Population: One

I’m getting really obsessive; I’m tempted to subscribe to Stratfor’s War on Iraq service. Fifty bucks… well, Kit Paypaled me a buck yesterday, so call it forty-nine bucks. I’ll think about it. I am an admitted information junkie.

It occurred to me yesterday that I’d have a blast taking a year off, travelling around the world, and blogging the whole thing. Sort of like Allbritton, but less dangerous and not really anything like a professional journalist. I’m committed to my current job for a few years minimum, so it won’t happen any time soon, but one never knows. Maybe someday. I could have done it the other year, while I was unemployed, and come to think of it I should have. I hadn’t expected such a long period of unemployment, though. (Laugh at my naivety.)

Richard Perle, Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, resigned today. The proximate cause is the $725,000 he was gonna be paid for lobbying on behalf of Global Crossing. However, the real meat of the story is this article, which outlines the ways in which Perle’s venture capital company benefits from the War on Terror.

It’s a chicken and an egg question; if Perle really believes that the War on Terror is the right thing to do and he would advocate it no matter what his finances, then there’s nothing morally flawed in his venture capital activities. The problem is that you can’t tell which came first from the outside. That’s why, in these situations, you simply avoid the entire problem and refrain from any investments which could possibly be perceived as a conflict of interest. Pleading innocence doesn’t absolve you; divesting does.

As it happens, Perle agreed to give up the cash he’d have gotten from Global Crossing. It’s a distraction. He didn’t say a thing about his venture capital activities, which are where the real money is.

Note also that he apparently doesn’t have too high an opinion of the value of his advice. He decided that when it comes down to a choice between helping America and making money, the cold hard cash wins. Bush will just have to do without his counsel.

At least in public.

Interesting little tidbit from Christopher Allbritton, who has arrived in Ankara:

Mehmet also said that the Turks, Iranians and Syrians were coming to an ‘understanding’ regarding Iraqi Kurdistan. The upshot is that Iran and Syria would get Turkey’s back if it moved on the Kurdish enclave in defiance of America’s wishes. Iran would even send in its own troops, he said, if the Turks invaded unilaterally. I have no idea if this is true, but Stratfor had something on this not too long ago claiming the exact same thing. Either conspiracy theories are contagious or perhaps there’s something to this rumor. Time will tell.

Read the whole post; there’s good stuff on the mood in Turkey, possible scenarios, and so on. It’s helpful to keep this piece by Joshua Marshall in mind. It would be a bad sign for US diplomacy if Turkey decides to place membership in the EU above friendship with the US, but the current trend is leaning in that direction.

One of the things that happens during wars is that we pass resolutions supporting our troops and calling for various forms of recognition; and this is a good thing. For example, the Massachusetts House carefully passed a resolution that supported the troops but which did not endorse the war. It can be done. And prayers are non-denominational.

On the other hand, it can go too far. Prayer is one thing, but fasting — that signifies a particular type of religious activity. It’s not a type that I condemn; self-deprivation for religious purposes has a long and respectable history. Bush’s brand of fundamentalism is one example, but so is the Sufi tradition.

The commonality, though, is the place such religions take in one’s everyday life. To fast for one’s religion signifies that even the basic functions of existence are less important than one’s god. I believe that it is inappropriate to call upon Americans to hold their god in that place of supremacy over their lives; we are a free country, and one aspect of that freedom is the freedom to choose precisely what of our wills we subjugate to a higher power.

By passing this resolution, our Congress has indicated that they believe Americans should take a very specific action in order to properly honor their god. It is an action which represents a kind of surrender. I think that’s a matter of personal choice: to demand it is, simply, wrong.

In news that will no doubt have a profound effect on the war — almost as profound as the initial announcement — the Solomon Islands have pulled out of the coalition. In fact, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister says he was completely unaware that they were even in the coalition.

I mean, no, of course it doesn’t matter. But how do you add a nation to the list without checking first? Did they just hope the little guys would be too embarassed to contradict them?

Via the Spokesman Review.

You see these occasional speculations as to why France might have opposed a US-led war on Iraq. I personally think the answer is pretty obvious; France does not want the US to have a free hand to do whatever it wants in the world. “Aha,” cries my hypothetical right wing strawman. “So you think France is in the right?” No, I just think it’s a perfectly natural reaction to have when confronted with a hyperpower. It doesn’t mean they’re acting in the best interests of the United States, and it doesn’t mean they’re really allies after all. It just means that I don’t think they’re malevolent, evil, or otherwise deserving of censure.

However, there are plenty of people who simply don’t get that. The train of thought appears to go something like this: the US has noble motivations, and if you sympathize with the desired ends who cares if the US is running the show? Nobody; thus, anyone who objects to US actions must not sympathize with the desired ends.

Yeah, well. I like having a clean living room, but if Cheney broke into my apartment while I was at work and neatened everything up, I’d still be pissed off.

Anyhow, one of the common speculations is that France has a financial motive to oppose the war. This speculation contains within it the implicit assumption that if France participated in the war on Iraq, the US would still screw it out of redevelopment contracts; otherwise, why wouldn’t France just help out? Well, some say, France has been arming Iraq and violating sanctions. William Safire said so.

OK. So the next time someone makes that claim, here’s your takedown.

The Globe and Mail reports that friendly fire killed 52 Kurds in the last few days. The dead were members of the Islamic Group of Kurdistan, which is an Islamic Kurdish group that has worked with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at least up until now.

This does not constitute an emergency, but it does further unsettle the situation in Northern Iraq. The Islamic Group of Kurdistan was theoretically willing to help fight Ansar, the Al Qaeda-related group that holds another patch of Northern Iraq — but now there’s more tension and we could wind up with additional anti-American sentiment up there. The more tense things get, the more likely it is that Turkey will decide to just move in.

We tend to think of the Kurds as a united group, and allies, but the truth is that you’ve got Kurds who just want to be Kurds, Islamic Kurds, and (in Turkey particularly) Marxist-Leninist Kurds. They all want an independent Kurdish state but that’s as far as the agreement goes. Right now, you’ve got Iran, Turkey, the US, the PUK, the IGK, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Ansar all jostling around in one small chunk of the world.

The Balkans didn’t settle down too quickly either.