Month: March 2003

The DoD kicked out a press release today about Iraq’s oil. About what you’d expect no matter what you believe: promises to preserve the oil for Iraq, warnings that Saddam may intend to destroy the oil, ecological warnings, etc. I found this quote interesting, though:

“Oil is a natural resource of Iraq that provides commerce, income for education and other needs, and infrastructure. The department considers destruction of that resource as an act of terrorism.”

That’s bullshit. Destroying strategic reserves, even in a scorched earth strategy, is not an act of terrorism. It’s a wartime strategy. It’s saying “You can conquer this land, but you will not profit from it.” It’s the kind of thing that’s considered noble resistance when it’s your side doing it — a last act of defiance. Terrorism? Hardly.

Hey, let’s do that thing I see the hip kids doing where I stuff a bunch of links into one post!

The Crossgates Mall, quite appropriately, has dropped the charges against Stephen Downs.

Steven Kaye, in comments, pointed me at Eurasianet. Looks like a really good source of info on Turkey and other Eurasian states. (Hey, Steven’s looking for players for an 1890s CoC game. Or, anyhow, was in 1999. Hm.)

It’s easy to forget that Roger Ebert is an intelligent, thoughtful, well-spoken guy. He’s the fat guy who does movie reviews on TV. Read this and admire his pinpoint distinction between vertical and horizontal prayer.

This is post number 500. The most common search leading people to my site is “meaning of population”. Um… it’s not that tough a concept, really. I’ve had 32,637 visitors in the last six months and I love you all the same, damn it.

The Smoking Gun has the police report about that guy who was arrested for wearing a peace T-shirt and refusing to leave the mall he was in. The police report implies that Mr. Downs was causing a disturbance.

As the right wing rushes to link to the police report, I just thought I’d point out that it’s not actually very conclusive. The first statement is from a store detective got a complaint about a verbal dispute; the complaint didn’t include any details about who started it. The store detective didn’t investigate. He just went back and called mall security to warn them about the dangerous T-shirt wearers. Yeah, that’s a balanced response.

The second statement, from a mall security guy, spends half the page describing the problem shirts in detail before getting to the real issue — Mr. Downs and his son were stopping people. Mind you, the security guy was predisposed to blame Mr. Downs, since the store detective reported the guys in T-shirts rather than the verbal dispute. Kind of like a game of telephone, huh?

Without bothering to investigate the situation, he promptly told the pair to remove their shirts and stop bothering people. OK, let’s do a hypothetical. Let’s say that Mr. Downs was wearing an American eagle on his T-shirt, with a ‘Nuke Saddam’ slogan. Let’s say he was stopping people in the mall.

Think there’s a chance in hell the security guy would have focused on the T-shirt? Nah, me either.

The statement isn’t detailed enough to figure out what Mr. Downs said at that point, other than that he refused. Refused to take off the T-shirt? Refused to quit stopping people? I dunno. For a security guard who was capable of remembering and detailing exactly what the T-shirts said, he got pretty damned vague here.

Finally, despite the police claim on the first page of the report, neither the store detective or the security guard reported complaints that Mr. Downs was stopping other shoppers. The security guard reported that he saw Mr. Downs stopping other shoppers. I’d think you’d want to get the actual complaints in the report, since the justification in this case is that Mr. Downs was bothering people. In fact, shouldn’t there be statements from some of the people he was bothering?

It’s flimsy. It does sound like Mr. Downs was being a bit of a jerk, but it also sounds like the mall was damned quick to rush to a decision.

Another one of those “hey, look who’s anti-war” bits here. I find ‘em interesting and in many cases telling. It’s important not to let the right paint all protesters as stupid hippies, much as it’s important to remember that the right isn’t comprised purely of Neanderthals. Anyhow, Warren Langley is getting involved in planning anti-war civil disobedience designed to shut down San Francisco’s Financial District. This is interesting, since Langley used to be president of the Pacific Exchange. More recently, he was almost named CEO of a Nasdaq/Liffe venture, although apparently they couldn’t come to terms on a contract. Langley also served in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Damned pinko.

It’s been a busy few days in the Iraq debate. Let’s summarize — no, is not enough! Let’s predict!

Turkey declined the opportunity to help out with the war over the weekend, but now the Turkish military is pushing for a revote. Remember, in Turkey, the military is a political force unto itself. Now, there’s no chance that Abdullah Gul, the current Prime Minister, is going to call that vote this week. Gul has no leverage to push for a revote; he’s a lame duck. There’s a by-election coming on Sunday, in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan will undoubtedly gain a parliamentary seat. As leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, he’ll be elected Prime Minister immediately. (Up until quite recently, he was banned from running for Parliament, largely because of — wait for it — the Turkish military. Now you know why the government has been in favor of aiding the US; the JDP needs to keep on the military’s good side.)

The US has not shifted troop ships away from Turkey and towards Kuwait as of this writing, which tells you that someone expects there’s still a chance Turkey will change its mind.

Is pushing for a revote undemocratic? It depends. The Turkish Constitution says you can’t allow foreign troops to be based on Turkish soil for a war unless there’s international consensus behind that war. Right now, this means UN approval, like it or not. If a new resolution authorizing war is passed, then the situation has changed and another vote is reasonable. If that happens there’s no doubt that Turkey will OK the northern front. If the situation doesn’t change, there’s no grounds for another vote and we may see another Turkish military coup yet.

Meanwhile, Capitol Hill Blue reports that Colin Powell wants an exit strategy. If the US brings a new resolution to the floor and loses the vote, it’s bad. It means we don’t get a northern front, and it means that Blair’s government very likely falls if the invasion still takes place.

A side note on that last, since there’s some confusion on the topic. A significant portion of Blair’s own party just voted against him despite being told in the strongest possible terms that they should vote yes. Labor Party MPs were afraid that their local parties will de-select them — the rough equivalent of being kicked out of (say) the local Democratic Party — if they voted for the war. Blair did not weather the worst of the storm. He got a warning of very bad weather ahead. He needs UN authorization just as badly as the Turkish government.

Is it any wonder that the US is feeling the utmost urgency regarding the second resolution? Despite the hordes of warmongers (including Bush) who claim that this is really just a chance for the UN to decide whether or not it’s relevant, the second resolution is make or break for the war. The UN has already demonstrated that it’s relevant. There should be no doubt of that after the Turkish vote and the Labor Party revolt. Which, I note tangentially, is pretty interesting. Since when do citizens and politicians care so much about an extranational organization? Since now, I guess.

Another parenthetical: a 9 member majority vote for the resolution is more important than an unvetoed resolution. If the resolution is passed but vetoed, then it can be spun as a success even though three of the permanent members of the Security Council are against it. I would in fact agree with that stance — in the same way as I object to the repeated US vetos of resolutions concerning Israel. Mind you, the results of such a stance would weaken the US’s ability to effectively veto anti-Israeli resolutions, but that’s a smaller problem right now.

So, we’re seeing a lot of propaganda and politics on both sides. France, Russia, and Germany are hanging tough. Meanwhile, the US and England are predicting success. Nothing you wouldn’t expect on either front. The real news this morning is the UN plan to reconstruct Iraq, first revealed by the London Times. The US role in that plan is discussed by the Financial Times (link may expire, read quick!).

Read that as Bush admitting that he needs the UN: it’s a concession. I’m glad he’s making it and I’m not surprised that he was forced to make it. The next week or so will tell us if it’s sufficient. Blix will be reporting again on Friday, and it’s unlikely to be a favorable moment for the pro-war countries, but you won’t see any decisions before then in any case.

And that, my friends, is realpolitik.