Politics

“I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting,” he said. “The likelihood of it seems to me to be so low that it does not surprise me that it’s never been discussed in my presence to my knowledge.” “He” is Donald Rumsfeld. Dude. Not even considered? Not even thought about it? Everyone else in the world has mentioned it, and you didn’t even talk about how to answer the question when it came up? I mean, senior military officials have thought about it. ...

So I was reading this entry from Mike and it made me think — which reminds me, cause I’ve been meaning to talk about Cold Fury for a while, so I’m going to digress. Back to the main point in a minute. I read Mike because he’s honest and a man of integrity. He’s also pissed off, but so am I. Thing is, he does not have a secret agenda to take over the world, and he isn’t plotting to send hordes of jackbooted Young Republicans marching down the streets, and he doesn’t hate all Muslims, and he’s not living in some weird little world of his own. He’s a good guy who has different politics than I do. If I couldn’t read Mike’s stuff and think about it rationally, rather than just writing him off as a right-wing thug, I’d be pretty worried about myself. When I express an opinion, he listens to it; I owe him the same courtesy. Also, he plays a mean guitar (original). ...

US comes out against ridding the Middle East of WMDs. Film at 11. Yeah, I’m simplifying. But not much. Syria introduced a Security Council resolution that would require all Middle Eastern countries to rid themselves of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. The US said “No, no, the time isn’t right.” That means, of course, “We don’t want to make Israel give up their nuclear weapons.” I have to grudgingly admire the acumen of Syria. Not only did they make the US object to a positive resolution, they nudged us into admitting that the Security Council matters after all. Odd; I could have sworn Bush said that the Security Council would be irrelevant if it didn’t vote to allow us to invade Iraq. Why do we care what resolutions Syria introduces? ...

Heh. I was speculating earlier today that the Iraqi National Museum looting might have been pro art thieves. Through sheer luck, it looks like I was right. Someone should tell those Marines to redo their sign in Arabic, but I’m glad they’re awake now. The FBI is on the job (original), too. Right reactions, even if we got the initial actions wrong.

Robert Fisk has the most poignant things to say (original). I don’t know what I could add to what he wrote. An observation, perhaps, that this is a deeply apoliticial column. Frustrated? Oh yes. But not political. (Via Making Light.)

The buried mobile labs we found last week weren’t chemical weapon labs after all. It’s unclear whether or not these are the labs Powell was talking about in his UN speech — from the CNN article, it looks as though they’re cargo containers rather than actual vehicles, but those are designed to ride on flatbed trucks. I’m thinking they’re at least the same type of lab. Well, maybe Iraq had 18 mobile chemical weapons labs plus 11 mobile labs that had nothing to do with chemical weapons and it’s just a coincidence and we’ll find the chemical weapons labs later. ...

Why does Bush have to find weapons of mass destruction? Because that’s how he justified the war. Exhibit A: the State of the Union (original). There is a sequence of 19 paragraphs directly discussing Iraq, beginning with the line “Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq,” and ending with “If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.” ...

The first round of talks on the new Iraqi government ended today. The largest Shi’ite group decided to stay away; not an entirely good sign, but not a disaster quite yet. In Nasiriya, there were protests over American presence in Iraq: “No to America, No to Saddam.” Under the logic that I should recant my opposition to the war because the Iraqi people were happy to be rid of Saddam, I’m assuming that anyone who believes we should maintain a presence in Iraq should change their minds because there’s a significant number of Iraqis who’d be happy for us to leave. ...

Best line about the French evah: “It’s not true that the French are ungrateful for what the Americans did in WW2. In fact they’re so inspired by the American example that they plan to wait two years until they personally are attacked, then join the coalition and pretend the war against Saddam was all their idea.”

Huh. This is really interesting; someone took a listen to the ABC live broadcast of Michael Moore’s Oscar speech and the CNN report on Michael Moore’s Oscar speech and you know what? CNN really has the boos miked way higher. There’s one guy yelling “Booo” really loudly in the CNN version who doesn’t show up at all in the ABC version. Listen for yourself. I didn’t think I’d hear a difference, but I did. I’m not gonna claim it’s foul play — it could just be a different set of mikes used by CNN — but it is really distinct. ...