CNN picked up the bogus drone story. Do these people not read? Blix said he found RPVs. I’m slightly boggled.
Must not give into frustration! Must be strong!
Category: Politics
Clare Short, who is Tony Blair’s international development secretary, will resign if England invades Iraq without a second UN resolution. Bush needs Blair. Blair needs the UN. How clear does it need to get?
A lot of people wanted that memo about the US spying on other UN members to be a hoax. Just something the Observer made up. Today, the Observer came ever so close to reporting that their source was arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act. (Via Electrolite.) Fortunately, nobody really cares about this stuff.
Here’s that London Times article I mentioned yesterday. It reveals that Blix mentions Iraqi drones in his written report, and accuses him of trying to cover this up by failing to mention them in his oral report.
Only problem is, he did mention them in his oral report.
“Inspectors are also engaged in examining Iraq’s programme for Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs). A number of sites have been inspected with data being collected to assess the range and other capabilities of the various models found. Inspections are continuing in this area.”
Ooops.
On my way home from work today, I heard an interesting rumor on NPR. James Bone, a London Times reporter, claimed that Blix left some details out of his oral report. If this story is accurate, Blix’s written report includes a note on the possibility that Iraq has developed unmanned drones. If these drones exist, and certainly if Iraq has tested their range as over 500 kilometers, Iraq is clearly in serious breach of UN resolutions without any escape hatch. They can’t say “Well, we didn’t think those missiles were in breach” with any plausibility.
I’m sure we’ll hear more of this soon in the event that it all turns out to be true.
Eugene Volokh goes over the differences between Iraq and North Korea. He’s right, as far as he goes — but now let’s ask the next question.
“If we can live with North Korea possessing and actively making nuclear weapons, why can’t we live with the possibility that Iraq may get nuclear weapons?”
Or, put differently: assuming inspections fail, and assuming it’s impossible to stand between Saddam and nukes, what makes that world more dangerous than the one we live in? And please. Don’t tell me Saddam is more loony than Kim Jong-il.
As the blogosphere gears up for the Blix report to the UN, Howard Bashman soldiers along talking about legal matters. His post on yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions is so good I felt like linking to it. It ought also to be of particular interest to Californians and Alaskans, since two of the cases decided relate to California’s three strikes law and one of them is about the Alaska sex offenders registry.
Remember, folks, if you’ve previously served jail time for theft, then in California the prosecuter can convert petty theft (a theft of under $400 worth of goods) into a felony. This combines elegantly but unfortunately with the three strikes law. You too can earn life in prison for stealing $150 worth of children’s videotapes, if you have prior offenses.
So Charlie Daniels is explaining life to the Hollywood types. Yeah, well. I don’t know about all these people who keep saying “and you risked lives!”
I grew up, for some of my childhood, in the small state of New Hampshire. I think it had more of an effect on me than I realized at the time: ten solid years of looking at the damned license plates, see.
“Live free or die.”
Four words. Four deeply meaningful, deeply felt words.
I’m so tired of people who tell me that I have to give up my freedom in order to save lives. Sean Penn may be an asshole — I think there are other celebs who would have been a better choice, particularly if you look at what Sean Penn actually said — but that’s really beside the point. He’s got the right to free speech: to freedom. Calling him a traitor because he exercises that right in a way Charlie Daniels doesn’t like?
I’ll tell you what. I call that cowardly. I call that running scared. I call that giving up on freedom.
The second you cross the line from “I disagree” to “You shouldn’t say that,” you’re crossing the line from supporting free speech to opposing free speech. And I think that’s a lousy idea. Charlie Daniels crossed the line. Does it make him a traitor? No. Does he have the right to say what he did? You bet.
But by saying it he reveals himself as a pathetic individual and a coward. He’s so scared of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and the like that he’s willing to give up the fundamental freedoms that made this country great, and he’s hiding his fear behind the red white and blue. In my book, that makes him a sad, sorry little man.
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.