Politics

I’m not sure if this is ironic or not, but Bush’s appointees have made a strong pro-gun control statement. In Iraq, of course. Gun ownership is, for the nonce, illegal there. “Rise up against Saddam! Then drop your weapons.” It’s aimed at looters, of course, but I find I’m still amused. Gun ownership is only a sacred right if the people who own guns agree with you, I guess. More cheerful news: Umm Qasr was turned over to a local council the other day. Good for the Brits. They did have the advantage of working with a relatively small town. I’ve heard that they brought in actual policemen to train a local police force, which seems clever to me.

Tim Dunlop makes a totally unsubstantiated report on terrorist recruiting. (Via CalPundit.) I do not believe or disbelieve it, I just think it’s worth noting. The interesting bit is the increase in MI6 recruitment. One could take it as evidence that the terrorist threat is increasing, or one could take it as an indication that public fear drives hiring in certain government agencies. Both are rather distressing. Speaking of which, the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002. Much trumpeted, since the number of terrorist attacks went from 355 in 2001 to 199 in 2002. Woo! However, if you look at the numbers, you’ll find that most of that drop is because of a sharp drop in Latin American terrorism. ...

Phil Carter reports on an important piece of news out of the Army War College. Essentially, to quote Phil, “America’s strategy of pre-emptive defense might lead to pre-emptive strikes by terrorists and rogue nations around the world, possibly with weapons of mass destruction. Asymmetric warfare — striking at U.S. weakpoints with unconventional tactics — will also become the norm by which our enemies fight us.” I’m a little surprised that this is seen as surprising; we have already entered into that era. What else was 9/11? Still, if this raises awareness, I’m glad. ...

From a pre-war speech by Robin Cook: Ironically, it is only because Iraq’s military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam’s forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. ...

For the detail oriented, the Center for Cooperative Research put together a chronology of Bush’s movements on 9/11. (Via the Dead Parrots.) I can’t get very upset about Bush going in and doing his photo op — I know that on that day it took a while for me to react. It was, after all, incredibly shocking. What does strike me as strange is the reaction of the Secret Service. As is pointed out in the timeline, evacuating Bush should have been as high a priority as evacuating Cheney. ...

Iraq update: I haven’t yet been willing to say that we should give up on finding WMD in Iraq, although I think it’s pretty damned unlikely. Might be about time to take that step. The 75th Exploitation Task Force, which is the group in charge of finding WMD in Iraq, is getting ready to head home. (Via CalPundit.) Boy. Remember during the war when we were told that Saddam had issued chemical weapons to the Republican Guard? I guess when the Guard was giving up, they remained loyal enough to Saddam to destroy those weapons with methods so complete that we can’t find any traces of them. While they were slipping away into the countryside. ...

The political commercial I’d like to see: OPEN on a shot of Rick Santorum. Smarmy still shot. Something that makes him look like he’s preaching. VOICEOVER: “This man…” CUT to similar shot of Bush. VOICEOVER: “And this man…” CUT to freezeframe of the infamous Newlywed Game footage. It’s the woman looking embarassed, giggling, caught in the camera’s lens. VOICEOVER: “Want to send this couple to jail.” The freezeframe leaps into life. The woman’s speaking, giggling around the words. “I guess that’d be up the butt, Bob.” ...

More on inconsistent US opinions about the IAEA: we want an IAEA ruling against Iran. “Maybe if you let us do our job in Iraq…” The thing is, international agencies just don’t have much moral weight if one and only one country has veto power over them. Even if that country is moral and just. Fair? No, but true.

It looks like the whole looting question (original) has been more or less cleared up. Various people were quick to jump on reports that only a handful of artifacts were missing. Turns out that there are only a handful missing… now. Because Customs did its job and found thousands of missing items (mostly manuscripts, some artifacts). Praise is due to the US for making a strong and serious effort to fix the initial mistake. People who can’t wait for the full story to be in before mocking those who mourned the initial loss might want to consider getting a little more patient.

Dear Raed is back, with the assistance of Diana Moon. (Via Metafilter.)