (Julie Burchill, The Guardian, 2003/03/29)
Found via Tim Blair: "But does the most hardened peacenik really believe that Iraqis currently enjoy more liberty and delight than they would if Saddam were brought down? If so, fair enough; if not, then they are marching about one thing - themselves. That's why so many luvvies are involved; this is simply showing off on a grand scale. ...
Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here? And is it a total coincidence that those stars most prominent in the anti-war movement are the most notoriously "difficult"and vain - Streisand, Albarn, Michael, Madonna, Sean Penn? And Robin Cook! Why might anyone believe world peace can be secured by this motley bunch? ...
NOT IN MY NAME! is western imperialism of the sneakiest sort, putting our clean hands before the freedom of an enslaved people. But even those whose anti-war protests started in good faith now know that when Saddam's regime comes tumbling down, thousands of Iraqis will dance and sing with joy before the TV cameras, and thank our armed forces for giving them back their lives.
How embarrassing it will be for the peaceniks to have to explain to the celebrants how much better it would have been for them never to have been troubled by such joy!""Turkish Jet Is Hijacked and Flown to Athens" (Frank Bruni, The New York Times, 2003/03/29)
"A Turkish Airlines flight on its way here from Istanbul was hijacked late Friday night and forced to fly to Athens, where it sat on a tarmac for about three hours early this morning before the more than 190 passengers on board were released.
Turkish officials said that there was just one hijacker, a 22-year-old Turkish man, and that he did not have known ties to any terrorist group. The man, whom those officials identified as Ozgur Gencarslan, appeared to passengers on the plane to be emotionally unstable.""Iraq Blames U.S. for Market Blast That Killed Civilians in Baghdad" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/03/29)
"Iraqi officials said Friday tonight that at least 35 people, possibly as many as 55, many of them women and small children, were killed when a missile or bomb struck a crowded marketplace in an impoverished district of Shiite Muslims in the northwest suburbs of Baghdad. Dozens of others were wounded, many critically. ...
But as with a similar incident on Wednesday, when two explosions in Baghdad killed at least 17 people and wounded 45, it was impossible to determine the cause. After the Wednesday incident, attributed by the Iraqis to an American air attack, United States military spokesmen said they had no planes in the area at the time and suggested that the explosion might have been caused by an errant Iraqi missile or even bombs that were planted. ...
A Central Command spokesman in Qatar said Friday night that the United States could not tell what caused the bombing on Friday. One issue likely to be examined in both bombings is the relatively small size of the craters, in the case of Friday's attack they were closer to the kind associated with mortars, artillery shells or small bombs, than to the kind of craters commonly caused by American bombs or missiles in Baghdad."Added in archive:
"Inside Baghdad" (John F. Burns, PBS NewsHour, 2003/03/23)
"Waiting for war" (John F. Burns, PBS NewsHour, 2003/03/19)Added in Author index:
John F. BurnsNote: The old Watch site has not been possible to change since last Friday, making it impossible for me inform visitors about the new address. Today, finally, it became accessible and informs and redirects visitors here.
If you're one of these - welcome and sorry about the weeklong disruption of the old site.
Personally, it's with great satisfaction I wave goodbye to my former webhost Tripod. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Indeed, the first week as an affiliate of Winds of Change.NET has been the first glitchfree period since the start 18 months ago.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to move here, provided by Joe Katzman at Winds of Change.NET, not only because the new site is faster and much more reliable, but also because it's an honour to be affiliated with such a brilliant site.
Friday,
March 28, 2003
News and commentary:
"A torn picture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein..."
(Reuters/2003/03/28)
"A torn picture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is seen at a former military compound in the southern Iraq ) town of Umm Qasr March 25, 2003. A Brazilian soccer coach has told how Saddam liked to party, tell jokes and speak Spanish when he was not busy being a dictator.""Ray Suarez talks with John Burns of The New York Times for the view from inside Baghdad" (PBS/Watch, 2003/03/26 [2003/03/28])
John F. Burns reporting from Baghdad is in a class of its own. This is a highly interesting transcribed excerpt from PBS Newshour, on the Baghdad market blast on Wednesday:
"What ever had happened had happened sufficiently ahead of our arrival for even the cars which had been carbonized by these two explosions — one on either side of the road — to cool. There was no heat left in any of the chassis of the vehicles that were there. So we were left in the end relying if you will only on what the Iraqis told us. They of course said these were American bombs. Later on we were told these were cruise missiles.
What I can tell you is that the craters made by these blasts were a good deal smaller, certainly than anything you would expect from a cruise missile and certainly a good deal smaller than the big bombs that they’ve used in the “stunning” campaign." (Note: Transcription from the streaming audio by contributing reader Douglas. See also: "Iraq: Baghdad market blast kills 15" (CNN.com, 2003/03/16))"Weasel Watch" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/03/28)
"Check out this transcript from a press briefing in Paris by the French Foreign Ministry spokesman:Q: France and Kuwait signed a defense agreement at the end of the Gulf War. What impact are these dozens of Iraqi missile attacks against Kuwait having on that agreement? What is your reaction to these attacks and should the defense agreement be invoked?
A: I have nothing to add to what the spokesman said yesterday.
Q: Why can't such a simple question get an answer for a week?
A: Quite simply, if I may say so, because we have no specific, verified information about the dozens of Iraqi missile attacks against Kuwait that you refer to.
The Associated Press reports that "violent racist attacks quadrupled in France in 2002 to the highest level in a decade, and more than half of the assaults were aimed at Jews." France's prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, seems to think America is to blame. "Raffarin said he was worried the war in Iraq would cause religious tensions in France to surge." Never mind that the report covers last year and the shooting in Iraq didn't start until this month." (See also: "Statements made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson" (Embassy of France, 2003/03/26))
"A 'Turkey Shoot,' but With Marines as the Targets" (Peter Baker, The Washington Post, 2003/03/28)
"They call it the turkey shoot, and they are the targets. Every day, Marines trying to keep critical supply lines open to forward units heading toward Baghdad run a gantlet through the strategic crossroads city of Nasiriyah - over one bridge, up a few miles and then over another bridge. If they make it without getting shot at, they are lucky. ...
With many of the attackers out of uniform and hiding behind civilians, Marines said they have had to refrain from returning fire, according to several interviewed today at an 80-bed field hospital that opened here in southern Iraq on Wednesday.
"It's a turkey shoot," said Merkle, a reservist who normally works as a FedEx delivery man. "It's not an actual engagement. You're just receiving fire and trying to get through as fast as you can."
At one point, Merkle recalled, some Iraqi fighters pretended to surrender. "As they're surrendering, the Marines told them, 'Put down your weapons, put down your weapons,' " he said. 'They ran back into the building and pushed the kids out the windows and doors. The kids started running because they were scared and then the men ran out shooting.'""Next stop Syria for Saddam" (The Daily Telegraph, 2003/03/28)
"Saddam Hussein has made extensive preparations to flee Iraq - and has already smuggled his family out to Syria.
He has also been selling off property and valuables to raise millions for his exile.
Just days before the bombardment of Baghdad began, Saddam's first wife Sajida – mother of his heirs Uday and Qusay and daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala – fled to Damascus with three lorryloads of possessions and 60 bodyguards.
They are staying with Iraq's ambassador to Syria, Saddam's former protocol minister Haitham Rashid Wihaib told newspapers in London.
The news will heighten speculation that Saddam's regime may be about to crumble.
Several of his most senior lieutenants, including his deputy Tariq Aziz, have also sent their families on ahead to Syria before the fall of Baghdad.""Missile Reportedly Strikes Baghdad Market" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/03/28)
"Thunderous explosions rocked Baghdad on Friday in some of the most powerful bombardments of the Iraqi capital in days. One missile struck a market in western Baghdad on Friday afternoon, killing more than 50 people, news reports said.
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera said 55 civilians were killed Friday at the market in a residential neighborhood. Al Arabiya television said at least 52 people died. Footage showed the injured, many of them children, lying in hospital beds with their faces and heads wrapped in bandages.'""Friday Sermon in Baghdad" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 487, 2003/03/28)
"The Friday sermon delivered by Sheik Abd Al-Ghafour Al-Qaysi at Abd Al-Qadr Al-Gaylani Mosque in Baghdad was aired on Al-Arabia TV (1) in Dubai in collaboration with Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca. Throughout the sermon, the preacher hoisted a gun. The following are excerpts from the sermon: ...
'Oh Mujahideen-believers! We have sworn Jihad before Muhammad... We are the army of Allah. We who are fighting against those who are fighting us. Oh Mujahideen-believers everywhere... The evil has arrived. The Satan and his army. The Mujahideen have declared Jihad for the sake of Allah to bring down the banners of the infidels and those full of hatred... ...
Their dead are in hell because they have attacked a peaceful and believing country, but blessings to anyone amongst us who died a death of a holy man because he earns strength in this world and heaven in the world to come. ...
We call on Muslims everywhere, and to Arabs. We say to them: this is the day of Jihad. The Jihad has become a personal [duty] of every Muslim. To refrain from Jihad today would constitute a violation of Allah's commands. It is a sin. Long live the Jihad! The evil has arrived! The forces of disbelief have mobilized armies... ...
The criminal Bush is bringing back to the world all the arrogance and the insolence and all the criminality and the absence of humanity. He starts a war that has no legitimate [basis] only for the purpose of satisfying his wicked and evil soul and his thirst for pure blood.""U.S. Warns Syria Over Military Shipments to Iraq" (Reuters, 2003/03/28)
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday shipments of military equipment have been crossing into Iraq from neighboring Syria and said the United States would hold Syria's government accountable for the "hostile acts."
Rumsfeld also warned Iran against backing military personnel active inside Iraqi territory during the war, saying such forces would be treated by U.S.-led forces as combatants.
He added that "the entrance into Iraq by military forces, intelligence personnel or proxies not under the direct operational control of (U.S. commander) Gen. (Tommy) Franks will be taken as a potential threat to coalition forces."
Rumsfeld said that "we have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night-vision goggles."
"These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts, and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments," Rumsfeld said.""History or Hysteria?" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/03/28)
Hysteria, apparently: "Reporters at the beginning of the week were hysterically railing that Basra — cut off and surrounded — was not yet taken. A voice on NPR told us that after three days there would be "no food or water" — as if we had not cut off the power, water, and bridges at Baghdad in 1991 for 44 days, as if Marines getting shot at had electricity in the field. Things happen in war. Surely a temporary interruption in service is not so high a price to pay for lasting freedom. ...
Not to be outdone, another expert — wrong in the past on everything in Afghanistan — smugly announced that in five days of war "everything has gone wrong!" ...
The commentators need to listen to history. By any fair standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history — the German blast through the Ardennes in spring 1940, or Patton’s romp in July — the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring, and in the lightness of its causalities. ...
A globally televised and therapeutic culture puts an onus on American soldiers that could never have been envisioned by any of the early captains. We treat prisoners justly; our enemy executes them. We protect Iraqi bridges, oil, and dams — from Iraqi saboteurs. We must treat Iraqi civilians better than do their own men, who are trying to kill them. Our generals and leaders take questions; theirs give taped propaganda speeches. Shock and awe — designed not to kill but to stun, and therefore to save civilians — are slurred as Hamburg and Dresden. The force needed to crush Saddam’s killers is deemed too much for the fragile surrounding human landscape. Marines who raise the Stars and Stripes are reprimanded for being too chauvinistic. And on, and on, and on.""Toxic Terror Tick Tock" (Joe Katzman, Tech Central Station, 2003/03/28)
An interesting analysis of, well, the toxic terror tick tock:
"Throw in a terrorist culture that already believes in suicide as a positive good, however, and the term "suicide bomber" takes on a whole new meaning. Such terrorists would need no equipment other than a highly contagious and lethal pathogen with a slight onset delay - in effect, the terrorist is the bomb.
In all probability, that last scenario is still several years away. Nevertheless, the threat of suicidal terrorists armed by rogue states is chillingly clear. That threat has already affected our policy toward Saddam Hussein, and may have changed the way we've conducted the War on Terror's Iraqi campaign.
While the Iraqi campaign is unlikely to see substantial acts of biochemical terror in America or the U.K. - this time - that does not mean the threat will disappear with the removal of Saddam. Iran in particular lacks some of Saddam's important weaknesses, possessing an active set of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and close, deep links with terrorist organizations who may well be inclined to sacrifice themselves for the Islamic revolution's welfare." (See also: "Devils in the Delivery" (Joe Katzman, Tech Central Station, 2003/03/28))"British: Iraqis Fire on Basra Residents" (Nicole Winfield, AP/KansasCity.com, 2003/03/28)
"Iraqi paramilitary forces in Basra fired mortars and machine guns Friday on about 1,000 Iraqi civilians trying to leave the besieged city, forcing them to retreat, British military officials and witnesses said.
Britain's 7th Armored Brigade apparently tried to fire back, but stopped out of fear that civilians would be wounded, said Lt. Cmdr. Emma Thomas, a spokeswoman for British forces in the Persian Gulf. As a result, the civilians retreated into Basra in trucks, she said.""Villepin refuses to say which side he supports" (Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/03/28)
"During a speech in London, M de Villepin said he hoped for "a swift conclusion with the minimum possible number of casualties".
But asked by The Telegraph whether he hoped American and British forces would win the military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein, he replied angrily: "I'm not going to answer. You have not been listening carefully to what I said before. You already have the answer." ...
Michael Ancram, shadow foreign affairs spokesman, said: "It is beyond belief that the French foreign minister was unable to bring himself to look forward to a coalition victory and the liberation of the people of Iraq from the tyranny and oppression.""Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim" (Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman/The Sydney Morning Herald, 2003/03/28)
"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.""New Bombs Target Presidential Compound" (Fox News, 2003/03/28)
"During a massive bombardment of Baghdad that stretched into early Friday, allied forces targeted one of Saddam Hussein's presidential compounds, command and control facilities and a communications center. ...
A U.S. B-2 bomber dropped two 4,700-pound, satellite-guided "bunker busting" bombs on a major communications tower on the east bank of the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. They said the strike was meant to hamper communications between Saddam's regime and Iraq's military. Air assaults zeroed in on one of Saddam's presidential compounds in the heart of the capital."
Thursday,
March 27, 2003
News and commentary:
"The Neo-pacifists make war... on peace" (Robert Redeker, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/03/25 [2003/03/27])
A must-read dissection of the neo-pacifist movement, translated by Douglas:
"No fate more tragic than that of pacifism. Claiming to combat imperialism, it has most often chosen the worst side — fascism, nazism, Communism — generally finding itself allied with the most resolute enemies of liberty. ...
In order to exist, contemporary pacifism finds itself forced to conceal its past. Now that Communism has taken its place in the dust heap of history, the dichotomist and absolutist rhetoric employed from one demonstration to the next pursues an unstated aim: to have us forget an event that is equally as important as the Americans’ victory over Hitlerian nazism but never referred to. This repressed event, a taboo of memory, lasted several decades: America protected western Europe against Communism. ...
The American miracle in western Europe did one thing in particular: it formed an effective barrage, preventing red totalitarianism from extending its empire of camps, psychiatric asylums, mass executions and barbed wire as far as the Atlantic, allowing the countries thus protected (France, Italy, West Germany, Benelux) to witness the rise of a generalized prosperity such as the world had never known with a degree of personal freedom not seen before then. ...
For sixty years, “War on America” has been the sole and solitary slogan of all pacifisms. It is however thanks to the United States, to the might of the American military, and despite pacifist hatred, that we are today neither “red” nor “dead”!" (See also the French original: "Les néopacifistes en guerre... contre la paix" (Le Monde, 2003/03/25))"Bush and Blair Voice Their Determination to Remove Hussein" (David Stout, The New York Times, 2003/03/27)
"With a new intensity of anger and determination, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain pledged again today that the regime of Saddam Hussein will be destroyed, no matter how long it takes.
"Slowly but surely, the grip of terror around the throats of the Iraqi people is being loosened," Mr. Bush said as he and the prime minister held a briefing at Camp David, Md. He said the war would be prosecuted "however long it takes to win . . . however long it takes." ...
"Saddam Hussein and his hateful regime will be removed from power," Mr. Blair said. 'Iraq will be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction, and the Iraqi people will be free. That is our commitment.'" (See also: "Text of Remarks by President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair" (AP/The New York Times, 2003/03/27))"Syria's mufti calls for suicide attacks on US, British troops" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/03/27)
Syrian mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro, the country's top Muslim religious authority, called for suicide bombings against the US and British invaders in Iraq.
"I call on Muslims everywhere to use all means possible to thwart the aggression, including martyr operations against the belligerent American , British and Zionist invaders," he said in a statement, a copy of which was faxed to AFP.
"Resistance to the belligerent invaders is an obligation for all Muslims, starting with (those in) Iraq," the mufti said Thursday.
This is the first time that a senior Syrian religious figure has called for suicide attacks against US and British troops in Iraq. Syria views suicide attacks by Palestinians against Israel as a legitimate "resistance to occupation.""Why do they hate America" (Robert Kagan, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/03/27)
"In fact, if the end of the Cold War has brought about anything, it is the flowering of a new European ideal. According to British diplomat Robert Cooper, this ideal is a "postmodern system" based on "the rejection of force" and "self-enforced rules of behavior." ...
The experience in successful multilateral governance leads many Europeans to believe that they have, in Prodi's words, "demonstrated to the world that it is possible to create a method for peace." Transmitting this method has become Europe's new mission to the world, akin, in its way, to the American belief that their system of republican government is also universally valid and applicable. ...
Herein lies the essence of the trans-Atlantic split. Thanks in large part to American power, Europeans have carved out for themselves a paradise in which power is no longer relevant, in which new rules apply. Yet that paradise exists only because America does not always play by the same rules, thus challenging their pretensions to universalism.""Ingratitude and other passions" (Per Ahlmark, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/03/27)
Per Ahlmark's ostracized isolation in Swedish politics tells a lot about the intellectual climate in this frozen, northern Kingdom. A former deputy prime minister of Sweden, he suddenly left politics to write poetry, subsequently concentrating more on political commentary. The first part of his brilliant trilogy on tyranny, "The Left and Tyranny", basically accused the whole media and political elite in Sweden of being fellow travellers since the late 60's, by quoting outrageous and embarassing endorsements of leftwing dictatorships verbatim. As the very same personel still reigns supreme in almost all Swedish media, this book alone assured the ostracizing of Ahlmark in Swedish political debate. Basically, Ahlmark is a Swedish Krauthammer, defending democracies and criticizing tyranny, but that very position translated into Swedish terms makes for ice-cold isolation:
"Stunningly absent in part of Europe today are some major convictions about what the post-Cold War era demands from us. What is lacking has obviously triggered an anti-American backlash never seen since World War II. ...
First face: The lack of gratitude. The US liberated or protected Europeans for more than 60 years from Nazism, communism and other mortal threats. There are few traces of that in the current debate in EU countries; instead, anti-American sentiments have become the philosophy of the day. ...
Third Face: It is also revealing how lack of compassion inspires anti-American feelings. Twenty-four million Iraqis have lived for 30 years under a sadistic dictator. Yet the liberation of these people does not seem to be important to most European mass media and politicians. On the contrary: it is not our obligation, they indicate, to decide about their government.
This is an ideology similar to what the Marxist movements after 1968 so often displayed in Europe. "Let us support third world countries on their own terms!" - usually the terms of the dictator, of course. They pretended to defend oppressed peoples when in fact they despised them. The implicit, basic European creed in recent months has been: Iraqis do not have the same right to freedom as Europeans. This is sort of inverted racism - declare proudly that you protect the Iraqi people when in fact you doom them to eternal tyranny.""Radicals Speak Out At Columbia 'Teach-In'" (Ron Howell, Newsday.com, 2003/03/27)
The end logic of radical anti-Americanism: "At an anti-war "teach-in" this week, a Columbia University professor called for the defeat of American forces in Iraq and said he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" - a reference to the Somali city where American soldiers were ambushed, with 18 killed, in 1993.
"The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military," Nicholas De Genova, assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University told the audience at Low Library Wednesday night. "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."
The crowd was largely silent at the remark. They loudly applauded De Genova later when he said, 'If we really believe that this war is criminal ... then we have to believe in the victory of the Iraqi people and the defeat of the U.S. war machine.'" (Note: Found via The Corner)"March 27" (Kanan Makiya, The New Republic, 2003/03/27)
"Do not believe any commentator who says that a rising surge of "nationalism" is preventing Iraqis from greeting U.S. and British troops in the streets with open arms. What is preventing them from rising up and taking over the streets of their cities is confusion about American intentions and fear of the murderous brown-shirt thugs known as the Fedayeen Saddam, who are leading the small-arms-fire attacks on American and British soldiers.""Amnesty Loves Propaganda" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/03/27)
"The anti-American "human rights" group Amnesty International put out a statement yesterday expressing "concerns that war crimes may have been committed by both sides in the recent fighting." But the statement refers only in passing, and at the end, to Iraq's various atrocities; it is devoted primarily to attacking America for possibly following Maureen Dowd's recommendation and targeting Iraq's state-run television. The self-styled International Federation of Journalists also defends the "rights" of the Iraqi regime's propaganda machine." (See also: "Iraq: Fear of war crimes by both sides" (Amnesty International, 2003/03/26), "IFJ Condemns Attack At Iraq Television: Call for United Nations Probe" (IFJ, 2003/03/26) and "U.S. Planes and Missiles Pound Baghdad, Target TV" (Reuters/The Washington Post, 2003/03/26))"There Will Never be a Palestinian Democracy" (Barbara Lerner, National Review, 2003/03/27)
Lerner on the "democracy first" approach to the Palestinian question:
"There was a Germany before Nazism — a country and people with its own unique language and culture, a culture that produced Bach and Goethe, as well as Hitler. There was an Egypt, too, long before Nasser and Mubarak — an Egypt with great periods in its past, as well as appalling ones, and this is true of most other nations of the Middle East. True, too, of many ancient peoples in the region who have been denied nationhood for centuries — the Kurds, for example, and the Berbers.
It's not true of "Palestinians." They have no past to hearken back to. No past glories, no nation or people, no unique language or history or culture. And no wonder: Until the 1960s, they didn't exist. ...
Unable to win militarily, they resolved to attack diplomatically instead, with a relentless new propaganda war. ... And so they invented a new Arab people, "the Palestinians," whose entire raison d'etre is hatred of the Jews, based on a false claim that "their" land has been stolen from them by greedy, foreign Jewish oppressors. This new national identity gave the re-named Arabs an instant claim to a separate new state of their own, and it gave every Arab dictator a cruel new cause to champion — a new and more effective way of redirecting the popular rage at real oppression at home into rage against manufactured oppression abroad. ...
These Arabs will never be at peace, will never know the blessings of democracy so long as they are encouraged to cling to a false and hateful identity as "Palestinians." They are not a separate people; they are part of the Arab nation and, with few exceptions, they need to be absorbed back into it. Until they are, there will never be peace in Israel or real and lasting progress toward democracy in the southern Arab states.""War is purgatory" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/03/29 issue)
"In so far as the enemy has a strategy, it's to use their own people as hostages. The 'pockets of resistance' in the southern towns have been able to make mischief because they blend in with the local populations. They know that Washington and its allies are concerned above all to avoid casualties among Iraqi civilians and, indeed, among your typical Iraqi conscripts. In other words, everything the Baath regime does is predicated on the moral superiority of their foe. If things were the other way round, if Iraq invaded Vermont and some diehard Yankees holed up on the outskirts of White River Junction and started firing on Saddam's forces as they attempted to advance up the valley, the Republican Guard would think nothing of levelling the entire downtown area and everyone in it. Who's going to complain? There's no Baghdad 'Not In Our Name' movement.
So Harold 'Poems R Us' Pinter may think the Yanks are itching to massacre thousands of innocents, but the behaviour of the Baathist nutters suggests they know better: they assume Western decency.""Will Baghdad Fight to the End?" (Mark Bowden, The New York Times, 2003/03/27)
Black Hawk Down revisited?: "With Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard dug in on the outskirts of Baghdad and thousands of his most loyal defenders no doubt armed and waiting in the city's neighborhoods, he might be on the verge of delivering the "mother of all battles" he promised 12 years ago.
He has ceded the majority of his country to the rapidly moving American and British forces, but has left pockets of determined loyalists in cities large and small. These troops, many dressed in civilian clothing, will shoot at coalition forces from densely populated areas, daring return fire that might kill the very Iraqis whom President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain hope to liberate.
It is a strategy both cunning and cruel, and it may work. The outcome will depend in large part on the people of Baghdad, each of whom has a decision to make. What they decide could mean either a quick defeat of the regime or a protracted mess that would amount at best to a Pyrrhic victory for allied troops.
Saddam Hussein is betting that his people will rally around his crack troops. The allies are betting they will betray the dictator and flush out his enforcers. I'm afraid the odds at this point favor Saddam Hussein. Even those Iraqis eager to turn against the regime are still caught between the guns, and won't dare make a move until they are sure one side has the upper hand.""Fair and balanced approach to teaching media" (Gareth Parker, my two cents, 2003/03/27)
Found via Tim Blair: "Highlights from a class at uni yesterday:
- The global mass media is controlled by a handful of rich and powerful individuals who misuse and abuse their power to protect their own interests.
- Al-Jazeera is painting a more accurate picture of the war in Iraq any Western television network, including CNN, Fox, the BBC and Sky. ...
- The Bush family has financial links with the bin Ladens. ...
- September 11 has not been investigated properly by US authorities. There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest the attacks may have been orchestrated by President Bush. ...
- Israel has no right to exist in Palestine.
- Palestinian suicide bombers are not guilty of horrific acts of terror. Rather, their actions are desperate measures of last resort.
These views weren't put by students mind you (although some agreed), they were put by the freaking course coodinator. The class? Media Ethics.""Iraqi Soldiers Say It Was Fight or Die" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/03/27)
"Up and down the 200-mile stretch of desert where the American and British forces have advanced, one Iraqi prisoner after another has told captors a similar tale: that many Iraqi soldiers were fighting at gunpoint, threatened with death by tough loyalists of President Saddam Hussein.
Here, according to American doctors and Iraqi prisoners, appeared to be one confirmation. The wounded Iraqi, whose life was ebbing away outside an American field hospital, had been shot during the firefight Tuesday night with American troops. It was a small-caliber bullet, most likely from a pistol, fired at close range. Iraqi prisoners taken after the battle said their officers had been firing at them, pushing them into battle.
"The officers threatened to shoot us unless we fought," said a wounded Iraqi from his bed in the American field hospital here. 'They took out their guns and pointed them and told us to fight.'""Paramilitary forces hit army" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2003/03/27)
"Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein yesterday threw waves of marauding paramilitary forces from Baghdad against the Army's mechanized 5th Corps, while Iraqi tanks dashed from the besieged southern city of Basra, only to be pounded by waves of air strikes.
The 5th Corps and its tank-laden 3rd Infantry Division, on their drive to Baghdad, have killed more than 1,000 of the fanatical fighters led by Saddam's personal militia, the black-hooded Fedayeen Saddam, commanders said.""Marines 'Contested Every Inch, Every Mile'" (John Kifner, The New York Times, 2003/03/27)
"Marine and other allied units pressing toward Baghdad are coming under nearly constant harassment and ambush by small bands of irregular Iraqi fighters and remnants of army units they bypassed in their rush, and officers fear the resistance will only stiffen as they get nearer the capital.
"We've been contested every inch, every mile on the way up," Col. Ben Saylor, the division's chief of staff said today. ...
The attacks call into question the American strategy of sweeping past Iraqi Army positions and towns in order to reach Baghdad swiftly and, as officers here put it, "cut off the head" of the regime. It also calls into question the Americans' confident belief that they would be welcomed as liberators.""1,000 Troops Swoop Down on Kurdish Region" (Patrick E. Tyler, The New York Times, 2003/03/27)
"In one of the largest paratroop drops since World War II, more than 1,000 members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade landed in Kurdish-held northern Iraq tonight, military officials said.
Their intention is to secure an airfield so cargo planes can deliver American tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, opening a long-delayed northern front in the war against Saddam Hussein."
Wednesday,
March 26, 2003
News and commentary:
"The mural that Marines found Wednesday..."
(Getty Images, 2003/03/26)
"The mural that Marines found Wednesday in Nasiriya depicts a plane crashing into a high-rise building.""Marines discover Iraqi 9/11 mural" (CNN.com, 2003/03/26)
"NASIRIYA, Iraq (CNN) - U.S. Marines searching Iraqi military headquarters in this southern city that was the site of intensive fighting came across a mural depicting a plane crashing into a building complex resembling New York's twin towers, a news agency photograph showed Wednesday.
The plane's logo and coloring resembled that of Iraqi Airlines, said Getty Images News Service executive Brian Felber, based in New York.
The photograph, showing two rifle-toting Marines in front of the mural, was shot by staff photographer Joe Raedle, who is accompanying the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force from Task Force Tarawa.""'750 Iraqis' killed in combat" (David Taylor, Evening Standard, 2003/03/26)
"At least 750 Iraqi troops were reported killed today after the biggest battle of the war so far erupted in the Euphrates Valley, 95 miles south of Baghdad.
The massive firefight saw US troops come under attack from Iraqis with rocket-propelled grenades, tanks exchanged fire on both sides and vicious close-quarters skirmishes continued even after the Iraqis took heavy losses.
The fighting happened as the US 3rd Infantry Division's 7th Cavalry were crossing the Euphrates heading north to the capital yesterday. There were no clear reports of American casualties after yesterday's attack, the biggest face-to-face confrontation of the war so far.""Report: Marines wounded in fighting late Wednesday in Iraq" (AP/newsobserver.com, 2003/03/26)
"At least 25 Marines from Camp Lejeune were injured during house-to-house fighting that began Wednesday night in An Nasiriyah, according to a WTVD-TV reporter traveling with the troops. ...
Intelligence reports indicated 2,000 Iraqi troops were advancing on the camp, and a two-hour fight with missiles and artillery ensued, ultimately augmented by aerial bombing, he said.
Garvin said some of the Iraqi fighters were using women as shields and had given guns to children.
"Unfortunately some of the children have been firing at our Marines and our Marines have been forced to defend themselves," he said.""Iraq: Baghdad market blast kills 15" (CNN.com, 2003/03/16)
"Fifteen civilians were killed when allied forces bombed a market in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.
Pentagon officials said the market was not the target of a coalition attack, but that the deaths and damage could have been caused by the Iraqis themselves. ...
U.S. military officials could not yet say what caused the fatalities and damage, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said at a Pentagon news briefing on Wednesday.
McChrystal said coalition forces did not target any sites in the area of the marketplace. He said the damage could have been caused by a surface-to-air missile fired by the Iraqis or by fallout from Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery.""U.S. Says Iraqis May Have Killed Some U.S. Prisoners" (Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2003/03/26)
"Some of the Army mechanics captured on Sunday after they took a wrong turn in the Iraqi town of Nasiriya were apparently executed by their captors, probably in front of townspeople, American officials charged tonight.
The officials cautioned that the information was based on one source, apparently a communications intercept, and that they were seeking corroborating evidence. ...
"When the full story comes out, people will be outraged," said one senior military official.""Iraq using human shields" (Sky News, 2003/03/26)
"Iraqi paramilitaries are using civilians as human shields, Sky News has learnt.
Militiamen facing besieging British troops outside Basra are forcing locals to march in front of them as they fire on soldiers, UK forces claim. ...
Emma Hurd, who is at the UK forces' base in northern Iraq, was told British troops were struggling to break the stand-off because of the tactic.
"Irregular forces are using civilians as human shields," she said.
'Men with guns advance out of the city with civilians in front of them towards the British forces. These civilians are being forced into this. The men are firing on the troops and they are unable to return fire.'"
"'Kill Jews'"
(Reuters/Mian Khursheed, 2003/03/26)
"A Pakistani student wears a headband with the words 'kill jews,' during an anti-war rally at a university in Islamabad, March 26, 2003. The students of Quaid-i-Azam University gathered on Wednesday to protest against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.""I Was Wrong!" (Ken Joseph, Jr., Assyrian Christian News, 2003/03/26)
Another peace campaigner comes home from Iraq and recants his opposition to war, found via The Daily Dish: "Following a beautiful 'Peace' to welcome the Peace Activists in which even the children participated we moved to the next room to have a simple meal.
Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said 'There is something you should know.' 'What' I asked surprised at the sudden comment.
'We didn't want to be here tonight'. he continued. 'When the Priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service we said we didn't want to come'. He said.
'What do you mean' I inquired, confused. 'We didn't want to come because we don't want peace' he replied.
'What in the world do you mean?' I asked. 'How could you not want peace?' 'We don't want peace. We want the war to come' he continued.
What in the world are you talking about? I blurted back.
That was the beginning of a strange odyssey that deeply shattered my convictions and moral base but at the same time gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world. ...
Simply put, those living in Iraq, the common, regular people are in a living nightmare. From the terror that would come across the faces of my family at a unknown visitor, telephone call, knock at the door I began to realize the horror they lived with every day." (See also: "I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam" (Daniel Pepper, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/03/23))
"The head of a replica of the Statue of Liberty..."
(AP Photo/Damien Lafargue, 2003/03/26)
"The head of a replica of the Statue of Liberty is shown in Bordeaux, France, Wednesday March 26, 2003, after vandals set it on fire overnight Tuesday.""With Friends Like These" (Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 2003/03/26)
"A surprise Perry Mason-type maneuver in an Idaho courtroom has put the spotlight on an increasingly sensitive problem facing federal prosecutors in the war on terror: a battalion of defense lawyers working hand in glove with the Saudi Arabian government.
Ever since the 9-11 attacks, Newsweek has learned, the Saudi Embassy in Washington has been providing top-flight defense lawyers free of charge for any Saudi citizen detained as part of the Justice Department’s crackdown on suspected terrorists.
"That has been the policy since day one," said Muddassir H. Siddiqui, the former chief counsel for the Saudi Embassy. He said he personally arranged for defense lawyers for "hundreds" of Saudi suspects detained by federal agents after the 9-11 attacks.""BBC man criticises 'war bias'" (Jason Deans, The Guardian, 2003/03/26)
"The BBC's coverage of the war has come under fire from one of its own correspondents in the Gulf who has fired off a furious memo claiming the corporation is misleading viewers about the conflict in Iraq.
Paul Adams, the BBC's defence correspondent who is based at the coalition command centre in Qatar, complained that the corporation was conveying a untruthful picture of how the war was progressing. ...
"I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering 'significant casualties'. This is simply not true," Adams said in the memo. ...
"Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving 'small victories at a very high price?' The truth is exactly the opposite. The gains are huge and costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected," Adams continued.""Stop pussyfooting, all that matters is victory" (Michael Gove, The Times, 2003/03/26)
"The ambivalence with which coalition forces have been met so far proves that the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds can be won only once the battle for Baghdad has been satisfactorily concluded. As far as the Iraqi population is concerned, any alms we dispense now could become tickets to a torture chamber in future, unless they can be certain the Baathists have gone for good. Once the regime has been smashed we can, and must, turn all our energies to reconstruction of the country. But until then, effort, however well-meaning, diverted from victory is perfume wasted on the desert air.""Fedayeen Saddam 'essentially terrorists'" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/03/26)
"Up to 30,000 members of Iraq's black-hooded Fedayeen Saddam militia are using terrorist tactics to fight coalition forces in southern Iraq, are threatening the local population, and, intelligence reports indicate, plan to don U.S. military uniforms. ...
The fighters have been filmed in civilian clothes waving automatic rifles, and field reporters in Basra said the Fedayeen are killing civilians and plan to blame it on allied forces.
Saddam's supporters also were seeking to intimidate an uprising by the city's populace, predominantly Shi'ite Muslims, by deploying tanks in civilian areas and driving close to crowds roaming the streets.""In an Ominous Sky, a City Divines Its Fate" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2003/03/26)
"The wind's howl buffeted Imad Mohammed's window today, suffocating the peal of bombs from Baghdad's outskirts.
Across the sky, the black haze of burning oil trenches mixed with desert sand from a savage storm to wrap the city in an otherworldly glow. Paper, bags and cardboard were blown across the street. Traffic lights and palm trees swayed. A soldier hunkered near the Tigris River, a black scarf draped over his head like a veil.
To Mohammed, the relentless sandstorm was foreboding, a portent of divine will.
"The storm is from God," he said, looking out his trembling window. 'Until the aggression started, never in my life did I see a storm like this. We all believe in God, we all have faith in God. And God is setting obstacles against the Americans.'""U.S. Shifting Focus of Land Campaign to South" (Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2003/03/26)
"Allied forces have shifted the focus of their land campaign in Iraq to concentrate on defeating the fedayeen and other militias serving Saddam Hussein in the south before beginning the battle for Baghdad, senior officers said tonight. ...
The new strategy was in evidence today. British forces, under the command of Maj. Gen. Robin Brims, moved to cut off Basra from other Iraqi forces by using air power to take out a bridge and by repositioning ground forces. ...
A woman who waved to British forces on the outskirts of the city was later found hanged, an American officer said, and the Iraqis moved D-30 artillery in place to shell rebellious residents.""Discovery of chemical suits at Iraqi base raises fears of gas attack" (Julian Borger, The Guardian, 2003/03/26)
"United States marines who captured an Iraqi military base in Nassiriya found thousands of chemical protection suits and nerve gas antidote, raising fears that Baghdad may be planning a gas attack to fend off the US-led invasion, US officers said yesterday.
The marines found 3,000 chemical suits and a chest full of the antidote atropine in a hospital that they said Iraqi soldiers had been using as a base in the fight for a strategically important crossing point on the Euphrates river.
The hospital was seized when the US soldiers came under fire from the building on Monday, despite the fact that it was flying the Red Crescent flag. US officials said that 170 Iraqi troops were captured, and that the hospital's doctors and patients had fled before the assault began.""U.S. Planes and Missiles Pound Baghdad, Target TV" (Reuters/The Washington Post, 2003/03/26)
"Repeated air raids struck the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Wednesday and another hit an area housing the television center, but Iraqi television was broadcasting normally in the capital.
The United States said it had targeted Iraqi television and satellite communications in an effort to damage President Saddam Hussein's ability to control the country."
Tuesday,
March 25, 2003
News and commentary:
"A statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein..."
(AP Photo/Jerome Delay, 2003/03/25)
"A statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein stands in the middle of an empty square in Baghdad Tuesday, March 25 2003, as a fierce sandstorm sweeps through the area. Visibility is severely reduced not only by the sandstorm but also by the pollution caused by oil set ablaze by Iraqis as a defense against US and British warplanes."
"UK troops back Basra uprising" (itv.com, 2003/03/25)
"British troops are said to be firing on Basra in support of a "popular uprising" against Saddam Hussein's troops by the people of Iraq's second city, according to military sources.
Thousands of people took to the streets of the key strategic city in the early evening and began rampaging through areas heavily populated by known sympathisers of the country's regime.
By nightfall dozens of buildings were on fire as the predominantly Shia Muslims of the south took their revenge after years of domination by Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim ruling Ba'ath party.
Mortars were fired at rebels who took to the streets in support of Allied forces encircling the city on three fronts.
The public revolt was one of the British force's main objectives and undercover intelligence officers have been working in the port city for weeks trying to foment exactly this kind of unrest.
The disorder gave the troops of the 7th Armoured Brigade - the famous Desert Rats - the perfect opportunity to move into the city and take control of a battleground whose capture is vital to the allies.""Marines Out To Avenge Blood Of 'Executed' GIS" (Vince Morris, New York Post, 2003/03/25)
A report from a Marine helicopter base in the Kuwaiti desert: "The Marines at this chopper base near the Iraqi border are seething with rage and talking revenge over the treatment of American POWs - paraded on TV and some possibly executed.
"OK, they want to play that way. We can play that way," vowed one enraged pilot.
Marine after Marine had the same message - many of them warning that there would be "no second chances for those Iraqis now." ...
During an air raid yesterday - when everyone rushed into the bomb shelters with their gas masks and chemical and biological gear - one Marine's muffled swearing was heard above the din.
Repeating the sneering nickname used for Saddam Hussein, he kept saying, ''So damn' insane, 'so damn' insane. I'm going to come up there myself and kill you.'""We Must Keep Our Nerve" (Christopher Hitchens, The Daily Mirror, 2003/03/25)
"Here we go again: first the phoney war and then the war of the phoneys. In Kuwait, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan - all of the post-Cold War conflicts against regional aggressors and terror-sponsoring states - it was necessary first to endure a lengthy period of apocalyptic warnings.
If the democracies stuck up for themselves or others, there would be intensified chaos and misery, uncountable civilian casualties, intervention from other states to widen the war, legacies of bad blood, massive alienation, etc, etc.
You have read it and I have read it.
The question is - do those who have written this tripe ever dare to go back and see how wrong they were last time? ...
But here's the point to keep your eye on, as you listen to panicky broadcasts and scan instant news, with its freight of immediate tragedies.
By every indication we have, the population of Baghdad was making a secret holiday in its heart as those horrible palaces went up in smoke, and this holiday will soon be a public holiday, and if we all keep our nerve we can join the festivities with a fairly clear conscience.""Strange silence over Saddam" (Ira Straus, UPI, 2003/03/25)
"Iraq parades POWs on TV and brazenly violates the Geneva Conventions, some of the clearest pieces of international law. The "peace" movement says nothing. It has spent the last few months looking for ways to accuse the United States of violating international law. It seems to view "international law" as something that has meaning only when used as an argument against the United States. ...
The United States speaks of bringing the war criminals in Baghdad to justice for their violations of the Geneva Conventions. Now that this is a realistic prospect, not merely an excuse for opposing U.S. action, the "peace" movement no longer has anything to say on the subject. Instead it talks about hauling U.S. officials before the International Criminal Court. Strange. ...
Or is it really strange?
If we simply change one assumption, all these strange things begin to make perfect sense. Let us stop assuming that the "peace" movement is about peace. Let us try out instead the hypothesis that the "peace" movement is really about enmity toward the United States and the West. Suddenly everything falls into place.
It is a typical case of false advertising. Where are the Truth in Advertising laws when we need them? Journalists should stop referring to "The Peace Movement" with a straight face. Just as they have learned to not to pass on official Iraqi claims with an entirely straight face.""A Tale of Two Colonies" (Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic, from the April 2003 issue)
Kaplan reports from Yemen and Eritria: "Al Qaeda's attacks on the USS Cole, in Aden Harbor in 2000, and on the French tanker Limburg, off the Yemeni coast in 2002, may have perplexed some Western observers. After all, the bombings should have served to bring the United States and France, two bickering allies in the anti-terror coalition, closer together. But al Qaeda knew exactly what it was doing. Without Saleh, Yemen would be a conveniently chaotic, culturally sympathetic base for al Qaeda, much more useful than non-Arab, geographically peripheral Afghanistan. ...
So there you have it: Yemen and Eritrea, two case studies in the war on terrorism. In Yemen the United States has to work with uns
