(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Innumerate Andrew Stuttaford condones pillaging today over at NRO's Corner. He does allow a proviso, however. The plunder, he states, must be of a resale value "however that can be calculated" of under $1,000.
With just under 150,000 coalition troops in the country, and each helping himself to $1,000 in spoils, Stuttaford's plan would amount to an economic act of war (another one, that is) against the country.
Elsewhere Colonel Kurtz, accredited anthropologist, assures us that the spectre of gay marriage and the the permissiveness of the 1960s are conspiring against the institution of the family. If only he would apply his genius to the effects of the American way of structuring work and of assigning social costs to individuals, he'd be worth reading. posted by Anonymous9:30 AM
Like the Wall Street Journal's newsroom staff is embarrassed by their colleagues on the opinion pages, I wonder if the older scribes working on the print edition of National Review are ashamed of their online adjunct. There's a plenitude of reasons why they should be.
Witness Rod Dreher's small town sensibilities thoroughly outraged by a newspaper article, reducing him to shout "slut" and "whore" at the article's subject in a none too gentlemanly manner.
And what about Kurtz throwing about accusations of "leftist anti-Catholicism and the rise of leftist anti-Semitism" just weeks after erstwhile NRO contributor and prominent killblogger G. Harlan Reynolds, livid over Rome's opposition to the war against Iraq, accusing the Catholic Church of anti-Semitism? posted by Anonymous11:28 AM
• • • • •
Glenn Reynolds yesterday admitted to something he thought was an isolated incident, but which I believe is his problem continually. He confessed to not catching an error in an article because he was "seeing what I expected instead of what was there."
I appreciate his candor here, but I think his problem with overlooking the obvious is more comprehensive than he realizes.
Unstable pro-death asshole Richard Perle assures a French newspaper that "We [sic, chickenhawk] are not going to stop" with the military interventions in Afganistan and Iraq. posted by Anonymous11:25 AM
"American Psycho, it pretty much sums up what's going on," said Scott Matthews, a clerk at Toronto's Exile where the shirt also has sold out several times in the last two weeks. The $10-decal, which can be ironed onto an array of clothing items, officially became the shop's hottest seller when Susan Sarandon sauntered in and bought one, he said.
Andyland as Bizarro World: Sullivan's back and recommending a reporter for the blatantly biased and thoroughly discredited Raines Times for a Pulitzer.
A great shame that he's no longer patrolling Ira Stoll's beat, documenting the paper's God-awful reportage. This Judith Miller piece, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert," is about the worst Miller, Head Numskull In Charge of the Defense Department steno pool, has filed to date.
Note these paragraphs:
An American military team hunting for unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, or MET Alpha, which found the scientist, declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals.
...
Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials.
Those officials asked that details of what chemicals were uncovered be deleted. They said they feared that such information could jeopardize the scientist's safety by identifying the part of the weapons program where he worked.
...
While this reporter could not interview the scientist, she was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried.
Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried. This reporter also accompanied MET Alpha on the search for him and was permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic that he slipped to American soldiers offering them information about the program and seeking their protection.
So, ignore what all those named scientists accessible to the press say. This guy, yeah, him over there in the ball cap, corroborates everything Bush said, thus obviating our need to produce the weapons that we told you Saddam had. Just please don't try to approach or question him. Also, sit on your copy for a few days before submitting it to us for screening and redaction. Basically, just report what we say.
I know Miller was bureau chief of Cairo, but I also know that many correspondents cannot speak the language of the country to which they are assigned. How well does Miller read Arabic? posted by Anonymous9:36 AM
By the way, Herr Professor Doktor Reynolds never did quite explain how he can simultaneously deride the "IT'S ALL ABOUT OOOIIILLL" explanation for the war in Iraq (i.e., claim that anything smaking of the pecuniary is ridiculous) while claiming that France and Germany opposed the war solely on pecuniary grounds. posted by Anonymous7:31 AM
• • • • •
Glenn Reynolds' enthusiasm in pursuing stories ("What is it with these Algerians?") is known to flag once it seems a story will not provide neat corroboration of his barbaric and class contemptuous worldview. Thankfully "Blogs" such as the excellent wyeth wire don't tire as easily.
I once worked as a punch press operator, lasting about two weeks bashing sheet metal into half-rounds. I know how tiring mindless, repetitive work can be, and Lord Sullivan's been at it a whole lot longer than two weeks. You've earned your rest, old boy. Enjoy it!
Douglas Feith, a top Pentagon official, has reportedly drawn up a contingency plan for a strike on Syria, but it remains under lock and key, unseen by the White House and the National Security Agency
Under lock and key, just like the "proof" of Saddam's WMDs that Bush and Blair, not wanting to "compromise" their sources, refused to share with the world. Now that Saddam is "no longer in power," and the threat to those sources is, ahem, lessened, can we please see your evidence?
Returning to Feith's secret plan, if this lunatic has his way, the specifics of that plan will soon be made very clear to the Syrians. And the Iranians. And the North Koreans. And the Libyans; "and I could go on," says the loon.
The killbloggers, with spittle running down the chin and a pronounced bulge in the shorts, wait in anticipation. posted by Anonymous8:45 AM
• • • • •
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Don't know how many words were deployed in sanctifying Michael Kelly, but the patriotic media spent damned few on the serviceman who perished along with Kelly. As of present, a Nexis search yields just 51 hits for "Wilbert Davis," the soldier believed to be driving the Humvee crashing into the canal, killing both, over the past 60 days. Of course, most of these citations came via casualty counts, burial notices, and photo captions. The Tampa Tribune - the paper based in Davis' native city - was one of the few to honor him properly.
The neighboring Orlando Sentinel ran a full 71 words announcing Mr. Davis' death. The headline to that item read, "TAMPA-BORN SOLDIER DIED IN CRASH ALONG WITH JOURNALIST."
The Washington Post, where Kelly's demands for war often appeared, ran a piece on Mr. Davis.
A search for "Michael Kelly," the pro-combat non-combatant, over those same 60 days returned 970 articles.
This correspondent found no mention of Davis' vs Kelly's salary.
"President" George W. Bush, White House Briefing, March 6, 2003: "He has weapons of mass destruction."
The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 2003:
Should an Iraqi attack employing chemical or biological weapons not materialize, however, the burden would fall to U.S. forces to find and expose to the world the deadly arsenal that Bush and others have long insisted Hussein possesses.
"If Iraq doesn't use chemical or biological weapons, and an investigation of the Iraqi program reveals just a small amount, we will clearly have egg on our face, and it could undermine the Bush administration's justification for going to war," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington research organization.
Belfast Telegraph, April 11, 2003:
Twenty-two days after the invasion of Iraq, British and American forces have yet to confirm a finding of weapons of mass destruction.
Reuters, April 12, 2003: "U.S. offers reward for news on Saddam, WMD"
So, we knew he had them - an assertion presumably based on evidence. This evidence served as a justification for the war. War waged, we're now paying people to give us evidence to serve as justification. Seems about right. Heh. Indeed.
Judge Dredd: The New Face of America. Here's yet another installment of inadvertently political comics or how the world views the United States. Please note the Fox/CNN news anchor on the left hand side. The artist is Simon Bisley. Note to Mike Medved: Comic creators have always been wildly left of center (mostly) and iconoclast. The absence of significant ad revenue allows that. Comics are probably the least censored mass medium in the United States. And if you're mad about what Captain America is doing now, then you probably wouldn't like him much during Watergate either, when he resigned the costume and became The Nomad...!
Continuing attacks on US forces in Baghdad by Iraqi fighters in civilian clothes produced a deadly response on Thursday, as nervous soldiers of the US 5th Marines opened fire repeatedly, hitting unarmed men, women and children.
Three times in three hours I saw troops who had seized one of Saddam Hussein's small palaces open fire, killing five people and wounding five - among them a six-year-old girl who was shot in the head.
"There's just no reason that this can't be an affordable endeavor," said White House budget director Mitch Daniels of the present war with Iraq. That's great! The Reuters piece containing the quote reported that the administration - conspicuously committed to bettering the lives of Iraqis - is already downplaying the costs of reconstructing Iraq. "So far," the piece notes, "the White House has requested about $2.4 billion for humanitarian aid and reconstruction."
Or, put differently, 20 per cent less than what Congress - the great guarantor of free enterprise and free markets - proposes to give to the airlines.
[I realize I didn't use a killblogger as a peg to hang the above on; frankly, I'm too tired to bother.] posted by Anonymous1:19 PM
• • • • •
On April 9, the always horrid Diane of Letter From Gotham wrote:
This beat is well patrolled by Atrios and others, but as warblogger Glenn Reynolds found it "hard to believe" that genteel Yalies could behave like disgusting thugs, I feel obliged to pass along these lovely stories from that esteemed institution.
Raphael Soifer '04 said he was the victim of such harassment Wednesday evening when a man spit on him as he was walking out of the Davenport dining hall. Soifer had just finished participating in a silent vigil mourning the loss of Iraqi civilians killed during the current conflict.
"I'm a little scared, and I'm a little disappointed that [such intimidation] is going on at Yale," Soifer said. "It's ironic but distressing that the people in support of the war are working to stifle expression of others in the United States."
"I definitely feel for the families and friends of those who have to go over there and fight the war, but we also have a war we have to fight, too--the Washington Wizards are trying to make the playoffs," he said. "It's pretty much the same thing. They're going over there to fight for what they believe in, what we believe in as a country. We're fighting for what we believe in as a basketball team."
Al Qaeda, Iraq - it's pretty much the same thing. posted by Anonymous9:00 AM
• • • • •
Judging by his most recent effort, Hitchens is in Baghdad, arriving, well, just a few days behind Robert Fisk. I'm sure Hitch's beloved Orwell would have remained holed up in the Kuwait City Hilton while the life and death struggle against Islamofascist-terrorist Stalinoids was being fought. As the battle joined, Hitchens joined fellow conservatives for a cocktail.
Hitchens departed from recent form in not naming his current Mirror piece "We Must Search the Sewers," but he did remain true to his now familiar habit of accusing anyone of insufficient credulity before state power of either wearing a tinfoil hat or of seeking to "make liberation impossible." It's his most wearisome outing to date. posted by Anonymous8:37 AM
• • • • •
Thursday, April 10, 2003
More GHR: "Of course, an absence of dead Iraqis would disappoint the bloody-shirt element of the peace movement, if not the Pentagon. But Marc Herold can probably supply dead bodies as needed, in any quantity requested..."
Glenn Reynolds, thoughtful bugger he is, links to a "talking points memo for the peace movement." It's great that The Professor knows exactly what the peace movement is thinking, though that's a minor feat of divination compared to his determination of just exactly what the Iraqis are thinking at present. Previously Matt Welch held the record for reckoning-at-a-distance with his count of dead Iraqi children. Welch's achievement was an empirical survey. GHR adds a dimension of the supernatural, his being in apparent telepathic conversation with Iraqi consciousness.
For my part, I am disinclined to attribute a preferred narrative to the doings in Baghdad. Getting a few days distance between present events and ones summation will likely change the image entirely, as does getting a few hundred meters distance between the camera and present events. Things seem too ambiguous. posted by Anonymous8:59 AM
• • • • •
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
I had thought those ridiculous "We Must..." titles to Hitchens' Mirror pieces were simply ill-chosen rhetorical devices. Seems the easier explanation - lunacy - was correct. A full DSM IV's worth of manias operating on him, Hitchens writes today of the war and his plans to gloat obnoxiously at an upcoming peace demonstration: "All of this has been done in my name, and I feel like bearing witness." posted by Anonymous2:15 PM
• • • • •
The Bushites have named the persons they propose to install in post-Saddam Iraq. Among them: serial controversialist Robin Raphel, who left a series of "diplomatic land mines" across South Asia as assistant secretary of state; John Limbert, who was so oblivious to popular resentment against the Shah that he was taken unaware when the Shah was overthrown - and was himself was taken hostage in the embassy; and Clint Williamson, recent head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo's justice department, called "unprofessional" and incoherent by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Afghanistan gets an ice cream man. Iraq gets a woman who bumbled across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. posted by Anonymous12:48 PM
Meanwhile, I wonder where all those celebrities who seemed to care so much about the Iraqi people when they were opposing the war have disappeared to now that it’s won. Shouldn’t they be organizing benefit concerts or something? Or was it all just posturing? The postwar era will be a test for American diplomacy and administrative skills. But it’ll be a test for some other people, too.
We'll see the level of solidarity the anti-war movement musters in the weeks to come, but the administration that so awes The Professor has so far performed as an historically conscious proctor would have predicted:
Hay Al Ansar, on the outskirts of Najaf in Iraq, was glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party government, when the city was seized by US forces last week.
But they appear to be just as terrified, if not more so, of their new rulers - a little-known Iraqi militia backed by the US special forces and headquartered in a compound nearby.
The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US special forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorising their neighbourhood with impunity, according to most residents.
"They steal and steal," said a man living near the Medresa al Tayif school, calling himself Abu Zeinab. "They threaten us, saying: 'We are with the Americans, you can do nothing to us'."
Sa'ida al Hamed, another resident, said she witnessed looting by the ICNU and other armed gangs in the city, which lost its police force when the government fled last week. One man told a US army translator on Monday that he was taken out of his house and beaten by ICNU forces when he refused to give them his car. They took it anyway.
If true, the testimony of residents reveals a darker side to US policy in Iraq. In their distaste for peacekeeping and eagerness to hand the ruling of Iraq back to Iraqis, US forces are in danger of losing the peace as rapidly as they have won the war.
US special forces said they were looking into the complaints, which had been passed to them by US military sources. They declined, however, to discuss the formation of the group, how its members were chosen, or who they were.
The head of the ICNU, who says he is a former colonel in the Iraqi artillery forces who has been working with the underground opposition since 1996, announced on Tuesday that he was acting mayor of Najaf, and his group had taken over administration of the city.
Other Iraqi exiles, brought in by the CIA and US special forces to help assemble a local government over the next few days, say the militia is out of control.
"They are nobody, and nobody has ever heard of them, all they have is US backing," said an Arab journalist.
Winning hearts and minds, indeed.
Perhaps it would have been more prudent for Instapuppet to ask whether Bush et al will pay for the post-war reconstruction as they should, or whether they'll bill the Iraqi people (via a confiscation of oil resources) for the war. posted by Anonymous11:36 AM
• • • • •
Two (relatively) new "Blogs" readers of this page may be interested in:
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log is a collaborative effort, though the bulk of the posts originate with Curtiss Leung. Very recommended.
Erstwhile Warblogger-Watcher Roy Edroso and friends have traded down, relocating their excellent alicublog to the blogspot hosting service. The upside of occasional blogspot-related inaccessability is the addition of permalinks. Here, for instance, Edroso offers a hearfelt farewell to a fellow practitioner of the journalistic arts who is leaving Edroso's New York for the cultural Medina that is Dallas. Mecca of course being Sandusky, Ohio.
In a letter to the Oman Observer, Mohammed Ali Ramadhan of Al Suwaiq writes:
Jordan’s Prince Hassan bin Talal’s offer to play a coordinating role in the political reconstruction of Iraq appears very reasonable. After all, he is familiar with the nature of Arab politics, much more than any White House appointee can claim to know. Having been schooled in the finer points of Arab diplomacy, and the cultural and political sensibilities of the region, Prince Hassan is perhaps ideally suited for the job as interim administrator in Baghdad on behalf of the United Nations. In fact, by appointing an Arab leader with such distinguished credentials, the US and Britain can still hope to win the “hearts and minds” of Iraqis, and of Arabs in general.
Great idea, Mohammed! Thanks for writing! Sadly, though, it is doubtful that this arrangement will work out. The US appears to have decided that a convicted criminal who hasn’t lived in Iraq since 1958 is a much better choice for the position. However, Mohammed, you can perhaps take some relief in knowing that Mr. Chalabi does have a Jordanian connection- - -that’s where he was convicted!
This one was liberated not from Iraq proper but from Denmark, where he was under investigation for war crimes. So after ridding the world of a tyrant who used chemical weapons on his own people, the liberators seem poised to replace said tyrant with the field marshal who actually chose "the chemicals to be used and the intensity with which to drop them."
I'm really hoping this is another instance of the press getting it wrong and presenting a hoax as fact, but The Frogs of War at AFP who broke this have been better than most. I'll be checking Slate and the Mirror tomorrow for Hitchens demonstration that the successful prosecution of a war on theocratic fascism actually requires such perfidious maneuvering. posted by Anonymous12:32 PM
• • • • •
The bloggers of mass destruction sure love their polls. Lummox Taranto reports on a poll showing 81 per cent of Americans affirming that they have a clear idea of what the present war is about. I don't know why the statistic so fascinates the Lummox; after all, I'm sure even Ted Rall believes he knows what the war is all about.
Here are some more poll results the killbloggers may care to put in their pipes and smoke:
In a Jan. 7 Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll, 44% of respondents said they thought "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17% of those polled offered the correct answer: none.
Glenn Reynolds comes within inches of calling one of his preferred cites a liar today. "Blogger" Josh Chafetz had told of a story passed along by an "old and trusted friend" who related the events of: "Last week here at Yale, [where] several male students, armed with a 2x4 in the middle of the night, broke into the suite of another female student and activist, because she had an American flag hanging upside-down (a symbol of distress, dissent with the government) out the window of her room." Chafetz next relates how his trusted friend "verified [the events] with the victim."
For Herr Professor Doktor Reynolds, "The story, frankly, seems hard to believe." Per Reynolds, Chafetz, then, cannot be relied upon to pass along factual reports from friends-of-friends. Will Reynolds then continue to pay attention to the unreliable Chafetz's speculations about events involving the administration or Islamofascistterorristagressors - i.e., persons further removed from the circle of friends of friends - if Chafetz cannot be relied upon to report accurately on the life and times of his intimates? Yes - as long as Chafetz's writings buttress GHR's BS.
Glenn, for his part, believes it "does it not sound like Yale students to do such a thing, it doesn't sound like the way Yale students would do such a thing if they did." True Yalies, of course, flee such martial endeavors, ordering proxies to deploy not 2x4s but daisy cutters and cluster bombs in their stead. posted by Anonymous10:29 PM
• • • • •
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Sullivan's descent continues. You would assume someone who held the positions he has would have either a) a brain capable of formulating novel solutions to the day's problems, or at least articulating the conventional answers in a novel way; or b) superior information-gathering potential thanks to a developed network of contacts and/or access to various specialists and elites. You would, in Sullivan's instance, be wrong. He merely continues to speak sweet nothings to power, and his site's factual content is tending toward nil. When not pursuing his preferred diversion - heaping vainglory upon Bush and Co. - he pursues petty grievances. Today he's operating largely in the latter mode. It's a pathetic sight.
Having apparently rebranded as Marshallwatch without sending out the requisite press release, Sullivan further indulges his odd obsession with the every word typed by fellow "Blogger" Josh Marshall. He fumes that Marshall dared write "a defense of John Kerry's comments calling for 'regime change' in the U.S. without dealing with the language Kerry used." I have little interest in the controversy or the parties involved, though I enjoyed Andrew's 1939 vintage argument that it's "spectacularly stupid" to dissent from the "democratically elected [sic] president" in (perma)wartime. posted by Anonymous5:01 PM
Apparent technical difficulties at David Horowitz's propaganda page. I keep clicking the "Printable Article" button above his latest editorial, but I'm still stuck with the same error and misspelling-ridden ("Yugolsavia"?) renunciation of logical argument that no sane editor would knowingly publish.
Crap joke, I know, but Horowitz does little to inspire anything better with his outlandish effort, "The War Has Refuted The Opposition." In the journalistic equivalent of a Corey Haim anger painting, the Bearded Clam throws ink and accusations without an apparent plan. Incoherence ensues.
The ventriloquized speech of the late Saddam Hussein (or perhaps it is only the incapacitated Saddam Hussein) through the mouth of the Iraqi information minister calling for an Islamic jihad against the allied coalition is again confirmation of the al-Qaeda-Iraq alliance, particularly since Saddam is not an Imam but a fascist Duce at the head of a secular state.
Huh? The mention of God in the context of war makes one a theocratic fascist in cahoots with bin Laden? 41 must be very disappointed in junior. posted by Anonymous3:13 PM
• • • • •
Andrew Sullivan gives further demonstration that his instinct for error is infallible. A post of his asks "Who armed Saddam" and links to a graph purporting to show that the United States was, as always, innocent.
The graph depicts "actual deliveries of major conventional weapons," a less-than-complete data set that would answer Sullivan's question in only the narrowest sense. But what about all the complements to naked arms transfers?
In my desk at the spacious Like Father Like Sun compund I keep a clipping from the March 11, 1991 Time that contains a magnificent capsule history of American complicity in the first Gulf War - of which the present war is a mere continuation, says David Horowitz. ""A Man You Could Do Business With," is a fascinating read, and its subheading - In Washington's eyes, Saddam was not always an enemy. In fact, three Presidents counted on him to keep Iran's brand of Islamic radicalism in check - makes you wonder why Hitchens isn't a bit more supportive of the fellow. On to that piece:
By 1986 the struggle between Iraq and Iran had degenerated into a bloody stalemate. To assist Iraq, the U.S., along with Israel and Egypt, began providing Baghdad with intelligence data on Iranian troop movements. Over the next year the U.S. became more directly involved in protecting shipping in the gulf. Thirty-seven American sailors perished after an Iraqi warplane accidentally attacked the frigate U.S.S. Stark with an Exocet missile.
It gets worse:
In 1986 [Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International Economic Trade and Security Policy] Bryen learned of an application to export an advanced computer manufactured in New Jersey. Intelligence reports indicated that the computer's final destination was a research facility in Mosul, Iraq, known as Saad 16. There researchers were working to develop a ballistic missile with a longer range than the now familiar Soviet-supplied Scud.
Bryen raised his concerns with the Commerce Department, which insisted nonetheless on going ahead with the sale.
Someone alert Bill Quick. Not only did we provide the technology to facilitate the development of delievry mechanisms for WMDs, we did so cognizant of Saddam's willingness to use them:
The issue assumed greater urgency in August 1988 when the Iraqis used poison gas to kill thousands of their own citizens -- Kurdish men, women and children. At a White House meeting sponsored by the NSC, [Under Secretary for Export Administration] Freedenberg, troubled by the gassings, asked the State Department to impose "foreign policy controls" on exports to Iraq, which would have blocked the sale of militarily useful items like the computer. The Defense Department concurred. Although both the State Department and the White House acknowledged the atrocities of Saddam's regime, they argued that Iraq still played a vital strategic role and that U.S. influence to moderate Baghdad's conduct would be strengthened most by encouragement and trade, not bluster and confrontation. "They said, 'We have no concerns about Iraq; there is no reason to ask for foreign policy controls,' " Freedenberg remembers. "I was overruled by the State Department and the White House."
Since 1986, says Freedenberg, sales of American goods to Iraq have totaled more than $1.5 billion. All the while, other nations, including France, were feverishly selling weapons to Saddam -- without opposition from Washington. Reason: the U.S. was obsessed with making sure Iran would not win the war.
Bryen still ponders the question of the computer, which was sent to Iraq over his protests. "We created this monster," he says. "If you want to know who's to blame for all this, we are, because we let all this stuff go to Iraq."
Though Time reported it was "other nations, including France, [who] were feverishly selling weapons to Saddam," we should also note the Los Angeles Times' dogged February 1992 three-part series detailing unelected president Bush's father's determination to give Saddam the money with which he could feverishly buy those weapons. The opening paragraphs to the series' opening salvo is illuminating:
In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms, President Bush signed a top-secret National Security Decision directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $1 billion in new aid, according to classified documents and interviews.
The $1-billion commitment, in the form of loan guarantees for the purchase of U.S. farm commodities, enabled Hussein to buy needed foodstuffs on credit and to spend his scarce reserves of hard currency on the massive arms buildup that brought war to the Persian Gulf.
Getting new aid from Washington was critical for Iraq in the waning months of 1989 and the early months of 1990 because international bankers had cut off virtually all loans to Baghdad. They were alarmed that it was falling behind in repaying its debts but continuing to pour millions of dollars into arms purchases, even though the Iran-Iraq War had ended in the summer of 1988.
In addition to clearing the way for new financial aid, senior Bush aides as late as the spring of 1990 overrode concern among other government officials and insisted that Hussein continue to be allowed to buy so-called "dual use" technology -- advanced equipment that could be used for both civilian and military purposes. The Iraqis were given continued access to such equipment, despite emerging evidence that they were working on nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction.
...
And the pressure in 1989 and 1990 to give Hussein crucial financial assistance and maintain his access to sophisticated U.S. technology were not isolated incidents.
Rather, classified documents obtained by The Times show, they reflected a long-secret pattern of personal efforts by Bush -- both as President and as vice president -- to support and placate the Iraqi dictator. Repeatedly, when serious objections to helping Hussein arose within the government, Bush and aides following his directives intervened to suppress the resistance.
This, the Times suggested, was not merely part of the tilt away from Iran:
[C]lassified records show that Bush's efforts on Hussein's behalf continued well beyond the end of the Iran-Iraq War and persisted in the face of increasingly widespread warnings from inside the American government that the overall policy had become misdirected.
Moreover, it appears that instead of merely keeping Hussein afloat as a counterweight to Iran, the U.S. aid program helped him become a dangerous military power in his own right, able to threaten the very U.S. interests that the program originally was designed to protect.
Clearly, U.S. aid did not lead Hussein to become a force for peace in the volatile region. In the spring of 1990, as senior Administration officials worked to give him more financial aid, the Iraqi leader bragged that Iraq possessed chemical weapons and threatened to "burn half of Israel."
At the time of the piece's preparation, the authors indicated the U.S. was haunted by "the Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons programs carried forward with the help of sophisticated American technology."
The second part in the series demonstrated the steps taken by the president to "secure loan guarantees [which would] help Iraq build its war machine." Many of these loans were made at the close of the Iran-Iraq war, or even after, and the tale of the Welding System of Mass Destruction is typical:
For instance, a license was approved for the sale of a laser-guided welding system to Iraq for $1.4 million in January, 1988, at a time when the Iran-Iraq War was in its final months, even though the exporting firm acknowledged in its application that the system would be used for general military repairs on such items as jet engines and rocket casings.
When U.N. inspectors began examining Iraqi nuclear-weapons facilities late last year, they discovered that the welding system had been configured to manufacture centrifuges, a key component in Iraq's massive program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
The third part is particularly charming, noting that "On Aug. 2, 1990, the day Iraqi tanks swept into Kuwait, the Bush Administration was still debating whether to provide Hussein with the second installment of loan guarantees."
The new loans, pushed through at a time when U.S. intelligence reports indicated Hussein was spending heavily on developing nuclear weapons, were used by a credit-starved Iraq to feed its people, freeing up its cash reserves to finance the massive arms buildup that ended in war with the United States. The Bush Administration, apparently failing to understand the Iraqi dictator's intentions, indirectly helped pay for weapons that were ultimately used against American and allied troops.
And the Agriculture Department loans, which ultimately went bad just as officials of the department and others had warned, were no aberration.
Classified documents show that Bush, first as vice president and then as President, intervened repeatedly over a period of almost a decade to obtain special assistance for Saddam Hussein -- financial aid as well as access to high-tech equipment that was critical to Iraq's quest for nuclear and chemical arms.
The ink was barely dry on Sullivan's Harvard diploma as these stories broke. Did The New Republic circa 1992 not receive the LA Times in its newsroom? Sullivan may never come to realize that some of his readers are posessed of memories capable of recall past, say, yesterday. posted by Anonymous12:18 PM
I wonder what Statistician Sullivan will make of this poll showing how poorly Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) is playing with the junior partner, with a minority supporting the war, 14 per cent unsure, and a full 38 per cent in traitorous opposition. posted by Anonymous7:32 AM
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Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Andrew Sullivan, a personal grievance obviously germinating, runs fourconsecutive items taking shots at another "Blogger." The last purports to show, on the strength of a single New York Times (f/k/a wholly unreliable Raines Times) report, that Josh Marshall's powers of clairvoyance are less than Sullivan's own, and that the Iraqis love the conquering army of invasion.
A fresh batch of steaming Hitchens dung in today's Mirror. A point-by-point demonstration of the man's deceptive and outright fraudulent claims would be just as wearisome for me to write as it would be for you to read; let's spare ourselves. A point nonetheless:
There is no friendly or neutral country to serve as a rearguard, as there is in the case of Jordan and Kuwait, because the fools who run today's Turkey couldn't even be bribed to act in their own self-interest.
In a parliamentary democracy such as Turkey, Christopher, those "fools" are, of course, the people. It gladdens me to see you register such esteem for democracy, it, after all, being the latest rationale/rationalization for the current war.
Scumbag John Podhoretz jumps onto the New York Sun “let’s convict everyone of treason” bandwagon today, suggesting that Peter Arnett be tried for the crime. Scumbag cites the US Constitution’s definition of treason to bolster his argument ("Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," and asks if whether Arnett’s (stupid) comments to Iraqi TV constituted aid and comfort to the enemy, and were thus treasonous. “YES” comes the answer, “unambiguously.”
Would revealing American troop positions and battle plans also constitute treason, Scummy? Assuming it would, we look forward to your upcoming column in which you recommend the trial and conviction of your fellow-Murdoch World Domination Co. (LLC) co-worker Jerry Rivers.
Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas...Andy! Let us gather, Oh Brethren, to listen to the dispensation of Revealed Wisdom by one of the most visible proponents of the Church's just war tradition. Yes, watch the Right Reverend Sullivan mount the pulpit and harangue the assembled with his latest sermon, entitled, "Yes, a War Would Be Moral."
Or just ignore him and hope against odds that he will go away. You will profit but little studying a man who operates so determinedly outside the realm of fact. Some mystery attaches to this, as Sullivan's are not the usual flat-earth notions, ignorant dogmas, and under-informed speculations of the typical warblogger. He presumably knows better. Sullivan is allegedly possessed of a graduate education - from an Ivy League school, nonetheless - and is regarded to know enough about his Church's teachings to be trusted with the task of lecturing the readership of Time about Catholicism. Yet his histories are privileged, which is to say empirically false, and his interpretation of Christian just war theory is at obvious variance with doctrinal consensus. The confluence of his mistaken cognitions and his curious theological precepts is an unappealing sight which gives one pause to ask why a man would choose to so fully cram himself full of shit.
Sullivan's latest exercise in homiletical cynicism is handily reprinted in slightly modified form at his accurately titled "Unfit to Print" vanity site as "A Just War:
The morality of ousting Saddam." Just war theory, in its most noble strains, toughens the presumption against war and heightens the threshold before resorting to same. Sullivan subscribes to the degraded version which posits a checklist of questions requiring a perfunctory answer before dropping the MOABs. Sullivan in his piece provides a non-exhaustive list of these questions, to which he then puts facile answers. Let us start with the most egregious of his omissions, the question of just intent, the most urgent question when considering the ethical magnitude of any homicidal conflict.
The incoherence of the stated war aims baffles even those willing to take the Administration at its word. Is it about disarming Iraq? Bringing it into full compliance with U.N. resolutions? Regime change? September 11? It gets even more muddled when one considers rationales not meant for public consumption. Is a war to remystify power, aggrandize military might, and unambiguously advance national interest ever just? Is it something that the Jesus of Sullivan's faith would approve of? By saying it is, Sullivan posits a like amount of Incarnational Truth and moral splendor in Richard Perle, Bernard Lewis, Harlan Ullman, and the president's very favorite political philosopher. The possibility of constructing a more absurd equivalence beggars the imagination.
The most compelling intent devised by the Administration to date is the promised installation of a democratic government in post-war Baghdad, and Sullivan believes in imperative to "do all we can to encourage democracy in the aftermath." This would be admirable if it could be accepted at face value. Unfortunately it cannot. Just as Sullivan endlessly exercises his rawmuslglutes, so must his readers exercise skepticism when tangling with the reptilian columnist. Recall the paean to democracy he issued last week while discussing polls pointing to "an enormous swing toward the pro-war camp" and its counselor Tony Blair: "Heck, I'd vote for him next time. Blair is teaching an old lesson: if you lead, they will follow." Translated from the Sullivanian, that is, "Send out an army of invasion without any popular support to speak of first, then watch the plebes fall into line after the fact." Sullivan's vision of democracy is as debauched as his interpretation of the just war tradition, to which we now return.
Unlike the question of just intent, Sullivan does engage the question of "last resort," the necessity of exhausting all alternatives prior to launching a war. Unfortunately Sullivan exhausts only his readers, or those among us who remember what he wrote in the recent past. Assiduously and untiringly aping the Administration as per his usual, and making its projects his own, Sullivan has long wanted this war. Whatever designs the unelected President has on Iraq, they predate the various crises used to rationalize the current bloodshed. Mega-dittoes for Sullivan. Why, though, someone presenting themselves as a Christian - and an advocate of just war principles in addition - would be vigorously in favor of the catastrophic failure of Human Community is wholly beyond me, but Andrew Sullivan, years before Saddam and Iraq's last chance "under U.N. Resolution 1441," was penning dangerous nonsense for The New Republic titled "Iraq Now." That piece merits our attention.
"Iraq would be easier than Afghanistan," Sullivan ventured in one of the piece's more startling sentences. And the remainder startles as well. After affirming - without substantiation - that Iraq is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction with which it would "attack the West," Sullivan poo-poos the Afghanistan nay-sayers and urges a campaign against Iraq which "will be a broader awareness within the Muslim world that we should not be messed with." I'm waiting for the learned Reverend Rippedfuel to direct me to the corresponding passages in Augustine that provide moral sanction for the manipulation of terror.
The above is Sullivan at his worst: wielding a hardcover copy of Michael Walzer's book as a cudgel against those presumptuous enough to interfere with his idolatry of weapons systems, and writing bunk history that completely ignores relatively accessible fact. The Afghanistan he uses to scold those among his audience who questioned the ease with which the U.S. can work its magic - much less the morality of the act - bears next to no relation to the Afghanistan that appears daily in the papers. Sullivan's "Blog," so far as I can tell, has yet to even mention the weekend's fatal ambush. Kabul, the erstwhile oasis presided over by Mayor Karzai and his ice cream man assistant, was just hit by rocket fire, damaging the international peacekeeping force headquarters located "across the street from the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy." Mullah Omar, despite a $10 million bounty on his head, renewed his calls for war on America, with 600 Islamic clerics singing back-up.
And those are just stories filed in the past few days. Sullivan would rather ignore them, inconvenient as they are to his bizarre fantasy of Saracens rushing to meet the invading Crusaders with flowers. The market for such delusions in Andy Land seems on a maniacal run, what with the success of Sullivan's recent fund-raising drive and the objectively third-rate material he's been offering for sale as of late. While others are doing substantive work that will be remembered for decades, Sullivan squanders his access to elites and offers only fraudulent theology, false history, and platitudes to power. That in addition to his wearisome denunciations of an ever-lengthening list of stooges, appeasers, brain-dead peaceniks, and anti-war activists often collectively slandered as Jew-haters. This, of course, is all consonant with the work and Word of the Jesus Sullivan reveres.
Expect him therefore to ride out the war as a source of omnidirectional anger, applying Divine sanction to what he ridiculously declares a just war. Expect him to holler himself to professional injury, a further loss of credibility, and, ultimately, complete self-marginalization. In short, expect the expected. Just don't expect Sullivan to ask himself aloud whether any of his post-September 11 words were penned in the spirit of the Christ who invoked a special benediction upon the peacemakers. posted by Anonymous4:12 PM
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More stupidity at David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine.com. Horowitz, so completely consumed by his patriotic hallucinations that he can no longer read, has a link on his homepage news feed promising a "Raid Proves Iraqi Link to Al Qaeda." However the article to which the link points posits no such thing. The relevant passage:
The cache of documents at the Ansar al-Islam compound, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein as Washington has maintained.
There were indications, however, that the group has been getting help from inside neighboring Iran.
Horowitz's stupidity is far too ferocious to be contained on the homepage. It's in fuller evidence on his "Blog." Horowitz today reprints a letter from a Haifa University professor that draws precisely the wrong point:
The media have been reporting the participation of Syrian "volunteers" in the Iraqi war on the side of Saddam. But they appear to be grossly under-reporting the matter. In Haaretz today, a newspaper that has never been suspected of having hostile reporting intentions regarding the Palestinians or the Syrians, the military correspondent for the paper, Zeev Shiff [sic], reports that thousands (!!) of "volunteers" are streaming into Iraq from Syria to assist the Saddam forces fight the Americans and coalition forces, including as suicide bombers. The "volunteers" include Palestinians from the Lebanese "refugee camps", other Lebanese Islamist fundamentalists, but (according to Shiff) increasingly the volunteers are Syrians themselves. Haaretz also says that there are reports of 4000 suicide bombers inside Iraq seeking to murder Americans.
The coalition war in Iraq is not a war against a single Arab fascist regime. It is a war against Arab fascism and terrorism in general, a war against Islamist barbarism and aggression, a war of civilization against depraved savagery. That is why the assault against Baghdad must continue to topple the fascist Syrian regime and the Iranian Islamist regime. It is a campaign that must continue to Ramallah and until the Palestinian terrorist leaders are dancing the debka from a yardarm.
But available evidence suggests that the current rise in "Islamist barbarism" is a function of U.S. warmaking. Horowitz and his academic correspondent may have just devised the first functional perpetual motion machine... posted by Anonymous1:15 PM
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No operational pause in Glenn Reynolds' schlock and bore campaign. He continues to charge treason and to compile lists of traitors and symps. Tiring and tiresome as such material is, it finds an alarmingly ready audience. Not a great surprise given the regrettable tendency to demonize opponents - real and imagined - and to shout down dissent.
Reynolds, despite his pretensions to the contrary, isn't breaking any ground in public discourse. His repositioning himself as Instajingo is sad, and he Ralph Peters together constitute nothing more than a contemporary Creel Commission. posted by Anonymous12:26 PM
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In his rush to make opposition journalists look bad, "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds yesterday linked to a reminiscence of Robert Fisk by someone also disliking stupid Paddies. posted by Anonymous12:19 PM
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The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.
