Bombs and Biscuits
Every Iraqi Child is Now an Unwitting Participant in This Obscene War. And Every One of Us is Morally Implicated
Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian, March 31, 2003

After the bombings, the ambushes and assaults, the newsreaders' voices lighten as they reach the humanitarian aid slot in the story running order.

The images of bloodied limbs and bombed buildings are replaced by jostling crowds being roughly corralled by British troops distributing bottles of water. This is the battle for hearts and minds, we are repeatedly told.

The crude attempt at manipulation beggars belief: whose heart and mind are won by such images of angry desperation? Certainly not the Iraqis, bewildered by the invader who has deprived them of the water in the first place, who kills their children and then throws them the paltry solace of one bottle - enough to last one person a couple of hours.

The issue of aid and how it's being played on our television screens reminds us what this war is all about.
Not oil, not weapons of mass destruction, but a demonstration of US power,
necessary after 9/11 to impress appropriate fear and respect in the hearts and minds across the globe - in Europe as much as in the Middle East.

The assumption was that Iraq offered a suitable stage for this performance - not too dangerous or too strong and with some oil booty thrown in.

The media would convey the two crucial lessons which the American administration believed the world needed to be taught:
of the terrifying technological prowess of American weaponry
and the benign nature of the Pax Americana. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:44 PM 0 comments

 
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle NEWS

1. Predators patrol skies
Keith Rogers, ReviewJournal.com, March 22, 2003

While the world watched television footage of the bombing on Baghdad Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the important role of the Air Force's unmanned Predator spy planes, the ones that 100 men and women from the Nellis base are operating in the war.

"We're using the Predator and it's helpful," Rumsfeld said, standing beside Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a room packed with reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

Predators, developed and manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., of San Diego, have come a long way since they were used in 1998 to spy on tanks and compounds in Bosnia.

In August, the company announced that the 27-foot-long Predator for the first time had launched what is essentially a baby Predator, or miniature unmanned aerial vehicle, while in flight.

Known as the FINDER, which stands for Flight Inserted Detector Expendable for Reconnaissance, or sometimes referred to as the "sniffer," these tiny Predators could prove to be invaluable for detecting or "sniffing" chemical, biological or radiological compounds in the air.

These mini-drones could be landed or retrieved to analyze samples.
Some could be used to transmit detection data as they fly on pre-determined routes. [...]

2. Soldier Toys Today, Civilian Toys Tomorrow
Jonathan Krim, Washington Post Staff Writer, March 28, 2003

In the 1991 Gulf War, widespread use of Global Positioning System devices put that satellite technology on the map and helped make GPS a household name. Devices using GPS to get a fix on location became commonplace in cars and in handheld units used by hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

Recent conflicts have likewise elevated the military's high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle -- the HMMWV, or "Humvee" -- to a consumer status symbol under the Hummer brand name, for those who can afford the $50,000 price tag.

Technology experts and military historians watching the unfolding war in Iraq note that with the digital age well underway, ..... Technology experts and military historians watching the unfolding war in Iraq note that with the digital age well underway,

Unmanned Predator drones are used as attack vehicles, carrying missiles that were used to kill suspected al Qaeda officials in Yemen late last year.

But for surveillance, camera-carrying UAVs can come in packages as small as six inches across and weigh about two ounces.

One such vehicle, called the Dragon Eye, is built to be taken to the battlefield in a backpack. A bungee cord serves as a kind of slingshot to launch the vehicle before its electric motor takes over. The operator directs it with a laptop computer.

A spokesman for AeroVironment Inc., a Monrovia, Calif., maker of UAVs for military and law enforcement use, said the vehicles his company makes are not available for civilian use. [...]

3. Eye in the sky
Scott Kirsner, Digitalmass.Boston.com, Tech & Innovation

Parked nose down on a chair in Colonel Howard Borst's office, the newest addition to the Air Force's fleet looks like a designer's first-draft concept for an airplane, an aerodynamic idea rendered in Styrofoam.

Actually, Borst explains, this is a flight-worthy Desert Hawk, an unmanned aerial vehicle that's a smaller, lighter, and much cheaper cousin to the Global Hawk and Predator drones that flew in Afghanistan and are now deployed around Iraq. The Desert Hawk has flown more than 120 missions since September. It is launched into the air by two people using a bungee cord as a slingshot. Once aloft, it flies at speeds of 25 to 50 miles per hour, following a flight path that has been plotted out beforehand on a laptop using GPS coordinates.

The plane can be directed to circle over an area of interest, or the operator can alter its flight path while the plane is in the air, using the same kind of point-and-click interface most people use to send e-mail. No prior piloting experience is necessary. The small payload area of the Desert Hawk can hold one of two interchangeable camera systems, an infrared thermal imaging system for night use, or a set of three color cameras for daylight.

The vehicle itself looks as though it has been sculpted from a beer cooler. Borst says the material is "rubberized polypropylene," a flexible, damage-resistant type of foam. The only sound it makes in flight is a steady whine from the electric motor. From the ground, it can easily be mistaken for a bird. In fact, Borst says that during testing in California last year, a curious bird of prey flew in formation with the Desert Hawk.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:15 PM 0 comments

 
Mullah Omar issues order to wage 'jihad'
NDTV.com, March 31, 2003

Associated Press, (Islamabad): The Taliban's elusive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has issued a fresh order for jihad or holy war against US troops and Afghans who work with them, drawing parallels between Afghanistan and Iraq.

His latest decree carries the signatures of 600 Islamic clerics reminding the faithful of their duty to wage jihad and comes amid stepped up attacks against international forces in Afghanistan.

"Whenever the non-Muslims attack a Muslim land it is the duty of everyone to rise against the aggressor," reads posters that are reportedly authored by Omar and openly displayed in towns and villages in eastern Afghanistan and in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

"We were blamed for Osama bin Laden because they said he was a terrorist and he was taking shelter with us. But what is the fault of Iraq? Iraq has no Osama bin Laden in its country," the black and white poster says. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:35 PM 0 comments

 
Back Off, Syria and Iran!By Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 30, 2003

WASHINGTON —We're shocked that the enemy forces don't observe the rules of war. We're shocked that it's hard to tell civilians from combatants, and friends from foes. Adversaries use guerrilla tactics; they are irregulars; they take advantage of the hostile local weather and terrain; they refuse to stay in uniform. Golly, as our secretary of war likes to say, it's unfair.

Some of their soldiers are mere children. We know we have overwhelming, superior power, yet we can't use it all. We're stunned to discover that the local population treats our well-armed high-tech troops like invaders.

Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it? [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:32 PM 0 comments

 
Bloodied but still unbowed, Baghdad prepares to fight
Patrick Graham in Baghdad, The Observer, March 30, 2003

When the bombs drop at night in Baghdad, Muthana Mohammed Saleh wakes up and sings into a microphone. His call of 'Allah Akbar' from the minaret of the mosque mingles with low booms around the city.

With the symbolic targets destroyed early on and the liberation of the city not going as planned, the allied planners are working their way down the list. On Friday they knocked out three telecoms exchanges using bunker-busting missiles that made the ground shake in the surrounding area. That night, they hit the Ministry of Information, long expected to be a target but perhaps delayed as the allies waited to see if the city would fall in the first week.

Baghdad is now preparing for a siege. The city is almost unrecognisable from a week ago. The transformation is so complete that it is clear the government has been preparing its own strategy for a lot longer than the Pentagon. [...]

In an interview with The Observer almost a month ago, an adviser to Saddam Hussein laid out a battle plan that seems to be unfolding with surprising accuracy ..... The adviser described the war as '10 Vietnams' that would be waged long after the invading forces arrived. He also believed that images of the war, especially dead American soldiers and Iraqi casualties, would sway US domestic opinion and an international outcry would force the US to stop fighting. While President George W. Bush says the outcome is inevitable, earlier predictions about Iraq's capabilities have proved inaccurate.

The regime planned to make Baghdad and the Sunni heartland around it the final battle ground that would tie up foreign troops for months, perhaps years. The adviser dismissed the possibility that the Iraqi leadership could be hunted down.

As usual, it will be the civilians who are unable to hide. It appears now that the allies will either lay siege to the city, evoking connotations of the Serbs surrounding Sarajevo, or try to enter by force. The latter will require the kind of fight through neighbourhoods unsuited to the allies' technical superiority and sensitivity to images of civilian casualties.

The Iraqi army and security services have been preparing for weeks, vacating obvious targets and moving troops into apartment blocks, schools, and even social clubs. Most street corners have their sandbagged emplacements and plainclothed security keep close watch on everybody. [...]

The bombing itself has become so common that few pay attention unless they are in the immediate vicinity. But those who are nearby find it hard to forget the experience. For the first hour of last Friday's bombing we were stranded near some of the targets. [...]

It is astonishing how calm and well ordered Baghdad remains even as the bombs fall. Life is not in any way normal but it does continue. There was heavy traffic heading south out of the city yesterday and shops selling fruit, vegetables and meat were busy.

A few days ago we stopped in a tea shop and chatted to some young men. The bombing made the windows shake but no one paid much attention. They were more interested in the television showing fighting around Nasiriyah.

When Saddam came on, it quieted down. The president exhorted his people to fight long and hard. 'Americans are going into the desert near your city and you must fight them,' he said. So far, they appear to be paying more attention to their president than Mr Bush.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:53 PM 0 comments

 
Sergeant's suicidal act of war has struck fear into Allied hearts
Robert Fisk, The Independent, 31 March 2003

Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani was the first Iraqi combatant known to stage a suicide attack. Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself to destroy his enemies.

Nomani was also a Shia Muslim – a member of the same sect the Americans faithfully believed to be their secret ally in their invasion of Iraq. Even the Iraqi government initially wondered how to deal with his extraordinary action, caught between its desire to dissociate themselves from an event that might remind the world of Osama bin Laden and its determination to threaten the Americans with more such attacks.

The details of the 50-year-old sergeant's life are few but intriguing. [...]

There was some talk by Vice-President Ramadan of "the martyr's moment of sublimity", an expression hitherto unheard of in the Baathist lexicon. General Hazim al-Rawi of the Ministry of Defence recalled that the dead man bore the same name as "the Imam Ali" and announced that the new "martyr Ali has opened the door to jihad".

He said that more than 4,000 volunteers from Arab countries were now in the country and that "martyrdom operations will continue not only by Iraqis but by thousands of Arabs who came to Baghdad".

Suddenly, it seems, Islam has intruded into this very nationalistic war of liberation – for that is what it is called here – against the Americans.
.................................

Suicide bombers 'arrive in Iraq'
BBC News, March 30, 2003

A militant Palestinian group has declared that its first wave of volunteer suicide bombers has arrived in Iraq.
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad said in a statement that it "brings to our people and nation the good news of the arrival of its first martyrdom (attackers) to the heart of Baghdad."

The group's mission is "to fulfil the holy duty of defending Arab and Muslim land," by attacking coalition troops, the statement said.

Iraq has declared that more than 4,000 foreign Arab volunteers have come forward to fight and were ready to die if necessary.

"We want to help Iraqis, not Saddam," said Amr, a student volunteer from Cairo.

"I know I might die. I don't want to kill people but I will if I have to, to protect people like those children with their heads missing."

Television footage of civilian casualties from Iraq's second city of Basra showed a child whose head had been blown off. [...]
................

THE WAR WITH IRAQ
By Steve Boggan in Amman, Evening Standard 25 March 2003

On the streets of Jordan hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march every day.
In Saudi Arabia, senior Muslim clerics call upon their followers to wage jihad, holy war, against America.
Burning American flags, thousands of angry people on the streets and exiled Iraqis returning home to fight.

It is a far cry from the scenes of people throwing flowers on liberating troops that
George Bush and Tony Blair might have imagined.

Across the Middle East, antiwestern sentiments are hardening with every bomb
seen crashing into Baghdad on Al Jazeera TV.

In Yemen, where three died last Friday in a march on the United States Embassy, western diplomats and oil company executives are given personal bodyguards.
In Oman, people march and chant "Bush and Blair are God's enemies.
And inEgypt police have been fighting running battles with demonstrators. [...]

For ordinary Arabs, however, that is not enough. "I used to dislike Saddam,
but now I think he is a great leader," said Nada Emad, a 23-year-old assistant pharmacist
in Amman, Jordan. "This aggression is uniting Arabs, even people who didn't see
eye to eye before." With Arab television stations showing images of civilian casualties,
including one of a young boy with half his head blown away in Basra,
public anger is increasing every day.

Fayez Kazem, who fled Saddam's regime four years ago, is preparing to go
back from Jordan to fight the coalition.
"I can't stay watching the television, seeing Baghdad burning," he said.
"The Iraqi is born from the womb of his mother carrying a weapon."

Thousands of Iraqi exiles have been returning over the past week from Jordan, with
many insisting they want to defend their country against US and British
"invaders".
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:19 PM 0 comments

 
Coalition losses a lot more: Web site
Shyam Bhatia in Kuwait, Rediff.com, March 30, 2003

A Russian Web site about the war in Iraq, which offers an alternative to the daily diet of propaganda by coalition officers, is fast becoming compulsive reading throughout West Asia.

Criticised for getting information from Russian spies, http://www.aeronautics.ru has claimed that the US and Britain have had heavier losses, fewer Iraqi surrenders and more complications than their leaders suggest.

Author "Venik" says he is translating reports on the war by "journalists and military experts" who use a Russian-language site called http://www.iraqwar.ru to pass on information from the GRU -- "the all-seeing eye of the Russian military".

For its part, the GRU gets information from wiretaps, radio monitoring, satellites and thousands of agents.
[...]
............................................

[On Saturday, the Web site reported .... "Radio communications intercepted during the last five days suggest that the coalition is using Israeli airfield" to conducts air raids on Iraq, it said.

"Combat aircraft taking off regularly from Hatzerim and Navatim [Israeli airbases] do not return to the same bases, but fly toward the border with Jordan while maintaining complete radio silence. Possibly, these are just Israeli Air Force exercises, However, [Russian] radio intercept and radar units observe increased intensity of radio communications coming from the Jordanian Air Force and air defence communication centres during such overflights, as well as changes in the operating modes of the US Army "Patriot" tracking radars deployed in Jordan]

Last week it described how coalition forces were preparing for a big push on several fronts, which might include the capture of the Saddam Hussein Airport, near Baghdad.

A Russian aviation expert known for his military contacts is vouching for these reports.
When the official news was upbeat more than a week ago, his sources reported that the Iraqis had been gravely underestimated and that US Central Command chief General Tommy Franks was in danger of being replaced as commander of the coalition forces.

Last Tuesday they predicted the massive American reinforcements, which have since been announced.

They also reported that American defence chiefs were horrified at the number of "smart missiles" they had spent for thin results, and were preparing to switch to conventional bombing.[...]

[Last Thursday's despatch included this report of mistaken firing by American A-10 planes, on its own coalition forces:

"Intercepted radio communications show that at around 0615hrs this morning the lead of a flight of two A-10 ground attack planes detected a convoy of armored vehicles. Unable to see any markings identifying these vehicles as friendly and not being able to contact the convoy by radio the pilot directed artillery fire to the coordinates of the convoy.

Later it was discovered that this was a coalition convoy. Thick layers of dust covered up the identification markings - colored strips of cloth in the rear of the vehicles. Electronic jamming made radio contact impossible. First reports indicated that the US unit lost 50 troops killed and wounded. At least five armored vehicles have been destroyed, one of which was an Abrams tank."]
....................................

'I never want to hear that sound again': Five British soldiers have died under 'friendly fire'.
Audrey Gillan with the Household Cavalry in Iraq, The Guardian, March 31, 2003

Yesterday as General Richard Myers apologised for the three deaths caused by the US, saying it would be his 'quest' to ensure it did not happen again, the first full account emerged of the tragic incident in which a A-10 tankbuster fired on two British armoured vehicles

They will never forget the sound of the guns. A cross between a moan and a roar, a fierce rattling of heavy rounds of 30mm canon fire from two A10 Thunderbolts flying low overhead. Aircraft that shouldn't have been in the British-controlled area, "cowboying" at just 500ft and looking for something to have a crack at.

Last Friday morning, two American pilots turned their guns on a convoy of five British vehicles from the Household Cavalry, killing one man just three days shy of his 26th birthday, injuring four others and wiping out two armoured reconnaissance vehicles from the squadron's Two Troop. Two Iraqi civilians, waving a large white flag, were also killed.

...Then the full horror dawned. One of the vehicles had been hit, no two, and by "friendly call signs".

Manslaughter

They stood still, stopping what they were doing. At first they thought it was one lad, then another. Whoever it was, it didn't ease the twist of knots that started knitting themselves in their stomachs. Later, they learned it was Matty Hull, who aside from being a gunner was also a military instructor who was being considered for a posting to Sandhurst to train officers.

Amidst the grief, their anger could not be contained. All of D Squadron's vehicles are clearly marked, with fluorescent panels on the roofs, flags and other markings. It was something that the soldiers kept saying, over and over. "We spend all this money marking out our vehicles so this doesn't happen," one said. "If it was the heat of battle, shit happens. But it was clear daylight."

Another said: "As far as I am concerned, those two pilots should be done for manslaughter. There's no way on the planet that they couldn't see two vehicles, that they couldn't see the dayglo panel on the top." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

 
"My Empire for a Map!"
Circumventing the Globe
Ben Tripp, Counterpunch, March 29, 2003

It has come to my attention that some Americans are concerned Iraq might bodily invade the United States unless all of Iraq’s women and children are killed. ... Americans don’t know their geography. I am not an expert on the subject, although able to locate most of the continents as long they’re clearly marked, but I may be able to help allay some of the fears which grip this nation as its armed forces hack their way through distant lands. [...]

The Middle East is where the present troubles are centered, if we don’t consider the imminent nuclear attack by North Korea trouble, which apparently we don’t. The Middle East is below Russia, to the left of China, and above Africa. Got that? Maybe you should do a little sketch.

Iraq is a Middle Eastern country. It is located pretty much in the middle of the Middle East, which is easy to remember; ... The country between Iraq and Afghanistan is Iran, and boy are they sweating it right about now. Saudi Arabia, which is where the terrorists actually came from, is directly south of Iraq.

This part of the world, just to put it in perspective, is about halfway around the sphere or globe from America, latitudinally speaking (ask your mother) although if you want to be completely safe you will move to the island of Rapa in the South Pacific, which is on the opposite side of the world from Iraq.

The chances of Iraq invading our shores is extremely slim, partially because there are a dozen nations, an ocean, and 6,000 miles between Baghdad and Hackensack, NY; and partially because all the Iraqis will soon be either dead or too hungry to travel more than a few hundred feet before they swoon.

...Unfortunately for Americans, most people in Africa are black, have AIDS, or both. On top of that there are elephants and things wandering around there, and deserts, and a country called ‘Niger’, which sounds kind of rude. So we’ll forget all about Africa for the time being- just like the American government. This is geography for white people. Most black people already know where Africa is.

... Right after China is a peninsula of land in what I am very embarrassed to report is called the Yellow Sea, although it is in fact a similar shade to the Red Sea. This peninsula contains North and South Korea. North Korea is to the North, and it has missiles with which it can ostensibly reach North America via a secret route called the North Pole, or in other words while we’re facing East they sneak up on us from the Northwest, probably disguised as Santa Claus.

After Korea you’re in Japan, and then there’s bugger all for 5,500 miles except water. This water is called the Pacific Ocean because it is in the Pacific.

So there we are, all the way around the globe with our finger a little battered by the trip but otherwise intact, having made three fascinating discoveries:

1. We are very, very far away from all the naughty countries we fear,

2. The Kurds are once again screwed, and

3. We still don’t know where Australia is.
...................................................

Genre: Men Vs. Women Jokes

MAN:
1) Pull up to machine
2) Wind window down
3) Insert ATM card, enter PIN
4) Retrieve cash
5) Drive away

WOMAN:
1) Pull up to machine
2) Open door (too far away from machine)
3) Search through all of the 112 compartments in handbag for ATM card
4) Do make up, apply lipstick, fix hair
5) Insert Card
6) Remove card
7) Insert card the correct way up
8) Search for piece of paper with PIN on it
9) Enter PIN
10) Enter correct PIN
11) Retrieve cash, put in bag
12) Drive off
13) Reverse back to machine
14) Retrieve card
15) Drive three miles away
16) Release hand-brake
......................................................

Madonna video ends with image of President Bush with grenade in his lap
Drudge Report, March 29, 2003

A final shock scene in the video of AOLTIMEWARNER recording artist Madonna's upcoming release -- is that of the singer throwing a grenade in the lap of President Bush

"It is not me being anti-Bush, it's me being ironic and tongue in cheek," Madonna explains to NBC's Access Hollywood this weekend.

"My kind of wish for peace and my desire to sort of turn a weapon of destruction, which is a grenade, into something that is completely innocuous."

Madonna uses a Bush look-alike in the final scene of AMERICAN LIFE. The "president" picks up the lit grenade that Madonna throws -- and lights his cigar with it!

The image is "my wish to find an alternative to violence to war and destruction," the singer says.

The shock film for AMERICAN LIFE comes as Madonna returns to the musical spotlight with a CD of original songs, set for an April release.

"AMERICAN LIFE is about freedom of speech," claims an insider. "It examines not only war, greed and ego, but it's self-reflective also. Madonna rejects her 'Material Girl' image once and for all, and warns of life in a material world."


- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:48 PM 0 comments

 
Horror Chamber: Inside the Al-Amiriya Shelter
Ramzy Baroud, Counterpunch, March 29, 2003

Living most of my life in a refugee camp in Gaza, where the murder of innocent people at the hands of Israeli troops is routine, I was little hesitant to walk into al-Amiriya. I was not braced for what I would witness. I already knew that hundreds of people had wasted there, during the Gulf War, in 1991, when an American 'smart' bomb shattered the giant compound. But that's all I knew. [...]

When the American bomb fell, the shelter's doors shut down, automatically. The doors were designed to do so, since the attack was never expected to target the shelter itself, but nearby areas.

Those who didn't immediately die as a result of the massive explosion pounded at the door and screamed for help.

American officials at the time assured us that that the place was used for military purposes; as they always do, when innocent people are "mistakenly" killed.

The powerful explosion penetrated to the bottom floor where giant water tanks were stored. On that floor, families cooked and washed. Some of these tanks boiled with water. Seconds later, the tanks exploded and the boiling water rose to over three feet.
You could still see the mark of where the water rose, as well as the impression of the human flesh that melted to the wall due to the intense heat of the water.

"These are the marks of a woman's skin still holding her child," an Iraqi woman, who lost her entire family in al-Amiriya said. [...]

Over a week ago, the United States and its British allies began yet another war against Iraq, killing and maiming hundreds thus far, with the aim of "liberating Iraq", and "freeing the Iraqi people."
It's appalling how such twisted logic can hold for such a long time.

An MSNBC commentator explained the reason why the first day of bombings in Iraq, was so concentrated and not widespread. "We have to keep in mind that in a few days, we will own this country," he said.

We need not examine such statements however, nor the provocative comments made by top US army officials, nor the desecration of an Iraqi flag and the offensive replacement of an American one, after the Umm al-Qasr battle. If this eagerness to invade Iraq was for the sake of the Iraqi people, why have we tortured and starved an entire generation of them for so long?

We can disagree on the reasons behind the war; whether it was for strategic control, the oil or Israel. But rational people should have no illusions, that saving the Iraqi people is not one of the reasons we are investing over $100 billion to finance this indefensible war. If you wish to have further proof, pay a visit to al-Amiriya shelter. Despite everything, it is still standing.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:20 PM 0 comments

 
"Not Going According to Plan"
US Insiders Gloomy: War "Not Going According to Plan;" Allah 1, Jahweh, 0; Rumseld Visits Geneva: Is He an Iraqi Asset?; British Revert to Barbarism (As Usual); Will Bush Open National Hot Air Reserve?; US Navy Dolphin AWOL
Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch Diary, March 29-30, CounterPunch War Diary

The situation of the US/UK invading force can be assessed as difficult. The US 3rd Infantry Division, the Marines, Division, the 101st Airborne continue to be plagued by stretched supply lines which yesterday saw one Marine unit entirely immobilized by lack of diesel fuel and the food down to one “meal” a day, with the MREs being decried by the soldiers as not fit for human consumption. Disorganization is rife. The 3rd Infantry Division marches up one side of the Euphrates, while their baggage and supplies proceed up the other, which renders bridges more “strategic” than ever. The helicopter assaults on the Iraqi Medina division left, on one account, seven still serviceable. Two helicopters were lost in the attack and twenty-six were damaged.[...]

Another Rumsfeld propaganda coup: The retired general named as civilian governor of occupied Iraq has visited Israel on a trip paid for by a right-wing group that strongly backs an American military presence in the Middle East. ... Lieutenant-General Jay Garner, the co-coordinator for civilian administration in Iraq, put his name in October 2000 to a statement blaming Palestinians for the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence and saying that a strong Israel was an important security asset to the United States. This piece of information circulated the Middle East with as much rapidity as the resignation of Richard Perle from his chairmanship of the Defense Board and the supposed trip of Vice-President Cheney’s daughter to become a human shield.

Chickens in a Darkening Sky

So the sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost, and bedtime reading is Thucydides' account of the disastrous Athenian siege of Syracuse. Start with the amazed discovery of the White House, the Defense Department and the permanently embedded US press corps that nations don't care to be invaded, even if they have been misgoverned by a tyrant for decades. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:02 PM 0 comments

 
Tracking Saddam Hussein
Steve Kroft, CBS News, March 24, 2003

New York: No matter how the war with Iraq unfolds in the days to come, it will be difficult for the United States to declare a complete victory until Saddam Hussein is either captured or killed. Given recent experience in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, that is not a foregone conclusion. 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft reports.

Last Wednesday, the U.S. command thought it had Saddam Hussein in its crosshairs and tried to kill him with a massive air strike in the opening salvo of the war.

But by Saturday, Commanding General Tommy Franks had to acknowledge that -dead or alive - the United States had lost track of him again.

In response to a reporter’s question, General Franks replied bluntly, "Actually, I have no idea where he is right now."

Saddam has managed to elude the United States for the better part of a dozen years, and has survived attempted coups and assassination plots, and several wars. He has a network of tunnels and underground bunkers, a massive security apparatus, a cadre of look-alikes and a capital of five million people to hide in. [...]

Why is it so difficult?

"You have to have agents who are supporting you, working for you, in order to gain access to information in terms of where individuals are going to be," Cohen says. "It's very hard to take out an individual with a cruise missile."

With U.S. intelligence on Iraq coming from electronic eavesdropping and satellite photography, Saddam decided to go underground, building elaborate bunker and tunnel complexes. A German firm designed and later built a 20,000-square-foot bunker under one of Saddam’s palaces, at a cost of $90 million. It has luxurious bedrooms for Saddam, his family, and dozens of bodyguards and staff. It’s stocked with enough food and water to last a year. Giant shock absorbers and redundant air filtration systems are designed to withstand multiple bomb blasts and missile strikes.

Michael Vickers, a consultant to the Pentagon who spent 10 years in the Army’s special forces and later became a C.I.A. operative, says there are "some very, very hardened, deep underground facilities that have 20 or more feet, maybe 100 feet in some cases, of dirt, and then 6 to 20 feet of reinforced concrete, and then prefabricated steel."

In some cases, Vickers says, the bunkers are 300 feet or so deep, and "almost impervious to anything but nuclear attack."

Worse, some of these bunkers may be connected by tunnels, allowing Saddam to move from underground facility to underground facility.

"One of the things that makes these underground structures difficult-is the labyrinth network of them," Vickers says. They have blast doors in between, too, so "even if you penetrate down into one compartment, say, and destroy that, then the steel doors may contain the effects of a blast. If you're on the other side you're a quarter mile away, you're perfectly safe." [...]

... Eventually, we’ll see the endgame. Woolsey suggests that Saddam probably would like “to disappear, or go out in some way in which people didn't know what happened to him, and he could try to believe that a myth would be kept alive. He has a very heroic self-image.”

But Marashi notes that Saddam “is obsessed with his legacy. He wants to go down in the history books as, you know, this great Babylonian leader.” That points to a preference, he says, for “going down fighting” rather than accepting the humiliation of surrender.
.......................................................

How to take out Saddam's Bunker
argee.net/defense watch, December 29, 2002

During the 1991 Gulf War, I saw a report describing Saddam Hussein's personal bunker. The report was replete with diagrams and listed the German firm that designed and built the structure. An exhaustive search of the Internet and World Wide Web has produced no confirmation of this information.

Nevertheless, the information is clear in my memory, especially since I grew up in Germany and was particularly interested that a German firm designed and built the bunker.

The design is similar to how a modern submarine is constructed. The bunker consists of an outer and inner structure, where the inner structure is completely isolated from the outer one. In the case of submarines, of course, the isolation is for sound, to eliminate the transmission of sound from inside the sub to the surrounding water. Saddam's bunker is designed to prevent external shock - like from a nuclear blast - from reaching the inner sanctum.

The outer structure of the bunker is a vertically oriented egg-shaped shell of 20 to 30 yards of reinforced concrete - this is yards, not feet. This shell is buried deep underground. The inner structure is suspended inside the concrete shell by massive springs, not unlike giant trampoline springs.

Physical communication with the outside is through several tunnels suspended between the structures. These tunnels are designed to sever in response to severe external shock, rather than transmit the shock to the inner structure.[...]

The internal structure is about five stories high, and it is provisioned to support approximately 100 people for a very long time. It contains a water holding tank and water recycling equipment so that there is no need to replenish water from the outside. The water system is said to be self-sustaining for more than ten years with no addition of water. My own calculations indicate that this probably can only be accomplished with severe water rationing, since evaporation and subsequent loss to the outside cannot be prevented. Food provisioning is freeze-dried of American manufacture. There is sufficient for at least a year for the full compliment of 100.

The structure is stocked with a large library of CDs, DVDs, and other compact entertainment materials. Hardwire electronic links are redundant many times over. It is possible that the personnel inside the bunker can remain in contact with their outside supporters indefinitely. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 1:10 AM 0 comments

 
Friday, 28 March : Reporters' Log: War in Iraq

The Pentagon :: Nick Childs :: 1921GMT

We heard a public warning, if you like, from Donald Rumsfeld to two of Iraq's neighbours - Syria and Iran.

He said there had been information of shipments of equipment, including night-vision goggles, crossing the Syrian border into Iraq.

In terms of Iran, he said there were reports that evidence of several hundred Iraqi dissidents with loyalty to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard having a presence in Iraq.

In the latter case they considered that an unhelpful act. And in the case of the shipments was a hostile act.

Biara, northern Iraq :: Jim Muir :: 1701GMT

Thousands of Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters supported by US special forces have overrun the main strongholds in the mountains of north-east Iraq of the Ansar al-Islam.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist Muslim group accused by both the Americans and the Kurds of having links with terrorism and al-Qaeda.

After an operation which began at dawn, Peshmerga forces said they had captured all the main centres held by the Ansar, who had controlled a string of around forty villages and small towns in the mountain area.

Amman, Jordan :: Lyse Doucet :: 1159GMT

Today in Jordan they're expecting demonstrations in every single town and city, even in towns that have never seen protest before. It's not surprising given the newspapers people wake up to here.

The newspapers across the Arab world tend to display the views of the Iraqis, rather than the promises coalition forces.

One front page summarises Arab opinion. On one side it shows a picture of Palestinians suffering because of an Israeli action - a bulldozer - on their homes, and on the other side, another picture of an Iraqi suffering because of attack by American plane on his home.

Sir Galahad :: Owen Bennett Jones :: 1109GMT

The port of Umm Qasr is being de-mined by dolphins attached to cameras. Apparently they go down and see something suspicious, then come back and tell their handler there's something suspicious. He then gives them an explosive charge, they take it down, put it next to the suspicious object, come back, it blows up, and then they go down and look at it again!

It sounds implausible, but the Australians are using them, and everyone around here - including a very senior American commander - says it works. I hope to see it for myself when the Sir Galahad gets to
Umm Qasr.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 11:04 PM 0 comments

 
All in the Neocon Family
Jim Lobe, AlterNet, March 26, 2003

What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family -- an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations. [...]
...
...
This list of intricate, overlapping connections is hardly exhaustive or perhaps even surprising. But it helps reveal an important fact. Contrary to appearances, the neocons do not constitute a powerful mass political movement. They are instead a small, tighly-knit clan whose incestuous familial and personal connections, both within and outside the Bush administration, have allowed them grab control of the future of American foreign policy.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:32 PM 0 comments

 
No cakewalk
Robert Novak, CNN, March 26, 2003

"There were some who were supportive of going to war with Iraq who described it as a cakewalk," Tim Russert told Donald Rumsfeld on NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

The secretary of Defense seemed surprised. "I never did," he replied. "No one I know in the Pentagon ever did." While Rumsfeld spoke the literal truth, his response was still disingenuous.

Rumsfeld had been asked about the cakewalk description several times, rejecting it but still defending the premises for such a judgment.

While its source was not technically a Pentagon official, it was a longtime Rumsfeld friend and lieutenant: Kenneth Adelman, appointed by the secretary to the Defense Policy Board (an outside advisory panel). In demanding military action against Saddam Hussein, Adelman has promised repeatedly there would be no military difficulty.[...]

...........................

THE PROPHETS OF WAR
Remembering what we were told to expect
The War in Context, March 2003

Vice President Dick Cheney:

"I think it will go relatively quickly...Weeks rather than months."
"Face the Nation," CBS, March 16, 2003
..........................

THE PROPHETS OF WAR
Remembering what we were told to expect
The War In Context, March 26, 2003

Ken Adelman, Pentagon Defense Policy Board member, former assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975 to 1977 and deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and arms-control director under President Reagan:

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."
Washington Post, February 13, 2002

"[When the United States 'liberates' Iraq] we will have plenty of allies. Foremost will be the Iraqi people cheering from their rooftops just as they did at the onset of the Gulf War in 1991. And there will be dancing in Baghdad streets just as the liberated Afghans did in Kabul a few months ago."
USA Today, September 4, 2002

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:23 PM 0 comments

 
Good morrrrrning, Iraq....
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, March 27, 2003

In fact, it's taken less than a week for American reporters to begin to doubt Pentagon briefers (foreign reporters began in that mode) – a passage that took years in Vietnam – and for the briefers to begin to look like participants in the long ago Saigon press briefings that included the infamous "body counts," mockingly nicknamed by reporters "the Five O'clock Follies." In other words, a week into the war the first cracks in what may become a media "credibility gap" are already showing.

As it turns out, Pentagon policies for controlling the media were quite brilliant, but also dependent on the delivery of the promised war – a brief "cakewalk" of liberation. [...]

Both CBS and ABC last night showed the first lingering shots I've seen of wounded Iraqi children from that Baghdad market, already commonplace shots on global TV sets but not here. Another mainstream first, one week in: shots of "the other side" as fighters, of a Fedayeen jeep with a machine gun mounted on it and of Fedayeen in a trench, guns aimed as if in preparation for an ambush, all taken from Iraqi TV.

Perhaps even more fascinating, one week into the war, most of the late arguments and charges of the Vietnam era have reemerged and the official recriminations are already beginning. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:07 PM 0 comments

 
Thousands flee Basra in search of food and water
David Fox and Paul Harris, The Independent, March 28, 2003

Thousands of tired and thirsty civilians trudged out of the besieged southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday in a desperate search for food and water.

Families drove ramshackle vehicles or walked in single file down a rail track past British Army checkpoints on the western side of the city.

"It's been 'pow, pow, pow' all the time," said Maklim Mohammed as he crossed a main bridge leading south from the city, which stands at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. "I can't stand it. I'm nervous and I'm thirsty."

Basra's 1.5 million inhabitants have endured days without water. Red Cross engineers have managed amid the battles around the city partly to restore a water treatment centre that had been down since last Friday when cables carrying electricity to the plant were cut by Allied bombardment. But most homes still have no access to potable water. People have resorted to collecting water from rivers around the city, which are polluted with sewage, prompting warnings from the UN of a potential cholera epidemic. Children are at risk from diarrhoea, which is already a big killer of Iraqi children under five.

Most of those leaving yesterday were on foot without their belongings, apparently seeking shelter with friends or relatives at Zubayr, 12 miles to the south. Most were men who said they would try to return to Basra if they could find supplies.

"We are very thirsty. Our families are very thirsty," one of those leaving said. "Where can we find water? The British told us to go down the road [south]."

In Zubayr the position was only marginally better. British and American troops handed out bottled water to an agitated crowd who begged them for more. Many said they had not had water for almost 10 days.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:57 PM 0 comments

 
Hussein hopes to draw U.S. into urban combat
Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2003

Saddam Hussein hopes to turn the battle for Baghdad into a Mesopotamian version of Stalingrad.

The Iraqi president is an admirer of Josef Stalin. He has modeled his ruthless rule and cult of personality on the Soviet leader. As the U.S.-led invasion force stretches its supply lines to reach Baghdad, military analysts and Iraq experts say Hussein's most loyal, best-equipped troops are digging in to try to inflict the kind of carnage that stopped Adolf Hitler at the Volga River in 1943.

A first and crucial test is likely to come near the cities of Karbala and Al Kut along a so-called "red line" that forms a ring south of Baghdad, where U.S. troops are massing now. If Hussein can avoid a military collapse there that would drag down his entire regime, analysts expect him to regroup his forces for street-to-street combat in the capital.

And then, he appears to be counting on the modern weapons of media and world politics for his survival.

The Iraqi regime has spent years preparing for this showdown. Its strategists have researched U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. Experts say videotapes of the movie "Black Hawk Down," which recounts the frenzied combat in Mogadishu in 1993, circulated among military men in Baghdad in recent months.

"People say to me you are not the Vietnamese, you have no jungles and swamps to hide in," said Tarik Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, in an interview published recently by the International Institute for Strategic Studies here. "I reply, 'Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings be our jungles.' "

In tactics, technology and firepower, the force closing in on Baghdad is far superior to the U.S. military that fought in Vietnam, or the German army that slowly froze, starved and ran out of ammunition in the snow and rubble of Stalingrad. But Hussein's strategy relies as much on psychology as it does on armament. [...]
...........................................................

'We will turn Bush into a dog'
The Americans badly miscalculated by believing that the Iraqis would welcome them as liberators
Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, March 27, 2003

Dogs do not live happy lives in Iraq. Considered "unclean" by Muslims and rarely kept as pets, most of those that you see are feral curs slinking through the streets late at night.

It's normal practice for Iraqi soldiers to cull the packs with machine guns. But the commandos of Saddam's fedayeen, terrorist-shock troops organized in the mid-1990s, sometimes tear a dog limb from limb and sink their teeth in its flesh. Repulsive brutality, after all, is a badge of honor for these troops; this particular rite of passage was even captured on a government video.

"The fedayeen are animals!" says a young Iraqi woman who fled her country for Jordan a few months ago. "They are trained to be like animals! Everybody is frightened of them."
And even though there are only an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 of these militia, inside Iraq it feels as if the fedayeen -- meaning "those who sacrifice" -- are everywhere.

These days, Iraqis say, they are forcing others to put their lives on the line in the face of the American invasion. "Saddam has succeeded in establishing a strong structure that is loyal to him," says Issam Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now in exile. "These fedayeen are not only fighting the Americans, they are mainly against those who want to surrender or refuse to fight."

And yet, neither the frightened young woman, nor Chalabi (who is no relation to a would-be exile leader with the same last name), nor any of the other Iraqis or Arabs I've talked to since the fighting began last week, believes that the Iraqis' resistance to the United States is solely a matter of intimidation and fear. That plays a part; the role of the fedayeen is important. But the resistance to the United States "is a matter of Iraqi patriotism," says Chalabi. "No one will accept the Americans' presence there. And if you say anything about me, say this: I am against the war. I am against the occupation."

American administration officials and sympathetic pundits fundamentally miscalculated by believing that, as some exiles told them, because the Iraqi people hate Saddam, they would love their American "liberators." "That's where you went wrong," a Lebanese friend tells me, summing up sentiments I've heard all over the Arab world, "The Iraqis do hate Saddam -- but they do not love you." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:58 PM 0 comments

 
Whoever Wins the War, The US has Lost the Peace
by Adrian Hamilton, The Independent, March 28, 2003

...In the Allies' Central Command HQ in Doha, they produce images to show the precision of Western bombing and the rapidity of the US push on Iraq. Walk down the road and the studios of al-Jazeera are pumping out images of a Third World country trying vainly to fight back against a hyperpower of infinite technological superiority. There is no doubt which version most of the world believes. Even in India, where anti-Muslim feelings lie close to the surface, you don't meet a single person who thinks this is anything other than an American enterprise fought for selfish reasons. "Why," they ask you in genuinely concerned terms, "is Blair going along with it?"

It's difficult to know what would shift this view. An early victory would only confirm the image of humiliating Western technological superiority. Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons might raise a counter-reaction, although even here many in the Third World would regard this as understandable given the technical disparity. But an outpouring of Iraqi delight at being freed from Saddam won't change opinion, as it would be taken as a byproduct of American actions, not its main intention.

Donald Rumsfeld's suggestion that victory will bring a thousand friends misses the point. [...]This war is being fought by the Americans and British, with a few thousand Australians and a couple of special forces companies from Poland – an entirely Western enterprise.

Other countries have acceded to American requests for facilities, but if they have wanted to keep their help discreet, it is for good reason. Public opinion is clear and unambiguous and the war is only making the streets angrier at their governments' sell-out. It is not for nothing that the ruler of Qatar acts as host to the Allied headquarters and al-Jazeera at the same time, or that Turkey finally failed to give the US more than rights of overflight. Democracy in the Middle East should not be understood to presuppose pro-Americanism. Just the opposite.

If that is what Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney believe then they are fooling themselves, never mind anyone else. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:40 PM 0 comments

 
Raw, Devastating Realities That Expose the Truth About Basra
by Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 28, 2003

Two British soldiers lie dead on a Basra roadway, a small Iraqi girl – victim of an Anglo American air strike – is brought to hospital with her intestines spilling out of her stomach, a terribly wounded woman screams in agony as doctors try to take off her black dress.

An Iraqi general, surrounded by hundreds of his armed troops, stands in central Basra and announces that Iraq's second city remains firmly in Iraqi hands. The unedited al-Jazeera videotape – filmed over the past 36 hours and newly arrived in Baghdad – is raw, painful, devastating.

It is also proof that Basra – reportedly "captured'' and "secured'' by British troops last week – is indeed under the control of Saddam Hussein's forces. Despite claims by British officers that some form of uprising has broken out in Basra, cars and buses continue to move through the streets while Iraqis queue patiently for gas bottles as they are unloaded from a government truck.

A remarkable part of the tape shows fireballs blooming over western Basra and the explosion of incoming – and presumably British – shells. The short sequence of the dead British soldiers – over which Tony Blair voiced such horror yesterday – is little different from dozens of similar clips of dead Iraqi soldiers shown on British television over the past 12 years, pictures which never drew any condemnation from the Prime Minister.

The two Britons, still in uniform, are lying on a roadway, arms and legs apart, one of them apparently hit in the head, the other shot in the chest and abdomen.

Another sequence from the same tape shows crowds of Basra civilians and armed men in civilian clothes, kicking the soldiers' British Army Jeep and dancing on top of the vehicle. Other men can be seen kicking the overturned Ministry of Defense trailer, which the Jeep was towing when it was presumably ambushed.



- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:26 PM 0 comments

 
Anger as at Least 55 Killed in Baghdad Market
by Hassan Hafidh, Reuters, March 28, 2003

BAGHDAD - Distraught Iraqis crowded into a hospital in a northern suburb of Baghdad on Friday, comforting or searching for scores of loved ones they say were killed or injured in an air raid on a busy market.

Dr Osama Sakhari, speaking at Baghdad's Al Noor Hospital after a day of heavy raids across the capital, said he had counted 55 people killed and more than 47 wounded from the market in the city's Shula neighborhood.

This Reuters correspondent personally counted five bodies in one of the hospital's morgue units, after an incident which could further undermine U.S. efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said at least 58 people had been killed.

"The number of the casualties...is 58 martyrs and I believe there will be more and the number of people injured is very big," he told the al-Hayat-LBC Arabic television channel, denouncing the U.S.-led invasion force.

"My explanation for their increasing crimes against civilians is that they are feeling the weight of the series of defeats which we inflicted on them on the outskirts of the cities and in the desert."

Arabic language television stations al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya said rescuers were looking for more victims, and showed pictures of people carrying coffins out of the hospital.

Al-Jazeera's correspondent said: "An Iraqi official told us that the search is still going on for those trapped under the rubble." The television showed pictures of bodies, including those of two children.

ARAB ANGER

Television pictures of bodies and damage in Iraq have fueled Arab anger against the U.S.-led invasion which Washington says is not aimed at ordinary Iraqis. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:24 PM 0 comments

 
Hack Attack Hits Al-Jazeera Site for Showing U.S. Dead
Bob Mims, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 28, 2003

The Iraqi war raged into cyberspace Thursday, and a Salt Lake City-based Internet service provider became the battleground as hackers pro- and anti-American launched digital salvos.

Because it showed the graphic, bloody images of American prisoners of war executed by Iraqi forces earlier this week, the English-language Web site of Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera (english.aljazeera.net) has been intermittently taken down by hackers.

On Thursday morning, though, a shadowy hacker group calling itself the "Patriot Freedom Cyber Force Militia" claimed responsibility for actually hijacking the Al-Jazeera site and redirecting it to a patriotically themed Web page depicting a red, white and blue United States map with the message, "God Bless Our Troops."

That unauthorized page was nested into computers run by the Networld Connections Inc. from 8 a.m. Thursday until 10:30 a.m. when it was removed.

But merely taking the bogus Al-Jazeera creation offline did not prevent the 75,000-customer Utah ISP from bearing the wrath of anti-war hackers enraged by Al-Jazeera's cyber-abduction. [...]

Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for Al-Jazeera, was apparently not impressed with the creativity involved. Instead, he blasted Thursday's diversions of the site as "a frontal, vicious attack on freedom of the press."

And how did hackers slip their detoured Al-Jazeera site onto Utah's Networld, even if only for 2 1/2 hours? Bowman said they took advantage of the ISP's free online Web site design template -- a service offered to member families.

Bowman admitted to mixed feelings over the intrusion. As the operator of the ISP, he was upset with his network's security being breached; as an American, he understands the rage over the gruesome pictures Al-Jazeera aired. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:21 PM 0 comments

 
Drowning the war
The Guardian, March 26, 2003

One of the most popular sites on the web this week is a list of rules for an imaginary drinking game. Here is a selection

Have a drink when:

· Bush is called a crusader
x2 if it's by Saddam

· Saddam is called evil
x2 if it's by Bush

· Iraqi troops surrender to the media
x2 if to a unmanned vehicle or inanimate object

· Iraq uses weapons it claims not to have

· The United States uses weapons it won't allow Iraq to have

· Saddam uses a scud he doesn't have

· France goes pro US invasion

· Germany takes the side of the US in a global war

· Dominique de Villepin reminds you of that annoying rich kid in high school.

· Anybody "warns" anybody

· The word "escalation" is used

· Iraq and the US are shown seated next to each other in the United Nations

· The media compares the war to Blackhawk Down

· You change your opinion on the war

· The Saudis do something the US accuses Iraq of doing

· North Korea does something the United States accused Iraq of doing

· Al-Jazeera is referred to as the "Arab CNN"
Finish your drink if CNN is referred to as the "American al-Jazeera"

· The conflict is compared to the Vietnam war
x2 if the word "quagmire" is used

· Saddam goes missing
Finish your drink if he is confirmed killed

· The Pope is said to "pray for peace"

· Bush mispronounces the word "nuclear"

· If you can't find Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, or the United Arab Emirates on a map
x2 if you even own a map of the region
Finish your drink if you can pronounce them all correctly


· An American reminds the French of the second or first world wars
x2 if a Frenchman reminds the Americans of the Revolutionary war

· Someone reports from "the Arab street"

· Anyone in the Bush administration says "make no mistake"

· Tariq Aziz's glasses get larger

· Somebody says Saddam "tortures his own people"

· God picks a side
Finish your drink if its not yours

· A protest sign attacks Bush directly
x2 if it attacks Saddam directly

· Saddam is compared to Hitler
x2 if Bush is compared to Hitler

· Someone compares the size of Iraq to California or France

· The media refers to itself as "embedded"

· Someone says "shock and awe"

· The words "weapon(s) of mass destruction" are used
x2 if its shortened to "WMD"

· A US official uses the word "liberate"

· Bush says "innocent civilians"

· Bush quotes scripture
x2 if Saddam quotes the Koran

· Saddam shoots a gun into the air

· Bush directly addresses Iraqis
x2 if Saddam directly addresses Americans

· a Saddam body double is seen

· Someone refers to "coalition of the willing"
x2 if it is because a member is actually providing combat troops

· Media cameras on the Baghdad skyline focus on something that looks like an erect penis

· The media refuses to report something because of operational security
x2 if its immediately followed by a commentator telling what will happen next

· The military learns of something for the first time from the media

· Ari Fleischer [Whitehouse spokesman] lies

· Any coalition representative mentions securing oil fields
x2 if immediatly followed by "for the benefit of the Iraqi people"

· This game is mentioned in the news
x2 if the Bush twins are playing it

· This is an edited version printed with permission from www.gulfwardrinkinggame.com.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:15 PM 0 comments

 
Stunning victories in Bush's War on the World

"And finally (for now), remember that Freeper boycott of French and German goods?The US has been trumped

Consumer fury seems to be on the rise. Demonstrators in Paris smashed the windows of a McDonald's restaurant last week, forcing police in riot gear to move in to protect staff and customers of the American fast-food outlet. The attackers sprayed obscenities and "boycott" on the windows.

In Indonesia, Iraq war opponents have pasted signs on McDonald's and other American food outlets, trying to force them shut by "sealing them" and urging Indonesians to avoid them.

In the Swiss city of Basel, 50 students recently staged a sit-down strike in front of a McDonald's to block customers' entry, waved peace signs and urged people to eat pretzels instead of hamburgers.

Anti-American sentiment has even reached provinces in Russia, where some rural eateries put up signs telling Americans they were unwelcome, according to an Izvestianewspaper report.

A German bicycle manufacturer, Riese und Mueller GmbH, canceled all business deals with its American suppliers.

"Americans only pay attention when money is on the line," director Heiko Mueller told Reuters, whose firm buys $300,000 worth of supplies from half a dozen American firms each year.

Bush's War on the World, much as his War on the Economy, is going stunningly well. Not even a partisan like me can deny that."

---found this posted on March 26, 2003, on DailyKos.com
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:05 PM 0 comments

 
Black Americans sceptical about war
Kevin Anderson, BBC News Online, March 27, 2003

Atlanta: ... There is a divide between black and white Americans on the war in Iraq.

A New York Times poll found that 82% of whites said the US should take military action to force Saddam Hussein from power, but only 44% of blacks approved of the use of force.

And young black Americans are particularly sceptical.

'Stolen election'

"People are dying unnecessarily. We don't know what we are going to war for," said Iyante Miller as she waited to get into the club.

"First it's Bin Laden, then to Saddam Hussein. It's crazy," she said. She doubts the link between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime.

"We're just going on what Bush is saying," she said, and that is not enough to convince her of the need for war.

She, like many black Americans, mistrusts President Bush. They still believe that he stole the election. [..]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:20 PM 0 comments

 
Karbala and Najaf: Shia holy cities
BBC News Online, March 26, 2003

The holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, located deep in the Shia heartland of southern Iraq, have traditionally opposed the secularist Baathist rulers in Baghdad.
They are home to some of the most magnificent and sacred shrines of the Shia branch of Islam and are leading centres for scholars of Islamic theology.

The fabled shrines and colleges have long been under the rule of the Baath Party. Saddam Hussein, who claims descent from the Prophet, has put his own pictures on the shrines.

And many Shia clerics from the holy cities have been murdered by the ruling regime. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:16 PM 0 comments

 
Where do Iraqis get their news?

By Kathryn Westcott, BBC News Online, March 27, 2003

Iraqi state television and radio has been struggling to broadcast over the past few days, following US bombing raids on Baghdad. And in Basra, the country's second city, British forces have taken state media off the air completely after destroying transmitters in the early hours of Thursday.

So, how does this leave Iraqis in terms of their access to coverage of the war? [...]
..................................

Arab media go to war
Paul Harper, BBC News, March 27, 2003

Alongside the military campaign in Iraq, a battle is being waged in the Arab media to be the first to bring the most dramatic pictures to people's television screens.

It is the first time war in the Middle East has been fought live on Arab television, and the impact could be far-reaching.

Satellite television came of age in the last Gulf War, pioneered by the American news channel, CNN.

That was the station people worldwide tuned to, to see the very latest pictures, or even to watch events live.

Since then, Arab governments and companies have invested heavily in technology that allows them to broadcast news as it happens to anyone with a satellite dish.

'Insatiable demand'

The best known of these new Arab TV stations is al-Jazeera, which has transformed its host country, Qatar, from a tiny Gulf state largely unknown outside the region, into a major force in Arab and international politics. [al-Jazeera is the only non-Iraqi broadcaster in Basra ]

War produces an almost insatiable demand for the latest images and information.

And it was 11 September 2001 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan that made al-Jazeera essential viewing in the Middle East, just as CNN had been in the Gulf War a decade earlier.

Just as CNN had been the only source of live pictures of bombs falling on Baghdad in 1991, al-Jazeera became the only source of live pictures of the American assault on Kabul and the latest videotaped messages from Osama bin Laden.

CNN was quickly challenged by other international broadcasters, including the BBC, and al-Jazeera is now fighting for viewers with other Arab TV stations that are only too aware of the importance of this new instantaneous medium-- in the battle for hearts and minds.

New contenders

Some of the most dramatic pictures in the current conflict, such as the aerial bombardment of Baghdad, have been relayed by government-run Abu Dhabi Television, based in the United Arab Emirates.

A few weeks ago, a new contender joined the fray in the shape of al-Arabiyya, a slick-looking satellite news service backed by Saudi money and based in Dubai. Arab news junkies - who in these days of crisis in the Middle East include just about anyone with access to a satellite dish - are likely to be channel-hopping between al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi and al-Arabiyya.

One other button on the remote control in danger of being worn down is al-Manar - the impressively well-produced news station of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. [...]Arab viewers are grateful they are no longer dependent on the Americans to watch events as they're unfolding.

But the governments are probably apprehensive that graphic, instantaneous images of the fighting are becoming a big factor in fuelling popular anger about a war that is almost universally opposed in the Arab world.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:14 PM 0 comments

 
Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim
smh.com.au, March 28 2003

Near Basra, Iraq: British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra.

At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:04 PM 0 comments

 
Charity calls off event with Sarandon
The United Way says her anti-war views made her speaking engagement ''divisive'' and brought complaints.
Leonora LaPeter, St. Petersburg Times, March 27, 2003

The United Way of Tampa Bay canceled an upcoming event featuring Susan Sarandon after getting three dozen complaints from donors and others about the actor's opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Sarandon, the 56-year-old Academy Award winner, was to be the keynote speaker at the April 11 daylong event sponsored by the United Way's women's leadership group and designed to inspire volunteerism in the community. Her brother, Terry Tomalin, outdoors writer at the St. Petersburg Times, asked her to participate in the event six months ago. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:00 PM 0 comments

 
Top Rumsfeld adviser resigns over ethics
By Pamela Hess, UPI Pentagon Correspondent, March 27, 2003

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- A top adviser to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and one of the intellectual architects of the war with Iraq resigned his post Thursday amid an ethics controversy.

Richard Perle resigned his chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board but is remaining a member of the board, according to the Pentagon.

"With our nation at war and American troops risking their lives to protect our freedom and liberate Iraq, I am dismayed that your valuable time, and that of others in the Department of Defense and the administration might be burdened by the controversy surrounding my chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board," Perle wrote in a letter Wednesday to Rumsfeld.

Perle, one of George W. Bush's foreign policy advisers during the 2000 presidential campaign, was hired last week by the bankrupt Global Crossing telecommunications company to help it restructure a deal to sell a majority holding in the company to Hutchison Telecommunications and government-run Singapore Technologies Telemedia. The United States government -- particularly the Defense Department and the FBI -- has national security concerns about the deal, according to The New York Times. It would put Global Crossing's fiber optics network -- which the military uses -- under Chinese ownership.

The newspaper wrote about the deal Friday, an article Perle disputed in a 10-point statement issued Thursday.

"I deeply resent the accusation that I am using a public position (the DPB) for private gain. Whatever help I was to Global had to do with 30 years of experience in these matters, and nothing to do with the DPB."

The Defense Policy Board provides top Pentagon leaders with "independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy," according to its charter.

Perle said he was not paid for his influence and access to top Pentagon leaders but rather for his grasp of national security issues.

"It was clearly understood that I would not present their case to the government or lobby for them in any way and I have not done so. My role was limited to helping them understand the government's concerns and how to satisfy them. (This is complicated and much more difficult than one would imagine)," Perle wrote.Perle said in his resignation letter he would not accept any compensation for the consulting work he did for Global Crossing and that "any fee for past service would be donated to the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq."

The New York Times reported that Perle is to be paid $725,000 by Global Crossing, including $600,000 if the government approves the sale of the company to the Hutchison joint venture. [...]

Rumsfeld accepted the resignation Thursday.

"I am grateful for his willingness to continue to serve on the board. I should add that I have known Richard Perle for many years and know him to be a man of integrity and honor," Rumsfeld said in a prepared statement.

As a member of the unpaid board, Perle would not be subject to the same ethics rules as the chairman. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:53 PM 0 comments

 
Bush Says War to Last However Long It Takes
By Randall Mikkelsen, Washington Post, March 27, 2003

CAMP DAVID, Md. (Reuters) - Faced with new fears the Iraq war could go on for months, President Bush said on Thursday the conflict will last "however long it takes to win" with the removal of Saddam Hussein as leader.

Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair concluded two days of talks at the president's Camp David retreat with an appeal to the United Nations to immediately resume the oil-for-food program in Iraq to address urgent humanitarian needs triggered by the week-old war.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:44 PM 0 comments

 
Reporters on the Job: SMUCKER OUT OF IRAQ
Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 2003 (edition)

Philip Smucker, a contract reporter for the Monitor and The Daily Telegraph of London, was escorted by the US Marines from the front lines of the war in Iraq Thursday. He is being taken to Kuwait, the Pentagon says, because of information Smucker reported in a broadcast appearance with CNN early Wednesday.

"My understanding of the facts at this point from the commander on the ground is that this reporter was reporting, in real time, positions, locations, and activities of units engaged in combat," says Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. "The commander felt it was necessary and appropriate to remove [Smucker] from his immediate battle space in order not to compromise his mission or endanger personnel of his unit."

Smucker's work in the Monitor is not at issue, but we have read the transcript of the CNN interview and it does not appear to us that he disclosed anything that wasn't already widely available in maps and in US and British radio, newspaper, and television reports in that same news cycle. Of course, the Pentagon has the final say in the field about any threat the information reported might pose.

We are disappointed Smucker has been removed. He is an experienced war correspondent who understands the gravity of such situations and not one who would knowingly put US troops - and himself - in jeopardy. Even during his short time in Iraq, he gave Monitor readers valuable insights into the campaign. Smucker has also covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Cambodia for a variety of publications, including The Daily Telegraph, US News and World Report, and The Washington Times.

Smucker was one of several hundred journalists in Iraq who are not officially "embedded" with US troops. But he and Monitor photographer Andy Nelson had crossed into Iraq from Kuwait as part of a US Marines convoy. [...]

Paul Van Slambrouck
Editor
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:39 PM 0 comments

 
Villepin refuses to say which side he supports
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor, Telegraph.co.uk, March 28, 2003

France's attempt to repair relations with America and Britain over Iraq backfired yesterday when Dominique de Villepin, their foreign minister, refused to say which side he supported.

During a speech in London, M de Villepin said he hoped for "a swift conclusion with the minimum possible number of casualties".

But asked by The Telegraph whether he hoped American and British forces would win the military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein, he replied angrily: "I'm not going to answer. You have not been listening carefully to what I said before. You already have the answer."

M de Villepin had come to London to mend fences after the bitter disputes ... [...] ...But his apparent reluctance to choose sides will have done serious damage to his charm offensive. Senior British officials said they were "stunned".

Embarrassed French officials tried to salvage the situation by pointing out that, on French television on Monday, M de Villepin said: "Clearly, we hope the US will win this war quickly
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:33 PM 0 comments

 
US soldiers 'are using Jordan to enter Iraq'
By Justin Huggler in Maan, Jordan, The Independent. 28 March, 2003

This dusty, impoverished corner of Jordan is making the country's authorities nervous. For one thing, there is the protest against the war in Iraq that the people of Maan plan to hold today – a protest they call the "march of the coffins".

Then there is the military base at Jafr, 50 miles away in the desert, where locals say they have seen hundreds of US soldiers arrive in the last few months, plus trucks carrying tanks and armoured vehicles.

It encapsulates Jordan's dilemma – how to juggle the pressure from its ally, the United States, to help with the war in Iraq, with the fury of a population that is opposed to it.

Salfa abu Tayi – the grand-daughter of Auda abu Tayi, the Bedouin fighter of Lawrence of Arabia fame – says she has seen US soldiers at the base, and tanks covered with canvas. It is an open secret that small teams of US, and possibly British, special forces are operating in western Iraq out of Jordan.

Out at the Jafr military base, Blackhawk helicopters could be seen flying in – confirming one part of her story. It was not possible to confirm any more before Jordanian security arrived to say the road was closed.

The Jordanian government has admitted there are 6,000 US troops here, but says they are only here to protect Jordan from Iraqi missile attack and train Jordanian troops.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:29 PM 0 comments

 
Practice to Deceive
Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.
By Joshua Micah Marshall, Washington Monthly, April 2003

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:15 AM 0 comments

 
Exploring the possibilities following an invasion of Iraq.

Uggabugga: "There has been an unexpectedly large number of visitors - especially to see the Invade-Iraq-possibilities diagram. " [September 2002]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:13 AM 0 comments

 
The Perle Plan
Uggabugga Central, September 2002

Richard Perle was in a Starbucks yesterday and left in haste, accidentally leaving behind a computer disk. It contained PowerPoint slides used in a presentation for George Bush and other senior advisors. Most of the material is not new, but readers will be interested in seeing the long-term objective of the Bush administration, known by insiders as the Perle Plan.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:53 AM 0 comments

 
Profile: Washington hawk Donald Rumsfeld
BBC News, March 3, 2003

... Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, once described his boss as "a constant, active source of energy... he generates a mini-storm wherever he goes".

Henry Kissinger once said that Mr Rumsfeld was the most ruthless man he knew.

He added that he was a "skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability and substance fuse seamlessly".

Like Dick Cheney, Mr Rumsfeld is in a top job for the second time round - he served as the country's youngest ever defence secretary from 1975-77 under President Gerald Ford.

High-profile roles

He spent three years in the US navy before starting out his political career as an assistant to a congressman.

Twenty years and several jobs later, he was appointed defence secretary for the first time - nearly 25 years before he took the post under George W Bush.

Much of the time between was spent in big business, including stints as chief executive officer of pharmaceutical company GD Searle & Co, CEO of General Instrument Corporation and Chairman of Gilead Sciences.

But he also continued to advise Republican administrations and exercise his influence over issues of defence throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Ambition and ability

Correspondents say the 70-year-old former Princeton University wrestler is a tough and determined character.

Mr Rumsfeld wrote a pamphlet known as Rumsfeld's Rules - famous in US political circles - which collects nearly 30 years' worth of quotations and reflections by himself and others.

In a chapter titled "Keeping Your Bearings in the White House", one entry reads: "If you are not criticised, you are not doing your job".

Another, in a chapter headed "Serving in Government", states: "If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right".
.....................
[...Amen!]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:38 AM 0 comments

 
Antiwar Protester Draws Inspiration From Thoreau's Call for Civil Disobedience
Roy MacGregor, Globe & Mail/Canada, March 26, 2003

WALDEN POND, MASSACHUSETTS -- She still loves him.[...]

Here, in a tiny cabin that cost him $28.12 to build in 1845, Thoreau wrote his famous nature epic, Walden, and also an essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, that is, once again, ringing across America.

Alice Daly comes here often to walk, to read and to think about Thoreau and his inspiration for the antiwar movement. ...

I'm trying for civil disobedience," she laughs.

Thoreau's essay, originally delivered as a lecture in the nearby town of Concord, came out of his decision to go to jail rather than pay a tax to support the Mexican War. His argument in favor of passive resistance became inspiration for Gandhi as well as for Martin Luther King, Jr. For civil-rights activists and Vietnam War protesters, it was the one irrefutable argument against any price being put on personal conscience.

Now, in this early spring of the war in Iraq, it is once again in the air.

"He's truly a wonderful thinker," says Daly. "Especially for today.
"He'd be against the war; of course he would. He was against the Mexican War. He would think like I do."

For the record, Daly, a massage therapist in nearby Concord, thinks a great deal about what is happening in her country these days. She cannot, for example, bear the twisted logic that says, "We have to save the children; we have to go to war."

"How," she also asks, "can you bomb people into democracy?"[...]
............................................

What Democracy Looks Like: The Streets of CairoGary Leupp, Counterpunch, March 25, 2003

“Show me what democracy looks like!” begins a chant often heard at recent U.S. antiwar demonstrations. “This is what democracy looks like!” comes the reply. People in the streets, marching, fired up with righteous rage, determination to stop the imperialist juggernaut and faith in the possibility of a better world. This is what we are now seeing, too, in the Arab world.[...]

The corporate media has provided some minimal reportage on these demonstrations, which have occurred throughout the Arab world, from Rabat and Casablanca to Beirut and Amman. Rarely in citing the numbers do they note that in most parts of the Arab world such demonstrations are illegal and that those who participate are often putting their lives on the line; [...]

The biggest demonstrations (aside from those in Baghdad) have taken place in Sana’a, Damascus, Cairo, Khartoum, Casablanca, Rabat, Manama and Beirut. They’ve occurred in countries aligned with the U.S., such as Egypt and Morocco, and those dubbed “terror-sponsoring” by the U.S. (Syria, Sudan).

But the most significant, arguably, have taken place in Cairo. This metropolis of 17 million is the cultural capital of the Arab world, and the capital of Egypt, which dependent on $ 2 billion in U.S. aid every year, is a classic case-study of a client state.

What happens in Cairo may determine whether the Arab antiwar movement will deal serious blows to imperialism and its loyal (if often nervous) satraps ...[...]

...........................................

Bearing Witness to a Monstrous Wrong
Why Protest? Why Write?
Bruce Jackson, Counterpunch, March 26, 2003

Most email I get is from readers suggesting links they think might be of interest or people submitting articles or ideas for articles. A few are from morons saying things like "If you don't like this country go back where you came from!" If I didn't think it might encourage them to correspond further, I would ask what, exactly, would be accomplished by my moving from Buffalo back to Brooklyn?

.... But then there was this March 22 email from a Buffalo resident who asked what I thought were two very good questions.

He wrote:

Mr. Jackson,

Two things:

1. Everyone in this beautiful country has a voice and a choice. I don't agree with you most of the time but I respect your point of view. What are you attempting to accomplish with all of these anti-war protests? What is your goal?

2. Since you dislike so many of the "gutless" Common Council members, why don't you run for a seat?

Thank you very much.

I responded:

Dear Mr. _________:

Two good questions.

The first I can only begin to answer; the second I can answer completely.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I hope to accomplish two things when I take part in an anti-war protest.

One is to indicate to people who might not have given the matter any or much thought that there are many of us who disagree with the policy and path our government has taken and seems likely to continue to take. With the Vietnam war, we who opposed it were at first a minority and in time we became the majority and Nixon left the war—with almost exactly the terms he'd been offered his first day in the White House. As a result of the great public opposition that developed to the Vietnam war, our government has been far more cautious about involving itself in long-term land wars between two parties in distant countries. So the protest had an educational effect.

Equally important is bearing witness, the simple fact of standing with others and saying, "We think this is wrong." Even if no one listens, it is important to name a wrong when you see it.

As for running for Common Council, I have no temperament for elective politics and I would be bad at it. When someone does something really stupid or immoral or unethical I have a difficult time standing by in silence, and a lot of politics seems to be doing exactly that.

I wouldn't attempt to repair the dents in my car either, but I see nothing wrong in saying that the shop that did it performed well or badly and I feel I'm qualified to say to other people "They do good work" or "They do shoddy work."

We all do what we can do. I'm a schoolteacher and a writer. So that's what I do.[...]

...........................................

Desert Storms: A Battlefield from Hell
Bruce Jackson, Counterpunch, March 26, 2003

Winds in the Iraqi desert sandstorm have been blowing fifty miles and hour, bending date palms so their branches scrape the ground, reducing visibility to a few meters, rendering many weapons inoperable until the sand can be unpacked from barrels, chambers and sighting mechanisms

"It was biblical," a U.S. army colonel from Texas told a reporter. Were it not for digital cameras we'd have hardly any images at all because sand like this destroys film cameras. Rain fell yesterday, but it was mud falling from the sky, making everything worse rather than better. The temperature in the desert approached 100 degrees. If there is a battlefield from hell that is it.

And an ancient one. The invasion force in the Coalition of the Killing is driving its tanks across the motherland of Western culture.

This is the Tigris-Euphrates Valley you learned about in high school: the Cradle of Civilization.

It is the location of Sumer, home of the hero Gilgamesh who in the 23rd century before Christ (or so) went to the cedar forest with his companion Enkidu and killed the giant Humbaba, [...]

It is also the site of ancient Babylon, seat of the empire of the 18th century ruler Hammurabi, whose great code foreshadowed the code of Moses the Lawgiver half a millennium later. [..]

There is another text that was central to Hammurabi's world, less known but no less important. It is usually referred to as the "Enuma elish," which is simply the first two words: "When on high."

The Enuma Elish, it seems, was recited every year at the Babylonian New Year's festival. It is one of the world's great creation myths. It is also a story of how the gods gave power to mankind. [...]

...Time and the driven sand turned their palaces and empires to dust.

Sandstorms, windstorms—these are nothing new to the deserts of Iraq, and neither are death and destruction and raging empire and the rage for power.

Empires come and go,
conquerors come and are in turn themselves conquered,
they bring death and they in turn die or are killed.

The myth lives longer than they and the sand lives longer than either.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:32 PM 0 comments

 
Report: Elite Iraqi Column Heads for U.S. Force
Reuters, March 26, 2003; 3:34 PM

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A huge column of elite Republican Guard units streamed out of Baghdad Wednesday evening heading toward U.S. forces massed near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, CNN television reported.

"A major column including about 1,000 Iraqi mobile units that might include tanks, might include armored personnel carriers, trucks and other things are on their way down from Baghdad toward Najaf," CNN said, quoting one of its reporters who is traveling with the U.S. 7th Cavalry.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:27 PM 0 comments

 
Opinions Begin to Shift as Public Weighs War Costs
by Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder, New York Times, March 26, 2003

Americans say the war in Iraq will last longer and cost more than they had initially expected, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The shift comes as the public absorbs the first reports of allied setbacks on the battlefield.

At the same time, President Bush's campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power is producing sharp fissures at home.

The poll found that black Americans are far more likely than whites to oppose Mr. Bush's policy in Iraq. They are also much more likely to say that the cost of ousting Mr. Hussein was too high, as measured by the loss of life.

Over all, with the war not even a week old, the nation's opinion about the conflict appears to be in flux, driven by an intensity of coverage that has allowed television viewers seemingly to follow every move from their living rooms, and in an environment where many Americans say they remain unsure of Mr. Bush's rationale for the conflict.
Indeed, the Times/CBS News Poll found that the number of Americans who expected the war to be won quickly dropped 9 points from Saturday to Sunday, and 10 more points from Sunday to Monday. Those shifts coincided with television coverage of prisoners of war and battlefield casualties that seems to have caught at least some Americans — accustomed to the relatively bloodless victory in Afghanistan last year — by surprise.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:23 PM 0 comments

 
Halliburton Handed No-Bid Iraqi Oil Firefighting Contract
Agence France Presse, March 25, 2003

WASHINGTON - The US army said it gave the main Iraqi oil well firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co., a firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, without any bidding.

Kellogg, Brown and Root, a unit of Houston, Texas-based Halliburton, was handed the contract by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has been placed in charge of fighting the blazes.

The contract had not been put out to tender, said the Corps spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Gene Pawlik.

Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) had already been asked by the Pentagon to draw up plans for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq, Pawlik noted.

"It made the most sense to engage them in the near term as the company to get the mission done because they were familiar with the details of the fires themselves and what would be needed," he said.

The value of the contract would depend on the scale of the work.

The chief of Britain's armed forces, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, said Friday that Iraqi forces had set fire to seven oil wells in the south of the country.

KBR would claim the cost of its services plus two to five percent depending on how it executed the job, Pawlik said.

Shares in KBR parent Halliburton rose 54 cents or 2.68 percent to 20.66 dollars.

"KBR was selected for this award based on the fact that KBR is the only contractor that could commence implementing the complex contingency plan on extremely short notice," the company said in a statement.

KBR chose Houston-based Boots and Coots International, with which it has a services and equipment partnership, and Wild Well Control Inc. as firefighting subcontractors.

President George W. Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said he did not have the details.

"I think the question that people will want answered is: Do we have a plan in place to put out the oil fires, and is it a good plan to put out the oil fires?," he told a news conference. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:18 PM 0 comments

 
Eyewitness: Baghdad's shock and anger
BBC correspondents described scenes of confusion, anger and fear at the al-Shaab district of Baghdad after the air attack on Wednesday morning.

The BBC's Rageh Omaar said: "On either side of the road in the main bit of al-Shaab district I saw several destroyed houses and apartment blocks.

"I saw human remains, bits of severed hands, bits of skull.

"Al-Shaab is a residential district. I saw people in apartment blocks throwing out their belongings attempting to leave.

"It was a scene of confusion as emergency services tried to rush to the scene."

Our correspondents were unable to find an obvious military target in the area.

Reporter Andrew Gilligan said: "The nearest military building, civil defence headquarters, is I have to say at least a quarter of a mile away.

"What seemed to be two missiles have landed in a busy shopping parade in the suburb of al-Shaab - we could see the craters.

"Shops and businesses either side of the road were burnt out and blackened with their stock and fittings thrown dozens of feet into the air.

"An enraged crowd of several hundred waved the shoes and clothes of the victims at us, shouting 'Down with Bush, long live Saddam'. " [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:12 AM 0 comments

 
War Talk at Darrell's Barbershop Colbert I. King, Washington Post, March 22, 2003

... "I don't know why Iraqi TV is complaining about that decapitation strike launched against Saddam [Hussein] on Wednesday night," said Fishbone, who was seated in Darrell's chair getting a mustache trim. "It's not as if Saddam Hussein didn't know what was coming."

"Look at it this way," he said with a hint of exasperation in his voice. "You try to kill the man's daddy. Then the man, who just so happens to be the president of the United States and a macho man from Texas, gives you 48 hours to get out of the country. Now, that strikes me as a fair warning. The way I figure it, 'fair warning' is fair play."

Jerome, known for his trash talking, broke in. "Look, man. If a dude named George W. Bush surrounded me with troops from the 101st Airborne Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st Armored Division, the 24th and 7th Infantry Divisions, 60,000 Marines, five carrier battle groups in the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, and at least 1,000 combat-ready fighter jets and bombers, and then went on television and announced to the world that I had two days to clear the area, I'd fire back this message by the fastest means available: 'G.W., I'm already gone! Forward my mail to Bali.' "

The shop erupted in laughter.[...]
.....................................

Genre: Genie Jokes

A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.

The genie said, "OK. You released me from the lamp, blah blah blah. This is the fourth time this month and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes so you can forget about three. You only get one wish!"

The man sat and thought about it for a while and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?"

The genie laughed and said, "That's impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete...how much steel!! No, think of another
wish."

The man said OK and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally, he said, "I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive. So, I wish that I could understand women....know how they feel inside and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment....know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say 'nothing'....know how to make them truly happy...."

The genie asked, "Do you want that bridge two lanes or four?"
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:58 AM 0 comments

 
The Republican Guard: outgunned and outnumbered, but they never surrender
As US and British troops meet with fierce resistance, an expert on the Iraqi army profiles Saddam Hussein's elite security forces and warns they have the potential to be formidable opponents

Amatzia Baram, The Guardian, March 25, 2003

The Republican Guard consists of three armoured, one mechanised and two infantry divisions, with between 65,000 and 70,000 soldiers. Almost all of Iraq's top-of-the-line Soviet made and also Iraqi-assembled T-72 main battle tanks, some 600-700 of them, are to be found in the guard divisions. The regular army has to settle for the relatively antiquated T-55 and T-62 tanks.[...]

Special Republican Guard

The SRG is divided into four brigades and 14 battalions, and numbers around 20,000-25,000. It is a commando force armed mostly with light and medium weapons but it also has two tank battalions (70-90 T-72 tanks), three artillery batteries and three air defence batteries. Its main task is to maintain calm in the capital and put down any revolt or coup attempt. It also has security duties in four presidential palaces in Tikrit.

It is equipped with a large number of anti-tank weapons. The SRG command falls under the office of the special security organization, President Saddam's personal protection unit.

Most officers and soldiers in the SRG hail from President Saddam's clan and from his hometown of Tikrit, as well as some neighbouring and friendly clans and towns, like Dur and Beiji. Most officers know President Saddam personally; in their bar racks, posted by their beds, they have photographs of themselves and their families standing proudly beside the president. [...]

Jihaz Al-Amn al-Khass (Special Security Organisation)

The SSO was created in the late 80s as a small (a few hundred strong) force of mostly officers. Their main task was to coordinate all security bodies and the army for the protection of the president and his family. They were brought in from all army units and the Republican Guard, but most of them were natives of Tikrit or hailed from President Saddam's clan.

The SSO also helped with the procurement and protection of weapons of mass destruction and the technology necessary to produce them.

After the 1991 Gulf war this force was enlarged and is now about 2,000 strong. The SSO is the most feared body of all the Iraqi security forces. It is under the direct command of President Saddam's younger son, Qusay, and General Abed al-Hamid Mahmud, the president's personal secretary and clansman.

Himaya al-Ra'is (Presidential Protection)

The Himaya al-Ra'is protects the president and his family and his closest associates, including the ruling party's luminaries. It consists of a few thousand young men mostly from President Saddam's clan and region.

The Himaya, between 3,000 and 5,000 in total, are recruited straight from Uja, Tikrit, Beiji, Dur and their environs. At the age of 15 or 16, they are brought to the republican palace in Baghdad and trained for three years in the use of weapons, in survival and other skills before becoming bodyguards.

At the heart of the Himaya are 40 security men who belong to a little known unit named al-Murafiqin (the companions). These are the people who accompany the president carrying loaded weapons. They are the inner ring protecting President Saddam,[...]

Saddam's Fedayeen

This unit was established around 1995 by President Saddam's elder son Uday and trained by General Muzahim Sa'b Hasan, the ex-air force commander and a member of President Saddam's clan. Today it numbers around 20,000 but they are lightly armed and badly trained. They serve as an internal security body, mainly arresting and executing people suspected of opposition to the regime.[...]

Amatzia Baram is professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Haifa and fellow at the Saban Centre of the Brookings Institution in Washington.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:52 AM 0 comments

 
18 Ex-Guantánamo Captives Suddenly Out on Kabul Street
Carlotta Gall, New York Times, March 26, 2003

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 25 — Eighteen Afghans who were returned from the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay were freed today by the Afghan authorities and suddenly found themselves, shaken and tired, on the streets of Kabul.

The men are the largest group to be released from Guantánamo since the center was set up more than a year ago. Wearing new clothes provided by the American authorities, they stood at the Kabul prison gates, worrying about where to spend the night and how to get home. [...]Many prisoners were careful not to criticize the American authorities, showing a continued nervousness about their status in Afghanistan. "I think things should remain secret," said Abbasin, a student from Kabul, standing outside his home with his father and young brother. "It is too early to speak of conditions."

He and others questioned said they did not know of any suicide attempts in the detention facility, although American military officials have acknowledged that there have been a number. But the prisoners confirmed that the conditions were often hard to bear.

"There were three degrees of treatment; good, bad and the worst," said Murtaza, 28, a former Taliban fighter from the southern province of Helmand who spent two months in Shiberghan prison in northern Afghanistan and 10 months at Guantánamo.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:40 AM 0 comments

 
Wails of Yanqui Power: Life During Wartime
Jeffrey St Clair, Counterpunch, March 25, 2003

Wars come to be defined as much by the first shot fired as the last. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, unprovoked and unwarranted under international law, started with an illegal attempt at group assassination, as 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles and satellite-guided JDAM bombs pulverized a block of suburban Baghdad. ...

Like the opening night of a bad Hollywood movie, the initial strike on Saddam was propaganda, a two billion dollar demolition job designed to give the impression that Bush was merely interested in annihilating Saddam’s bloodlines, not occupying Iraq and its oil fields. ...

The botched assassination bid on Saddam and his junta was followed up by the much-hyped debut of Shock and Awe. Geared to play before the cameras, missiles and bombs shattered Baghdad, in what looked for all the world like a real-time ad for defense companies, like you might see in some arm dealer convention in Bahrain. This was psychological terrorism at its most pornographic and the western media wallowed in it. ...

It’s becoming impossible for me to watch the war on American television. The reporting isn’t just embedded; it’s in bed with the Pentagon. And CNN is the worst of all. The most useful thing the Iraqis have done so far is to boot the CNN crew out of Baghdad. Now if they could only do something about Aaron Brown. The preening Brown is the most unappetizing anchor on television.

His coy editorializing sets new standards for smugness. Worst of all, he’s done the near impossible by making Christiane Amanpour seem thoughtful. ...

Already the Bush brain trust is playing the blame game. First, the warlords at CentCom suggested that Iraqi resistance was being beefed up by the Russians, which must come as a relief to France. When in doubt, revert to the well-worn script of the Cold War.

Then, and most comically, they accused the Iraqis of cheating. They weren’t wearing uniforms. They suckered troops into ambushes. They holed up in towns and villages. A nation that won its revolution using guerrilla tactics is suddenly prudish about the Iraqis defending their nation the same way.

Now there’s a distant, confused look in Bush’s eyes. Always a tenuous creature in public at best, Bush was clearly rattled by the initial resistance of the Iraqi soldiers. The smirk is still there, but it quivers nervously now as he mumbles his bi-syllabic catch phrases. ...

Still, there’s a reason for hope. The real resistance to this war isn’t to be found with the butchers in Saddam’s Republican Guard, but on the streets of Cairo, Paris, New York, Madrid, London, Nablus, San Francisco and hundreds of other cities and towns around the globe. This is the face of the new internationalism.

Forget the UN, which exposed its impotence by failing to stand up to the bullying of Bush and Blair and pulled its workers out of the war zone.

The globalized and sustained opposition to this war dwarfs the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe. This is a movement that was born in Seattle, tempered by tear gas, truncheons and the blood of Genoa.

Now it has come of age with a vibrancy and exuberance few could have imagined and none predicted. Instead of abating, the movement grows daily. As Subcomandante Marcos said, “We have arrived.” Deal with it.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:51 PM 0 comments

 
Genre: Teachers Jokes

Four high school boys afflicted with spring fever skipped morning classes. After lunch they reported to the teacher that they had a flat tire.

Much to their relief she smiled and said: "Well, you missed a test today so take seats apart from one another and take out a piece of paper."
Still smiling, she waited for them to sit down. Then she said:

"First Question: Which tire was flat?"
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:32 PM 0 comments

 
One rule for them
Five PoWs are mistreated in Iraq and the US cries foul. What about Guantanamo Bay?

George Monbiot, The Guarduan, March 25, 2003

Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them".

He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected... against insults and public curiosity". This may number among the less heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions, ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defence department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:29 PM 0 comments

 
Saddam's strategy, his Fedayeen and a possible 'secret weapon.'
--reports posted on cursor.org. March 25, 2003
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:33 AM 0 comments

 
Budgetary Shock and Awe
New York Times Editorial, March 25, 2003

The American public transfixed by the unfolding invasion of Iraq may someday look up and discover too late what the Republican Congress did while the world's attention was elsewhere. Led by the Bush administration, the House and Senate are about to march under the public's radar screen and lead the country into a decade of budgetary disaster.

The country is facing plenty of financial problems: the economy, the cost of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Stunningly, Congress is preparing to make things far, far worse with more than $500 billion in tax cuts for the upper 1 percent of taxpayers. To finance these spoils for the wealthiest Americans, House leaders — who have taken the lead in hammering a budget together — plan deep cuts of $475 billion in vital programs for the bottom 99 percent. These direct hits will range from Medicaid to child care, education to food stamps, environmental protection to emergency doles for the poor.
[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:28 AM 0 comments

 
Channels of Influence
Paul Krugman, New York Times, March 25, 2003

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry — with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.[...]

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big `us.' " [...]


- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:26 AM 0 comments

 
Reporters' Log: War in Iraq
BBC News, 25 March, 2003, 17:56 GMT

The BBC's unrivalled team of correspondents is bringing you news from the Gulf and reaction from around the world. On this page BBC News Online logs their impressions and personal experiences as they watch events unfold.

Basra :: Richard Gaisford :: 1715GMT

This is a most significant development this evening. There is a popular uprising in the city of Basra.

People are rising up against the ruling Ba'ath regime, we are being told by military intelligence officers there that they have had enough.

Iraqi soldiers in the city are actually firing mortar rounds on their own people. That is the information we are getting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baghdad :: Paul Wood :: 1740GMT

Even gale force winds and a blinding sandstorm did not stop the B-52s. The rumble of heavy bombing was felt as much as heard in the centre of the Iraqi capital.

The airstrikes were targeted at the Medina division of the elite Republican Guards, digging in for what both sides agree will probably be a decisive encounter.

In the midst of all this Iraqi ministers are astonishingly confident, even relaxed. State television is tonight broadcasting a statement from Saddam Hussein. The message is this is a national struggle, not just a struggle for the survival of the regime.
-----------------------------------------------

Baghdad :: Andrew Gilligan :: 1516GMT

A very huge degree of sand is rushing through the city, there's a very limited visibility. It's starting to go away but what we have is a rainstorm now, so the gods must indeed be angry.

It's spared them a good deal of bombing....it would be very difficult for any pilot to see where to drop the bombs through this cloud of sand.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Washington D.C. :: Michael Buchanan :: 1408GMT

With a sandstorm currently swirling around parts of Iraq, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Meyers acknowledges that the US-led invasion will be delayed, but vowed it would not be stopped. He says that while the war plan is continuing apace, the coalition expects their toughest battles are ahead of them.

General Meyers says that as they near Baghdad, resistance will increase as US-led forces encounter Iraq's Republican Guard, whom he called the best equipped, the best trained, and reportedly the most loyal. But he says that was always expected to be the case and that coalition forces have prepared for it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baghdad :: Rageh Omaar :: 1310GMT

There's now a swirling wind full of sand here - it's put an almost a yellow or light-brown filter across the city.

From my hotel room which is on the banks of the Tigris River, I can't see across to the other side of the river bank. It's an absolutely blinding sandstorm, and I would have thought it would be almost impossible for helicopters to be flying in this weather.[...]



- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:12 AM 0 comments

 
Ominous Signs
Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch Diary, March 24, 2003

The timbre of war reporting changed on Sunday, from brazen hubris to a more nervous posture. Typical was a report in the London Financial Times by Victor Mallet, datelined the Iraq/Kuwait border, and titled, “Ominous Signs for Coalition in Battle for Umm Qasr. ...

... - difficulties that may lie ahead for the invasion force if it seeks to capture urban areas, the word "guerrilla" was used at the weekend by Colonel Chris Vernon, chief UK military spokesman in Kuwait, to explain the unexpectedly stiff resistance encountered in Umm Qasr.

...“Events…suggest the war will be much more complicated than President George W. Bush had hoped,” Mallet wrote. “One problem for the Americans is that however much the Iraqis hate Saddam Hussein, they do not appear to be overjoyed in the Shia Muslim south, at least about the prospect of a US occupation.

...Add in the extraordinary fragging attack on senior officers of the 101st Airborne, the Patriot downing an RAF plane, the news of casualties and one can see why the vainglorious predictions of the preceding week are dying down abruptly, as the prospect of serious city fighting begins to come into focus.

Terror Chief Quits : Another piece of news that almost got lost in the onrush of events was the resignation of Rand Beers, the top National Security Council official in the war on terror. He timed his exit to the expiry of Bush’s official ultimatum to Saddam (the US started sending Special Forces into Iraq 48 hours before the deadline
UPI quoted “intelligence sources” as saying “the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism.”"

.”"Hardly a surprise," UPI quoted one former intelligence official as saying. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies." [...]

Rumsfeld Again: The most surreal piece of hypocrisy belonged of course to DOD’s Rumsfeld, who threatened the Iraqis with war crimes trials for displaying American POWs on TV.

So what were all the photos of Iraqis surrendering?

For his part Bush said, "I expect Iraq to treat the prisoners of war just like, uh, we treat their prisoners." Like in Guantanamo?
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:46 PM 0 comments

 
The fatal pre-dawn knock
The Hindu, March 25, 2003

NADIMARG: For 11 Kashmiri Pandit families of Nadimarg village in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, the pre-dawn period on Monday turned out to be a nightmare. Twenty-four members belonging to their families were gunned down by militants posing as Army personnel.

"When I heard a knock, I opened the door and saw some gunmen asking us to come out for searches being conducted to flush out the militants. They were wearing Army uniforms and spoke Urdu and Kashmiri," said 60-year-old Chuni Lal, who escaped with injuries. "Later, all of us were asked to assemble outside the police post and the indiscriminate firing started," he said adding "when one of them said he (Chuni Lal) is still alive I pretended to be dead and thus survived".

His son, Deep, blamed the authorities for the killings.

"We had approached the Deputy Commissioner, Anantnag, on Saturday and told him that we had some apprehensions and asked for security to be strengthened. But he refused to listen," he told The Hindu. [...]

When this reporter reached the village, 22 bodies lay on the ground wrapped in shrouds, a reminder of the massacres of Sikhs in March 2000 and of same community in Wandhama and Sangrampora a few years back. At least nine of the dead were men aged between 60 and 80.

A large number of dumb-struck Muslims had gathered in the village to condole the deaths of their neighbours. "We are shocked and feel disturbed over the fact that it is being done in the name of tehreek (movement) and we get maligned," said Shameem Ahmed, a resident.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:00 PM 0 comments

 
Battle for Baghdad begins
By Neil Tweedie at Camp al-Sayliyah, Qatar, and Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent, Telegraph.co.uk, (Filed: 25/03/2003)

The battle for Baghdad began in earnest yesterday with heavy air attacks on Republican Guard divisions barring the southern approaches to the city. SAS and US special forces forward air controllers directed an unremitting series of aerial attacks.

Heavy raids by B52 bombers were followed by low-level attacks by American A10 Thunderbolt tankbusters and British and US Harrier aircraft to soften up Saddam Hussein's most loyal and best-equipped formations.

Several squadrons of American Apache helicopters trying to attack Republican Guard positions south-west of the capital on Sunday night were forced back by anti-aircraft artillery fire.


One Apache crashed. The Iraqis claimed it was shot down by a farmer with a hunting rifle. US officials said the crash was almost certainly due to mechanical failure. Iraqi television later showed two Americans it believed to be the crew. They appeared to be in good health.

Although allied forces were attacked by Fedayeen paramilitaries across the country, Gen Tommy Franks, the coalition commander, said that progress had been "rapid and in some cases dramatic".[...]

Saddam delivered a televised rallying call to his "brave and heroic people" in an apparent attempt to scotch suggestions that he had been badly wounded on the first night of the war.

He read a roll call of honour naming commanders and their locations, including the port of Umm Qasr, the scene of dogged resistance. But allied officials suggested that the broadcast could have been pre-recorded.

Saddam did not mention the fighting raging at Karbala, only 50 miles south-west of the capital. Tony Blair told MPs: "It is a little way from there that [allied troops] will encounter the Medina division of the Republican Guard who are defending the route to Baghdad. This will be a crucial moment."

Three of the six Republican Guard divisions protect Baghdad: the Medina in the west, the Baghdad in the south and the Alnedaa in the east. The bombardment was concentrated against the Medina division, while leaflets and radio broadcasts warned the others that they would be next.. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:48 PM 0 comments

 
Grudge cited in grenade attack at U.S. camp
Suspect identified as Army sergeant who is apparently a Muslim
David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2003

Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait -- The 101st Airborne Division soldier accused of single-handedly killing a division captain and wounding 15 fellow soldiers is a Muslim who made anti- American statements after he was apprehended, according to soldiers who survived the suspect's grenade and automatic weapon attack early Sunday.

The soldier, who rolled a grenade into each of three tents of sleeping officers and senior noncommissioned officers of the 101st, shot at least two fellow soldiers as they raced from their tents, the witnesses said.

Outside the charred and blood-splattered tents Sunday afternoon, soldiers recalled hearing the suspect say as he was being led away by armed soldiers: "You guys are coming into our countries and you're going to rape our women and kill our children."

Military authorities identified the suspect, who was being questioned Sunday but had not been charged, as Sgt. Asan Akbar, 31.

George Heath, a spokesman for the division's home base at Fort Campbell, Ky. , said Akbar had been "having what some might call an attitude problem." Max Blumenfeld, an Army spokesman in Kuwait City, said the suspect's motive "most likely was resentment." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:39 PM 0 comments

 
Saddam's Inner Circle: Roll Over the photos (after you've clicked on the link) to learn more about the men behind the dictator:(An MSNBC interactive)

Qusay Hussein, Uday Hussain, Abed Hameed Hmoud, Lt. Gen. Ali Hasan Al-Majid, Tariq Aziz, Naji Sabri, Izzat Ibrahim, Taha Ramadan.

Source: Global Security.org, AP, BBC News Monitoring
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:23 PM 0 comments

 
Fierce resistance blunts US push
BBC News, March 24, 2003

Iraqi troops are putting up stubborn resistance as US-led forces continue their advance on Baghdad.
The town of Karbala, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital, saw heavy fighting when US helicopter gunships engaged a division of Iraq's Republican Guard in a three-hour battle.

Further south, US and UK troops are also encountering stiff opposition around Nasariya and Basra, while reports from the north say the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk have come under air attack from coalition forces. [...]

Controversial broadcast

In addition to the seven marines killed, at least 25 were wounded in the Nasiriya fighting, US military officials said.

They also confirmed that a six-vehicle supply convoy had been ambushed near Nasiriya by Iraqi troops, and that 12 US personnel were missing.

The BBC's Andrew North, who is with US Marines in Nasiriya, said the determination and scale of the Iraqi resistance took the Americans by surprise.

Iraqi television has shown pictures of the bodies of several American soldiers and their wrecked vehicles, as well as interviews with five captured survivors of the ambush - one of them a woman.

The US has reacted angrily to the TV broadcasts, which were shown around the world by the al-Jazeera news channel.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told the BBC that Iraq would not harm the prisoners

................................................
Europe's TV stations show POWS despite Rumsfeld blast
Japan Today, March 24, 2003

LONDON — Many European television stations broadcast images of four men and a woman that Iraq said were American prisoners of war, despite criticism from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Editorial staff defended their decision to air the pictures, saying that earlier footage showing Iraqi soldiers captured by U.S. forces had not been criticised. [...]

Britain's Sky News — the 24-hour news station owned by Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch — was the first to show the Iraqi television pictures of the visibly afraid soldiers. [...]

All three of Portugal's free-to-air television networks (SIC,TVI and state television RTP) led their main evening newscasts with images of both the U.S. prisoners of war being interviewed by Iraqi troops and the images of dead U.S. soldiers.

Before airing the footage SIC warned that the images were of "great violence" and not appropriate for more sensitive viewers while TVI said the images were bound to divide the U.S. even further over the war on Iraq. (Compiled from news reports)
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:16 PM 0 comments

 
CNN 'gets a dose of itself' in an Aaron Brown interview with Al-Jazeera's chief Washington correspondent, Hafez Al-Miraz.
--from Kieran Healy's Weblog, March 24, 2003

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:02 PM 0 comments

 
Global Dispatches
The Nation, March 20, 2003

The Nation elicited comment on reaction to the war against Iraq from all corners of the globe.
What follows are capsule reports from countries both directly and indirectly involved in the conflict: Vietnam Russia, the Philippines , Jordan , Israel , China , Nigeria , Great Britain, Egypt, India, the United States, France, Spain, Cuba and Germany.

Praful Bidwai, New Delhi: When war erupted, millions of Indians switched channels from the Cricket World Cup, although their team was then winning the spectacular once-in-four-years event. This was eloquent testimony to Iraq's importance for them. The war horrifies and revolts ordinary Indians: Iraqis are Third World people much like themselves, with similar tastes in music and food, who share a history of fighting colonialism, and who suffered sanctions after the 1991 war which Indians opposed.

There is a growing rift between the Indian government's official policy and popular sentiment. For a month, the rightwing Hindu government has ducked parlimentary debate on Iraq--a fierce opposition demand. It has wriggled between saying no war without Security Council authorization, and (timidly) opposing "regime change" through external force. Occasionally, Prime Minister Vajpayee piously says there should be no war anywhere.

What shocks and angers Indians is their governemnt's statements which place blame for war not the US, but on the Security Council, for not "harmonizing" its positions on Iraq. Once a major part of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has travelled a long distance at the governmental level. The public hasn't. It instinctively abhors hints of empire and double standards on weapons of mass destruction.

Over 85 percent of Indians polled oppose a UN-unauthorized war on Iraq. On February 15, March 15 and March 20, there were spirited (and underreported) protests in over Indian 100 cities, and a very impressive all-women demonstration. And antiwar campaigns are growing.

The war's backlash will be strong in India's neighborhood--especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, where fundamentalists will try to harness anti-US sentiments. Unless secular antiwar opposition grows, fundamentalists could hijack the issue. That will mean more trouble in this strife-torn, and now nuclear, region.

Praful Bidwai is a New Delhi-based political analyst, a columnist with twenty-five Indian newspapers and a peace activist.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:52 PM 0 comments

 
The Courage of Their Convictions
Steven Shults, Commondreams.org, March 24, 2003

It's been at least ten years since I've watched The Oscars, probably more like fifteen. The whole spectacle makes about as much sense to me as taking an apple, an orange, a banana, a pear and a peach and voting one "best fruit."

This year, however, I decided to watch again.
I wanted to see who made the choice to display an emblem of peace on their multi-hundred dollar attire, and who had the courage to donate some of their time at the podium to the peace movement.

Overall what I saw was very encouraging.
I saw a total of thirty people with silver dove pins or peace symbols on their lapels and gowns shown on camera either while in their seats or at the 'podium.'
Eight people used their time at the podium to speak for peace, against war or at least to acknowledge that people are suffering because of war.
No statements were made in specific support of the invasion of Iraq, though caring and respect was shown for the welfare of the men and women ordered into the hell of combat.

It may seem a small thing to wear a pin or speak your mind, but in a town where "it's not what you know, it's who you know" taking such a simple action can also be putting your livelihood the line.

Perhaps more treacherous is the possibility that one may no longer be 'allowed' to practice one's art. [...]

Here are the words of those spoke out for peace, against war and it's effects, or against the current political climate, while on stage:

Chris Cooper:
"And in light of all the troubles in this world, I wish us all peace." (loud applause)

Gael Garcia Bernal:
"The necessity for peace in the world is not a dream. It is a reality, and we are not alone. If Frida was alive, she would be on our side, against war." (whoops, cheers and loud applause)

Michael Moore:
"I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage. They're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of Orange Alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. Any time you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up." (raucous mixture of booing, cheers and applause starting at midpoint and continuing until exit music)

Adrian Brody:
"It fills me with great joy, but I am also filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I'm accepting an award at such a strange time. My experiences of making this film made me very aware of the sadness and dehumanization of people in times of war and the repercussions of war. Whether you believe in God or Allah, may he watch over you and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution." (loud applause) "I have a friend from Queens who's a soldier in Kuwait right now, Tommy Szarabinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon and God bless you guys, I love you." (more applause and standing ovation)

Barbra Streisand:
"I'm very proud to live in a country that guarantees every citizen, including artists, the right to sing and to say what we believe." (loud applause)

Nicole Kidman:
"Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important" (cheers and applause) "Because art is important and because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that. At the same time you say there's a lot of problems in the world and since 9/11 there's been a lot of pain in terms of families losing people, and now there's a war with families losing people, and God bless them." (loud applause and cheers)

Frank Pierson (academy president):
"To our men and women overseas, godspeed and let's get you home soon. And to the Iraqi people, I say, let's have peace soon and let you live without war." (loud applause)

Pedro Almodovar:
"I would like to dedicate this award to all the people that are raising their voices in favor of peace, respect of human rights, democracy and international legality" (cheers and loud applause)

Of these statements, Adrian Brody's was by far the most eloquent, the most moving and the most powerful. It was made even more so by the fact that the orchestra had begun to play to signal that his time was up, but he admonished them to stop playing so he could speak his peace (literally and figuratively.) The enthusiastic appreciation of the standing ovation which followed made his words yet more powerful as the vast majority of his peers in attendance added their support of his sentiments by their ovation.

Michael Moore's acceptance speech will get far more media attention than Brody's however. In perfect Michael Moore style, he expressed raw indignation and ire in with no holds barred.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:41 PM 0 comments

 
Iraq's David and Goliath tactics
Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence correspondent at Central Command HQ in Qatar, March 24, 2003

While Iraqi soldiers have put up little resistance in the south, irregulars are fighting a guerrilla war There is no doubt that the Iraqi armed forces are playing a weak hand with some skill.

While regular Iraqi units in the south seem to have offered only sporadic resistance, many just melting away ahead of the US and British advance, groups of Iraqi irregulars have emerged from hiding to ambush coalition forces.

These fighters are thought by sources at the Central Command headquarters to be drawn from organisations like the Fedayeen Saddam, or the special security organisation.

Both groups are intensely loyal to the Iraqi regime.

They are lightly armed and many are said to be fighting in civilian clothes, taking sanctuary in populated areas like Nasiriya, Basra and Umm Qasr.

These fighters were clearly moved into southern Iraq ahead of the start of the US and British campaign.
They are fighting a classic guerrilla or irregular war. [...]

Nonetheless, further to the north-west, the first clashes are occurring between the US Army and Republican Guard formations.

These Iraqi units are already coming under attack from US and British war planes and helicopters.

US commanders may be missing the heavier mechanised division that is still at sea, which should have entered Iraq from Turkish soil

The southern battle is, however, only one part of the mosaic of operations that may be under way.

We know little about what is going on in the north and west of Iraq. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:23 PM 0 comments

 
Fedayeen force pushes Iraqi army
By Martin Lumb, BBC News Online, March 24, 2003


Saddam Hussein's army may, on paper, be one of the biggest in the world but it is a small group of irregulars - the Fedayeen - which has been providing much of the resistance to the advancing Americans.

Intensely loyal to Saddam Hussein, the war has given it the opportunity to rise far above the role of ruthless political enforcer which it originally held.

American commanders say the Fedayeen has stiffened the resolve of regular army commanders through intimidation, refusing to allow them to surrender, and providing the manpower for harassment and sniping on enemy columns.

Western intelligence believes the Fedayeen to number between 30,000 to 40,000 young people.
It began in Saddam Hussein's home region of Tikrit and recruited only from loyalist areas. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:59 PM 0 comments

 
BBC star shines in U.S. capital
Frank J. Murray, The Washington Times, February 10, 2003

The young journalist, [Mishal Husain], is watched in an estimated 840,000 American homes, and by 180 million people in an international audience that the BBC finds particularly strong in South Asia and Latin America, where commercials are added.

The London Daily Telegraph has said the BBC is known for "boozy white males," but Miss Husain is an exception. She is a lively contemporary woman, attractive and close enough to the cutting edge for Vanity Fair magazine to be preparing a piece that required her to go to New York for a photo shoot.

She describes herself as a "liberal Muslim," sensitive to the complex issues in the Middle East. She says "horrible extremist groups" often seem driven more by politics than by religion. Islam is one part of their identity, but not necessarily all of it," she said of terrorists, a designation she said the BBC uses sparingly along with labels like "rebel." [...]

Miss Husain was born in 1973 in Britain to Pakistani parents. Her father is a surgeon. Her mother once produced arts programming for Pakistan state television. Miss Husain speaks fluent Urdu and Russian, but delivers news in English with a British accent sharp as cut glass. [...]

Fans started contacting Miss Husain after she shifted her base to the United States, and many now liken her to Daljit Dhaliwal, CNN's international star recruit from ITN. She is recognized on the streets of New York. People telephone, offer to send flowers or express open adoration despite her recent engagement to London lawyer Meekal Hashmi, 32.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:51 PM 0 comments

 
TRY this one: More than just a Flash game by Idleworm.com-- thought-provoking, is my reaction to "this game"--aryabhatt

Gulf War 2 (aka World War 2.5).
"This is a projection of the most likely
outcome of a new war in the Gulf. I used sophisticated ... "

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 11:47 PM 0 comments

 
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
--Harry Shearer

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
--David Brin (1950 - )

You see what power is - holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!
--Amy Tan (1952 - )

...................................

Saddam mystery deepens
Paul McGeough , The West Australian, March 24, 2003

BAGHDAD--IN THE face of punishing United States-led attacks, the Iraqi regime is in crisis, denying proof of the invading forces' rapid advance towards Baghdad and dodging questions about the whereabouts and health of Saddam Hussein.

British newspapers reported yesterday that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Cabinet ministers had been briefed by intelligence chiefs that Mr Saddam was injured and needed a blood transfusion when his bunker was hit in the first allied air strikes on Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph quoted an intelligence official as saying: "Unfortunately, he (Saddam) was not critically injured. We think he is still alive. We also think his (eldest) son, Uday, was killed or badly injured in the attack."

The newspaper said US officials claimed that another of Mr Saddam's relatives, Ali Hassan al-Majid - known as Chemical Ali for his involvement in the infamous 1988 Halabja chemical weapons attacks that killed 5000 Kurds - had been killed.

Centre-left London newspaper the Independent reported yesterday that Mr Blair and his ministers had been told intelligence believed Mr Saddam might have been killed in the first allied strikes.

Coalition commander US Army Gen. Tommy Franks said in Doha, Qatar, he had no idea whether Mr Saddam was alive or where he might be.

As a wearied Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri was reduced yesterday to travelling by taxi to Damascus, in neighbouring Syria, to pitch a plea for Arab assistance, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al Sahaf held a midnight press conference on a Baghdad kerbside at which he insisted that the regime was in full control of Iraq.

Mr Sahaf is the only member of Mr Hussein's tight inner circle to be seen in public since the strike on Thursday on a bunker in which the CIA believes Mr Saddam and five others were taking cover.[...]
..............................

Breaching Saddam's inner circle
Divide, conquer is U.S. strategy
Dana Priest and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, March 22, 2003

In an intensified effort to divide Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his inner circle, U.S. military and intelligence officers in recent days have communicated with some Iraqi commanders and have secretly designated buildings in Baghdad for defectors to occupy, promising they will not be targeted by U.S. airstrikes, U.S. officials said Friday.

"There are lots of people, all trying to give the Iraqi commanders options and ways to end the resistance," one senior U.S. official said.

U.S. officials said they still don't know the results of the Thursday bombing of a compound in south Baghdad where U.S. intelligence believed Saddam and his two sons were spending the night. But they said there are signs that the government and its senior leadership are under unprecedented internal pressure, even if those in the bunker survived the attack by Tomahawk cruise missiles and two 2,000-pound bunker-busting bombs.[...]

Psychological warfare

"Saddam is obsessed with his own security and spares no expense, including his own time and attention, to ensure his safety," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst who has written a book on Iraq. Saddam has employed separate rings of bodyguards and security service personnel, many of whom are members of his clan and are sworn to protect him.

Pollack said Friday that the airstrike on the bunker, "even if it did not hurt him, probably did a lot of damage in a psychological sense."

He said the Iraqi leader normally prepares five or six locations where he plans to stay for the evening and then chooses one only at the last minute. For the United States to have found where he was, Pollack said, "meant either that there was a spy in his entourage or a new American technical means of monitoring him." [...]
.............................................

Inside Saddam's Head
Other dictators have known when to flee. Why did the Iraqi ruler stand his ground?
By JOHANNA MCGEARY

Mar. 23, 2003: Saddam Hussein—supposing that was he on the grainy videotape aired last week barely three hours after the opening salvo intended to kill him—hardly seemed himself. Pictured alone in a cramped makeshift studio, the dictator, 65, looked shaken and tired, his face puffy behind big spectacles he rarely wears in public. His words, rambling and repetitive, were read from scribbled notes on a large pad held in a hand more often seen brandishing a rifle.

During nearly 24 years in power, Iraq's strongman never seemed to believe he might face a moment like this. He has always been preternaturally good at dispatching his enemies before they could get to him. And he plans ahead. Beneath the opulent marble palaces from which he has ruled, he built deep concrete bunkers reinforced with steel, stocked with weapons and linked to underground escape tunnels— [...]

How did Iraq's tenacious leader arrive at this pass? Saddam, after all, built a spectacular career out of survival. Perhaps his luck simply ran out: in the current President Bush, he may have met an adversary even more single-mindedly determined than he is. [...] He could have saved himself by giving up political power. Other modern strongmen staring at a similar fate, from the Shah of Iran to Congo's Mobutu Sese Seko, have done it, and Saddam was suspected of stashing away enough secret wealth to make it easy. But he did not, and the reasons lie very much in his own biography.

War was surely not Saddam's choice. He played his diplomatic cards as cunningly as he could to avoid it. But that was as far as he could go. [...]

... Still, some experts suggest that Saddam might have entertained the option of going underground like Osama bin Laden so that his shadow would continue to make Iraq quake.

But the experts generally believe that for Saddam, power is everything and death is a better alternative than losing it.

Any other outcome, says Phebe Marr, a former Pentagon consultant and author of a book on Iraq, would destroy the monumental myth Saddam has spent his life creating. "His legacy would disappear." Iraq is Saddam, he likes to say, and Saddam is Iraq. He has been a ruler, says Coughlin, who "has always had one eye on history." He has longed for his name to go down in Arab history alongside those of the culture's great heroes, like Nebuchadnezzar, who drove the Jews into Babylonian captivity, and Saladin, who retook Jerusalem from the Christian Crusaders. He wanted to fulfill the modern-day promise of Egypt's great nationalist Gamal Abdul Nasser, restoring Arab unity and the greater Arab nation to its rightful place in the world. In recent years the standard-bearer of secular Baathism even turned to prayer to exploit Islamic ardor, building gigantic mosques and lacing his speeches with the language of jihad.

That great need for the most dramatic of legacies, U.S. war planners fear, might make Saddam choose not only death but a Samsonian version of it: the dictator, as psychiatrist Post imagines it, "lashing out with all the resources at his disposal." President Bush must agree, which is why he sent those bombs crashing into Saddam's bunkers, hoping to get Saddam before he could bring down Armageddon on anyone else.

—Reported by Douglas Waller and Adam Zagorin/Washington, Aparisim Ghosh and Helen Gibson/London, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Simon Robinson/Nairobi

From the Mar. 31, 2003 issue of TIME magazine
..........................................

DRUDGE Report: March 23, 2003
MEDIA BOOMERANG: 6-minute video which beamed on Sunday showed mankind at its most animal...

The microphone reads "IRAQ TV." The screen shows supposed stock market arrows. The station is Al-Jazeera, a mock of Ted Turner's CNN. And on Sunday satellite news turned nightmare as Arab television aired footage of dead American soldiers, some sprawled in a room, and interviews with five U.S. prisoners.

Turner, who once bragged how the invention of all-news global TV brought on the fall of communism at the end of the Cold War, must now be taking a pause at this all-news boomerang.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:25 PM 0 comments

 
Hizb rebel Dar shot at Sopore house
Blow to peace: Vohra’s talks likely to suffer, setback to Mufti
Muzamil Jaleel, Indian Express

Sopore, March 23: The militant commander who had held out an olive branch to the Centre and raised hopes of a dialogue, Abdul Majeed Dar, was today shot dead at his home here. Two gunmen barged in and opened indiscriminate fire, killing him on the spot and injuring his mother and sister before fleeing.

Dar, the then operations chief of the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen in Kashmir, had announced a ‘‘unilateral’’ ceasefire in August 2000 and even held parleys with New Delhi. But the peace mission faced rough weather when the Hizbul’s Pak-based supreme commander, Syed Salahuddin, decided to withdraw the offer, creating differences in the outfit’s leadership

Dar and a small group of his loyalists stood by his new peace slogan, leading to his expulsion from the Hizbul in May last year.

A Jamaat-e-Islami activist and a pioneer of Kashmir’s militant movement, Dar had founded Tehreek-e-Jihadi Islami — a pro-Pakistan militant outfit which dominated north Kashmir in the early nineties. He had later merged his group with the Hizbul Mujahideen, particularly since the ideological base of both his group and the Hizbul were similar.

‘‘He had come to say goodbye to us as he was supposed to leave for Pakistan soon,’’ Dar’s brother, Fayaz Ahmad, said. ‘‘He met his mother and other family members and wanted to leave but I forced him to stay longer. I wanted him to have lunch with us. I went to the market and returned after hearing the gunshots.’’ [...]
......................................................


'Unilaterals,' Crossing the Lines
Reporters Who Venture Out on Their Own Can Find the Going Deadly
Richard Leiby, Washington Post Staff Writer, March 23, 2003

KUWAIT CITY, March 22--"Do not move," Maj. Dave Anderson, a burly U.S. Marine, barked into his cell phone. "Stay under cover. Stay down. We have your grid coordinates."

Anderson wasn't giving orders to a fellow Marine -- he was trying to assist a journalist under fire somewhere in the south of Iraq. "Do you have any family you want us to notify?"[...]

...Should reporters risk their lives to get a story?

Stuck behind the front lines, frustrated and bored, scores of independent journalists -- dubbed "unilaterals" by coalition commanders -- have poured into Iraq without official consent. The Kuwaiti government says that's illegal.

Is it? "At a minimum, it's not very bright," Army Col. Guy Shields, director of the Coalition Press Information Center, said at a briefing tonight.

An unspecified number of enterprising reporters forged Kuwaiti permission letters or otherwise cajoled their way past checkpoints into the war zone. Now they're being shot at, straying into minefields and apparently getting killed.

The casualties evidently include three members of a British ITV television team reported missing by their employers. In his somber briefing, Shields confirmed that three reporters in southern Iraq were either killed or seriously injured today. He repeatedly rebuked the unilaterals for "sneaking" into Iraq, but many reporters say they were waved through by friendly U.S. or British troops, then followed convoys operating near Umm Qasr, Basra and other front-line areas.

"I just want to keep people safe," Shields said, sounding genuinely concerned as well as irritated. "A battlefield is not safe."[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:36 PM 0 comments

 
Fierce resistance blunts US push
BBC News, 24 March, 2003, 01:13 GMT

Five US soldiers have been captured and paraded on Iraqi television, on what American commanders said was their toughest day of fighting since war began.
Central Baghdad was hit by several large explosions early on Monday, as ground forces continued to meet resistance in the push to the capital.

US Marines suffered up to 10 dead and 14 wounded in heavy fighting with Iraqi forces in and around the southern city of Nasiriya, US commanders said. [...]

US troops pushing north from the southern city of Basra have reached the holy town of Najaf, just 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Baghdad.

But other American units are still engaged in fierce fighting in Nasiriya, a key crossing point on the Euphrates river, and other areas of southern Iraq.

Coalition Central Command has accused Iraqi special units - some of President Saddam Hussein's most loyal soldiers - of disguising themselves as civilians, and of firing on coalition troops after initially signalling that they were surrendering.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:25 PM 0 comments

 
Why 'Shock and Awe'?
New York Times, March 23, 2003

The Pentagon's "shock and awe" strategy of quickly overwhelming Iraq was the inspiration of a military analyst guided by the 2,500-year-old writings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese strategist; Pizarro's defeat of the Incas in the 16th century; the German blitzkrieg of World War II; and the atomic bombing of Japan.

In 1996, Harlan K. Ullman, a former Navy commander, helped write "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance" for the National Defense University. He argued that precise, overwhelming attacks would destroy an adversary's will, prompt quick capitulation and reduce casualties.

Concerned that the American military relied too much on "the slow destruction of enemy forces," he argued instead: "We want them to quit, not to fight, so that you have this simultaneous effect — rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima — not taking days or weeks but minutes."
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:20 PM 0 comments

 
Drowning in Niceness: The Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Gordon Solberg, Counterpunch, March 22, 2993

When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her home last June, she was taken to a camp only 3 miles from her home, from which she evidently made no attempt to escape. When she was apprehended 9 months later, she had taken a new name and a new identity. Her relatives say she was brainwashed by her kidnapper. I say it's obvious that she was already brainwashed by the "nice" culture she grew up in, which allowed her to be easily controlled. She was already programmed to be a "good girl," to be nice to everybody, to get along, to obey authority. When she was kidnapped, her pre-existing programming merely transferred her loyalty to her new authority figure, the kidnapper.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:15 PM 0 comments

 
A Cheap Family Farce
Peter Escobar, Counterpunch, March 2003

This War is Brought to You By...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt. They've won. They got their war against Afghanistan (planned before September 11). They're getting their war against Iraq (planned slightly after September 11). After Iraq, they plan to get their wars against Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Last Sunday, one of them, Vice President Dick Cheney, said that President George W Bush would have to make "a very difficult decision" on Iraq. Not really. The decision had already been taken for him in the autumn of 2001.

As far as their "showdown Iraq" is concerned, it's not about weapons of mass destruction, ...[...]

The American corporate media are not inclined to spell it out, and the absolute majority of American public opinion is anesthetized non-stop by a barrage of technical, bureaucratic and totally peripheral aspects of the war against Iraq.

For all the president's (sales)men, the whole game is about global preeminence, if not unilateral world domination--military, economic, political and cultural. This may be an early 21st century replay of the "white man's burden". Or this may be just megalomania. Either way, enshrined in a goal of the Bush administration, it cannot but frighten practically the whole world, from Asia to Africa, from "old Europe" to the conservative establishment within the US itself.[...]

The endgame will reveal itself to be a cheap family farce: the Bush family delivers an ultimatum to the Hussein family. What Gore Vidal describes as "the Bush-Cheney junta" has won: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, the AEI and PNAC stalwarts. Paul Wolfowitz, above all, has won his own personal crusade.

Colin Powell has lost it all. It does not matter that the State Department's classified report, "Iraq, the Middle East and change: no dominoes" was unveiled by the Los Angeles Times. Wolfowitz and Perle will play with their dominoes. By predictable mechanisms of power as old as mankind itself (and incidentally very common in the former USSR) it was Powell--the adversary of the new doctrine of preemption--who was charged to defend it in the face of the world. Sources in New York confirm he was told to get in line: his discourse, his body language, his whole demeanor changed. [...]

They know that by deciding to go to war unilaterally--and leaving the international system in shambles--the US has squandered its biggest capital: its international legitimacy.

And to make matters worse there was absolutely no debate--in the Senate, or in the public opinion arena--about it.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:11 PM 0 comments

 
The Making of `Chicago'
New York Times, March 23, 2003

To the Editor:

Re "Movie Musical's Hard-Won Harmony: `Chicago' Is a Hit, but Its Path to the Oscars Was Paved With Feuds" (Arts pages, March 19):

As someone who worked with Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax Films, for 10 years developing "Chicago," I disagree with your suggestion of "squabbles" and "meddlings" among a "fractious creative team." A $125 million box office, 13 Oscar nominations for a musical and two million CD's sold are hardly "miscalculations."

From the moment the director Rob Marshall offered his brilliant approach to this complex project, the producers and the rest of the creative team supported his decisions while offering the insight expected from the producers and the financiers of a project.

Mr. Marshall's fatigue was a result of his tireless commitment to excellence, not from fighting off producers.

"Chicago" was one of the most cooperative productions we've had; we saved the real drama, conflict, competition and jealousy for the big screen. MERYL POSTER
Co-president of Production
Miramax Films
New York, March 20, 2003
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:00 PM 0 comments

 
Perle's Plunder Blunder
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 23, 2003

WASHINGTON: It's Richard Perle's world. We're just fighting in it.

The Prince of Darkness, a man who whips up revelatory soufflés and revolutionary pre-emption doctrines with equal ease, took a victory lap at the American Enterprise Institute on Friday morning.

The critical battle for Baghdad was yet to come and "Shock and Awe" was still a few hours away. [...]

Now Mr. Perle, who urged America to war with moral certitude, finds himself subject to questions about his own standards of right and wrong.

Stephen Labaton wrote in The Times on Friday that Mr. Perle was advising the Pentagon on war even as he was retained by Global Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications company, to help overcome Pentagon resistance to its proposed sale to a joint venture involving a Hong Kong billionaire.

The confidant of Rummy and Wolfy serves as the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory panel. That's why Global Crossing agreed to pay Mr. Perle a fat fee: $725,000. The fee structure is especially smelly because $600,000 of the windfall is contingent on government approval of the sale. (In his original agreement, Mr. Perle also asked the company to shell out for "working meals," which could add up, given his status as a gourmand from the Potomac to Provence, where he keeps a vacation home among the feckless French.)

Although his position on the Defense Policy Board is not paid, Mr. Perle is still bound by government ethics rules that forbid officials from reaping financial benefit from their government positions. He and his lawyer told Mr. Labaton that his work for Global Crossing did not violate the rules because he did not lobby for the company and was serving in an advisory capacity to its lawyers.

But that distinction is silly because Global Crossing has so many other big names on its roster of influence-peddlers that it doesn't need Mr. Perle's Guccis for actual lobbying footwork or advice on the process. His name alone could be worth the $725,000 if it helps win the Pentagon's seal of approval.

His convictions of right and wrong extend to the right and wrong investments. On Wednesday he participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call to advise clients on investment opportunities arising from the war, titled, "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

Maybe Mr. Perle should remove the laurel wreath from his head and replace it with a paper bag.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:56 PM 0 comments

 
TV war brings live action home
Torin Douglas ,BBC News, March 24, 2003

The last Gulf War, in television terms, was often described as the "video games war".
The enduring image was of glowing computer screens showing laser-guided 'smart' bombs clinically pinpointing targets hundreds of kilometres away, while masking the lack of pictures of real troops in action.

By contrast, in TV terms, this war more closely resembles an "Olympic Games War" - wall-to-wall coverage, correspondents and cameras in every conceivable location, running commentaries and punditry, and - most astonishing of all - live action and interviews with the combatants.

The war is brought live to a television near you
Neither term is meant to trivialise.

But both illuminate the remarkable changes in what people at home can witness of a war, [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:45 PM 0 comments

 
Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
--Janet Long

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
--Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
--James Thurber (1894 - 1961), in Edward R. Murrow television interview

........................................................

The Saddam and George show

Ignoring the fact that George Bush declined Saddam Hussein's challenge to a televised debate, Tim Dowling exclusively reveals what could have happened had they met

The Guardian, February 25, 2003

Tony Blair, moderator: Welcome to the first televised debate between George W Bush and Saddam Hussein, live from United Nations headquarters in New York. We will begin with a brief opening statement from each of you.
Bush: First of all I would just like to welcome my evil friend to the UN, one of the great American institutions for the propulsion of freedom throughout the world.

Saddam: Thank you, Great Satan. I hope that in today's debate we may find some common ground between the Iraqi people's commitment to peace and human progress and America's desire to destroy the Middle East.

Bush: Do I answer that?

Blair: No. The first question is quite simply this: do you have any links with al-Qaida?

Bush: I do not.

Blair: The question is for President Saddam.

Saddam: As I told Mr Tony Benn clearly and simply, if I had links with al-Qaida and I enjoyed those links then I would not be ashamed to tell the world, but since I am ashamed to tell the world of this, it follows that I have no such links.

Bush: Neither do I.

[...]
Blair: The final question is for George Bush. Mr President, is there any way that Saddam Hussein can avoid war, and what steps must he now take in order to reach a negotiated solution?

Bush: Listen to me. It's very simple. First Saddam must compile 200% with the UN inspectorers, and I mean activated compilation, not passivist compilation. Second, he must disarm fully, in keeping with UN revelation 1441 and the next one coming, 1441B, which will require him to disarm even more fully that. Then he must destroy all Samoud missiles and any other weapons of mass destruction he is found, or not found, to be possessive of, without being asked. Finally, there is one more task he must perform, which I am not at liberty to revulge. And even that will not be enough.

Blair: The translator would like to take your answer home with him and work on it over the weekend.

Bush: Fine, but we require nothing less than total disarmature.

Saddam: OK.

Blair: Sorry, but I'm not sure that "disarmature" is a word. I defer to the UN Keeper of the Dictionary, Mr Richard Stilgoe.

Stilgoe: Yes, you can have disarmature. It means, "the action of disarming" according to the OED.

Bush: Exactly. He must cut his own arms off.

Saddam: If it means peace, I will do it.

Bush: Too late.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

 
Weekend of discontent as anti-war protests sweep United States
Yahoo News, Mar 23, 2003

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Veterans opposed to the war on Iraq (news - web sites) will stage a march to the Vietnam, Korea and World War II memorials in Washington as a weekend of protests continues across the United States.[...] In New York, some 70 people were arrested as demonstrators clashed with police at the end of a rally attended by at least 125,000 according to police, while organizers said the event drew twice as many, forming a human column some three kilometers (1.8 miles) long.

Several thousand demonstrators also gathered outside the White House in Washington, accompanied by a major security presence.

"They can say they're 'smart bombs,' but smart bombs aren't able to distinguish between military and human targets," Abigail Fletcher, a marcher from Florida, said outside the president's residence.

Feza Baydur of Turkey carried a sign reading: "CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC - Weapons of Mass Deception."

Rich McDonald told AFP he was visiting from New Hampshire, in the northeast, where: "I speak my mind, I get all kinds of hell for it." He added that his favorite slogan was: "Yee-haw is not a foreign policy." [....]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:35 PM 0 comments

 

Profile: Terry Lloyd
Lloyd: A fearless correspondent
BBC News, March 23, 2003

As an award-winning ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, was known to millions of viewers for his reports from war zones around the world. The son of a Swansea-born policeman, Mr Lloyd started his journalism career at Raymonds news agency in Derby.

He joined ITN, who supply news for ITV, in 1983 as a reporter from Central Television.

Over the next two decades, he worked on a range of big stories, from the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 and the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 - and became the longest-serving ITV News correspondent.

But it was for a series of reports from the world's trouble spots that brought him the most acclaim.

Fifteen years ago, Mr Lloyd was the first TV reporter to get inside the small market town of Halabja in Iraq after Saddam Hussein had dropped a chemical bomb, killing 5,000 of his own Kurdish people.
[...] But it was for being the first reporter to get inside Kosovo - the first by a Western newsman while the region was still in Serb hands - that he won his greatest plaudits, and an award for ITV News.

With cameraman Mike Inglish, they retraced a secret escape route refugees were using to cross the border, scaling a snow-capped mountain range through neighbouring Montenegro. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:30 PM 0 comments

 
Mind Games: Are those Pentagon leaks the truth or "psy-ops"?
Fred Kaplan, Slate.com, March 21, 2003

Pentagon officials the past couple of days have been hinting (when speaking on background, they've stated directly) that Saddam Hussein may be dead or wounded, that his command-control apparatus is in shambles, and that U.S. officials are engaged in surrender talks with officers of his Special Republican Guard

The question of the moment: Are these claims part of an elaborate psychological-warfare campaign or are they for real?[...]

We still don't know the effects of Wednesday night's cruise-missile attack on a Baghdad compound where Saddam and his two sons were believed to be holed up. The CIA may not fully know the results, either. However, if they did know that Saddam survived the airstrikes, U.S. officials would be smart to pretend that they did not know—and even to encourage active speculation of his demise. Saddam rules by fear. If the Iraqi people—or, more to the point, Iraqi military officers—thought he was dead or merely weak, they might feel emboldened to rebel or sow discord. For that reason, if Saddam were still alive, he might feel compelled to emerge from hiding to prove the fact—at which point, U.S. air forces would try to hit him again. Saddam knows this, too, which means he's likely to stay hidden—further fueling the belief that he's dead, thus further weakening his authority.

This dynamic of disinformation may also be spurring claims that we're in surrender negotiations with officers of Saddam's ultra-loyal Special Republican Guard.[[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:12 PM 0 comments

 
Australia crush India to win World Cup
Prem Panicker,Rediff.com, March 23, 2003

593 runs were scored in what, after bowlers had ruled the roost till date, ended up as a batsman's final -- and despite that, defending champions Australia kept its grip on the World Cup by a whopping margin of 125.

The game was characterized by some spectacular batting -- but the really fascinating part of the final contest between a resurgent India and a rampant Australia was the tactical cut and thrusts, the moves and countermoves that this game was full of.

Australia made one change, omitting the all-rounder Ian Harvey and bringing in Damien Martyn into the number four slot. India, for its part, kept an unchanged line-up.

Ricky Ponting called wrong and Sourav Ganguly elected to bowl first. It is a decision that is going to come in for some analysis; ditto flak. At this same ground, on April 16, 2000, Australia had made 205 batting first, and lost to South Africa.

In 71 matches since then, Australia has never failed to defend any score in excess of 200; in that period, it has lost only 14 times and on 11 of those occasions, it lost chasing. Looked at another way, India, after its famous 1998 triumph in Sharjah chasing a big Australian score, had won only four of 15 encounters -- and on each occasion, India had batted first and put up scores of 307, 265, 315 and 279. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:25 PM 0 comments

 
Ganguly to stick to winning combo
Ashish Magotra, Rediff.com, March 22, 2003 19:00 IST

India skipper Sourav Ganguly appeared confident of his side winning in the final of the 2003 World Cup against Australia on Sunday.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, he said: "Rahul [Dravid] is fit, just has a sore thumb and will definitely play.

"It is a big achievement for a sporting nation to reach the final of the World Cup but at the end of the day it is important to be on the winning side."

He indicated he would go in with the same team which played in the semi-finals.[...]
........

Tendulkar is Australia's only obstacle: Warne
March 22, 2003 11:53 IST

Leg spinner Shane Warne, who was the key to Australia's 1999 World Cup win, believes India's Sachin Tendulkar is the only man standing between Australia and victory in Sunday's final. [...]

"He is, and has been in my time, the best batsman in the world. He's savage on the quicks if they stray with their line and length and he can dominate and intimidate the spinners.

"That's why it has always been a challenge and a privilege to bowl to him."

Tendulkar has scored 669 runs at 66.90 in the World Cup in southern Africa, breaking the World Cup record he set in 1996.[

"Sometimes Plans A and B go out the window and you don't want to be relying on Plan C, which is that he gets bored hitting boundaries, runs himself out, or one of his team mates runs him out," Warne wrote.
.................................

TEAMS: India / Australia .........(with photos)

............................

India players' pen sketches
March 22, 2003 19:50 IST

India's probable line-up for Sunday's World Cup final against Australia (in batting order):

VIRENDER SEHWAG: Tendulkar Mark II. Explosive right-hander who has wisely modelled himself on the best batsman in the world, so well that they are difficult to tell apart.
...[...]

.........................

Australia players' pen sketchesMarch 22, 2003 19:40 IST


Australia's probable line-up for Sunday's World Cup final against India (in batting order):

ADAM GILCHRIST: Wicketkeeper, vice-captain and destructive opening batsman with a marvellous eye. .
..[...]

..........................

The final record: A brief history of the seven World Cup finals:
REUTERS, March 22, 2003 19:32 IST

1975: West Indies v Australia, London:

Lord's in brilliant sunshine on the longest day of the summer provided the perfect backdrop for a match still considered the best one-day international ever staged.
...
Result: West Indies 291 for eight, 60 overs (Clive Lloyd 102, Rohan Kanhai 55); Australia 274, 58.4 overs (Ian Chappell 62 not out). West Indies won by 17 runs.

1979: West Indies v England, London:

West Indies were at their peak with an all-conquering pace attack and Richards without peer as a destructive batsman.
...
Result: West Indies 286-9, 60 overs (Viv Richards 138 not out, Collis King 86); England 194, 51 overs (Mike Brearley 64, Geoff Boycott 57, Joel Garner 5-38). West Indies won by 92 runs.

1983: India v West Indies, London:

Nobody gave India any chance against West Indies, still the best side in the world by some distance in both forms of cricket.
...
Result: India 183, 54.4 overs (Krishna Srikkanth 38); West Indies 140, 52 overs. India won by 43 runs

1987: Australia v England, Calcutta:

Australia, anchored by the tough Tasmanian David Boon, compiled a respectable 253 for five with everybody contributing
...
Result: Australia 253-5, 50 overs (David Boon 75); England 246 (Bill Athey 58). Australia won by seven runs.

1992: Pakistan v England, Melbourne

Imran Khan had come out of retirement for the final time to lead a team who were woefully under-performing. Urged by Imran to fight like "cornered tigers", Pakistan reached the final against a highly professional England outfit under Graham Gooch.
...
Result: Pakistan 249-6, 50 overs (Imran Khan 72, Javed Miandad 58); England 227, 49.2 overs (Neil Fairbrother 62). Pakistan won by 22 runs.

1996: Sri Lanka v Australia, Lahore:

Sri Lanka had transformed the one-day game with their savage yet controlled hitting in the first 15 overs on slow sub-continent pitches before the fielding restrictions were lifted.
...
Result: Australia 241-7, 50 overs (Mark Taylor 74); Sri Lanka 245-3, 46.2 overs (Aravinda de Silva 107 not out). Sri Lanka won by seven wickets.

1999: Australia v Pakistan, London

After the excitement of the semi-final tie between Steve Waugh's Australians and South Africa, the final proved monotonously one-sided.
...
Result: Pakistan 132, 39 overs (Shane Warne 4-33); Australia 133-2, 20.1 overs (Adam Gilchrist 54). Australia won by eight wickets.

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:43 PM 0 comments

 
Baghdad Burns While Dubya Does Lunch
Who Dares Critique the Smirking Commander?
Linda Heard, Counterpunch, March 22, 2003

America's great commander George W Bush has surely to be admired for his amazing sangfroid. If he had any worries about the impending 'Shock and Awe' campaign, he didn't show them as he played with his pooch on the White House lawn on the day the war kicked off. After an intimate dinner with the missus, the wondrous leader took time out to give the order to attack Baghdad before delivering his mushy message to the nation.

But unfortunately for him Aunty Beeb, also known as the BBC, erroneously broadcast Dubya preparing for his Churchillian moment in history. There he was practicing his speech totally unaware that the cameras were rolling. As his mouth moved soundlessly evoking a guppy in an aquarium a middle-aged ma'am primped his locks, spraying every offending hair in to place.

Worse, the small man deliberately contorted his facial features in an effort to convey passivity, emotion and greatness as though he were looking into a mirror, which he probably was. The result was an orchestrated pre-written blurb absent of sincerity or sympathy. Lee Strasburg must be turning over in his grave.

By the time it was over and my tears of mirth (and sorrow) had dried it was well past Dubya's bedtime and determined not to lose any beauty sleep over a silly thing like a war, he went off to bed. That's the true mark of leadership. [...]

No doubt, the chilling Rummy Rumsfeld didn't have to practice to face his audience. He did what he does best - gleefully warning of the carnage to come. He told the world that Baghdad was facing an attack of the scope and scale the world had never seen before, but of course the US has nothing at all against the Iraqi people, he tells us.[...]

The jingoistic Fox News anchors are already sporting their flag pins, and the almost 50 per cent of Americans who believe that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11 are flying the Star Spangled banner from their balconies. The patriots are pouring bottles of the finest Bordeaux and Beaujolais down the drain, while Russian vodka and Chinese beer stays on the shelves.[...]

Even before the war is over, Iraqi diplomats are being kicked out of their embassies and consulates, their real estate seized 'for the next Iraqi (puppet) administration'. Some 1.6 billion dollars of Iraqi funds in the US, which were frozen after the Gulf War is to be grabbed too 'to help pay for Iraq's reconstruction'. Arms manufacturers are already laughing all the way to the bank, while Bush's cronies rub their hands together waiting for their lucrative post-war contracts to be implemented. [...]

...and another American protectorate is born. The New World Order is here...until it is challenged, as it must surely be.
........................

Mundane Impressions of Otherwise "Brutal Iraq"
John Brittas , Rediff.com, March 22, 2003

The inevitable has happened. The world is holding its breath, counting the number of raids the Americans have successfully conducted over Iraq. The images held close to my heart are very different.

A recent fortnight in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq has made me imbibe many frames, totally alien to the common perception being disseminated by the world corporate media.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:26 PM 0 comments

 
The Web Reacts
How the Internet is responding to the US-Iraq conflict
Anita Bora, Rediff.com, March 22, 2003

While most news sites carried extensive reports of the US invasion of Iraq, it was this first-hand account that caught the attention of many online readers.

"The bombing could come and go in waves, nothing too heavy and not yet comparable to what was going on in 91. All radio and TV stations are still on and while the air raid began the Iraqi TV was showing patriotic songs and didn't even bother to inform viewers that we are under attack."

It continues:"At the moment they are re-airing yesterday's interview with the minister of interior affairs. The sounds of the anti-aircraft artillery is still louder than the booms and bangs which means that they are still far from where we live, but the images we saw on Al Arabia news channel showed a building burning near one of my aunt's house..."

Rise of the personal voice
Under the pseudonym of Salam Pax, this lone Iraqi blogger from within Baghdad city, keeps the world updated with his first hand accounts of the war. In case you're wondering his credibility, a technology writer and blogger has already taken some effort to establish his existence.

"I am elated and worried," writes Kanan Makiya, a leading Iraqi dissident and intellectual, in a 'War Diary' for TNR Online. Makhiya, is the author of the Democratic Principles Working Group report for the State Department's Future of Iraq Project, and has spent the last 25 years working towards this moment, but expresses apprehension about Iraq's uncertain political future.

The personal voice is stronger during this war than ever before making the Web a multidimensional experience. While most online sites prepare for heavy traffic, surfers are turning to Web logs, discussion forums and personal sites for an added perspective. [...]
........................

The spoils of war
Sunanda K Datta Ray, Rediff.comMarch 22, 2003

So, I was not surprised to read that Halliburton, the Texas-based oil and construction company, is rubbing its hands in anticipation of the money to be raked in from Saddam Hussain's downfall.

A Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root, is among the five American companies bidding for contracts to restore Iraq's infrastructure after US forces have ravaged it.

The US defence department, run by Donald Rumsfeld, has already awarded Kellogg Brown and Root a contract to extinguish oil wells to which the Iraqis set fire. The contracts could be worth $900 million.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:13 PM 0 comments

 



U.S. Officials: Saddam Seen on Stretcher After March 19 Strike
Bret Baier, Fox News, March 22, 2003

WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein is seen being placed on a stretcher and into an ambulance in photographs in the possession of the U.S. government showing what is described as "panicked digging" at the bunker/command-and-control facility that was struck in the first strike of the war March 19, U.S. officials told Fox News late Friday.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:44 PM 0 comments

 
WAR Technology
--A Rediff guide: Weapons that play a role in times of conflict: 9 sites

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:43 PM 0 comments

 
Coalition consolidates Iraq advance
BBC News, Saturday, 22 March, 2003, 22:19 GMT

US and UK forces have captured key areas of southern Iraq as they advance on the capital Baghdad.
The US military says the vanguard of the coalition force is now beyond the city of Nasiriya, after taking control of two key crossing points on the Euphrates river and the nearby airfield of Tallill.

Iraqi TV reported fighting with US troops on Saturday evening near the town of Najaf, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

The southern oilfields, including those around the city of Basra, are said to have been secured and a three-mile-long convoy of US Marines has moved out of the area to join the forward advance.

A fourth consecutive night of coalition air raids on Baghdad has begun and much of the city has been plunged into darkness. [...]

At his first news conference since the war began, General Tommy Franks said special forces operating behind enemy lines had played a key role in the initial stages of the operation, particularly in preventing the Iraqis from sabotaging southern oil installations.

However, at least nine oil wells are said to have been set on fire by fleeing Iraqi forces.

And despite coalition claims that up to 2,000 Iraqi soldiers have surrendered, American and British troops in and around both Basra and Nasiriya have continued to meet stiff resistance in some areas.

US war plans suffered a setback as the Pentagon finally abandoned hope of persuading Turkey to allow troops through to open a northern front in northern Iraq. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:21 PM 0 comments

 
IRAQ latest: At A Glance
==BBC News Online charts the latest developments in the Iraq conflict.

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:13 PM 0 comments

 

Saddam Meets Top Officials, Praises Army -Iraq
Reuters, March 22, 2003

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi state television said President Saddam Hussein chaired a meeting of his top officials on Saturday and said he was satisfied with the performance of Iraqi soldiers facing a U.S. and British invasion.

"The president expressed his satisfaction at the performance of the Iraqi army and members of the Baath Party and Iraqi tribes," the television said, without showing pictures of the reported meeting.

It said Saddam's second son Qusay, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and Defense Minister General Sultan Hashim Ahmed attended the meeting.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:08 PM 0 comments

 
In the Field : Marines Lay Their Hands on a 'Jewel'
onathan Finer, Washington Post Staff Writer, March 22, 2003; Page A01

RUMAILA OIL FIELD, Iraq, March 21 -- The Marines needed a loudspeaker, a few warning shots and less than an hour this afternoon to seize what commanders called a "jewel in the crown" of their initial thrust into Iraq, a key facility in one of the world's richest oil fields.

The oil complex, the precise location of which commanders asked not to disclose, fell without a death on either side. On their first day in the war, troops from the 1st Marine Division faced sporadic small arms fire and took 25 to 30 prisoners of war and 34 civilian detainees.

"I'm absolutely overjoyed because I have the same number of Marines I started with, everyone's in one piece and the objective has been achieved," said Lt. Col. Christopher Conlin, commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. "This was the main objective for this portion of the ground war." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:02 PM 0 comments

 
ITV crew missing in Iraq
BBC News, March 22, 2003

Three members of an ITV News crew are missing after they came under fire on their way to the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Efforts to find British TV reporter Terry Lloyd, cameraman Fred Nerac and local translator Hussein Othman are under way, following the attack at Iman Anas.

Another member of the team, cameraman Daniel Demoustier, was able to reach safety having suffered minor injuries.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 2:59 PM 0 comments

 
Genre: Male Jokes

This woman could never get her husband to do anything around the house.

He would come home from work, sit in front of the tv, eat dinner, and sit some more. He would never do those little household repairs that most husbands take care of. This frustrated the woman quite a bit.

One day the toilet stopped up. When her husband got home, she said sweetly, "Honey, the toilet is clogged. Would you look at it?"
Her husband snarled, "What do I look like? The Tidy-Bowl man?" and sat down on the sofa.

The next day, the garbage disposal wouldn't work. When her husband got home she said, very nicely, "Honey, the disposal won't work. Would you try to fix it for me?"
Once again, he growled, "What do I look? Mr. Plumber?"

The next day, the washing machine was on the blink. When her husband got home, she steeled her courage and said, "Honey, the washer isn't running. Would you check on it?"
And again she was met with a snarl, "What do I look like? The Maytag repairman?"

Finally, she had had enough. The next morning, the woman called three repairmen to fix the toilet, the garbage disposal, and the washer.
When her husband got home, she said, "Honey, I had the repairmen out today."

He frowned, "Well, how much is that going to cost?"
"Well, honey, they all said I could pay them by baking them a cake or having sex with them."

"Well, what kind of cakes did you bake them?"
She smiled. "What do I look like, BETTY CROCKER?"

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:14 AM 0 comments

 
Casualties of War -- First Truth, Then Conscience
Norman Solomon, FAIR.org/Media Beat, March 20, 2003

The national media echo chamber is not receptive to conscience. On television, the voices are usually loud and facile. People often seem to be shouting. In contrast, the human conscience is close to a whisper. Easily unheard.

Now, the biggest media outlets are in a frenzy. The networks are at war. Every cable news channel has enlisted. At the bottom of FM radio dials, NPR has been morphing into National Pentagon Radio.

With American tax dollars financing the war on Iraq, the urgent need for us to get in touch with our consciences has never been more acute.

The rationales for this war have been thoroughly shredded. (To see how the sordid deceptions and outright lies from the Bush team have been demolished by my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy, take a look at the website.) The propaganda edifice of the war rests on a foundation no more substantial than voluminous hot air.

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices," Voltaire wrote in 1767. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:10 AM 0 comments

 
Playing with Saddam's mind
Eric Boehlert, Salon.com, March 21, 2003 |

An expert in psychological operations sees the U.S. engaged in an elaborate effort to collapse the will of the Iraqi regime. And the media are a tool.

It might be the most-hyped one-two punch in modern military history: shock and awe.

Leading up the war with Iraq, the Pentagon made sure the world, and particularly Saddam Hussein, understood the United States military was prepared to unleash a ferocious air campaign that would not only break the dictator’s back but, some war critics feared, leave Baghdad in ruins. The press leaks came complete with promises to drop 3,000 bombs in the Iraqi capitol in the first hour of fire -- a barrage that would be unprecedented in military history. One anonymous military official even warned that when shock and awe was unleashed, there would not be a single safe place in all of Baghdad.

On Friday, the blitzkrieg was rolled out, and TV networks splashed their "Shock and Awe" on-screen graphics. While the devestation was widespread, and scores of buildings were ablaze throughout the capitol, the attack did not level Baghdad as some feared, nor, according to reports, did it drop anywhere near 3,000 bombs in a single hour.

Which raises the question: Was the hype actually part of an elaborate game of psychological warfare aimed at throwing Saddam’s reign into turmoil? [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:07 AM 0 comments

 
Ubiquitous Saddam nowhere to be found
Agence France Presse, Mar 22, 2003

DUBAI (AFP) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is everywhere in Iraq (news - web sites), beaming out from street corners and offices, newspapers and television screens, but he is also nowhere to be found, as his people can bear witness.

US and British intelligence trying to locate the Iraqi president, let alone determine if he has been wounded or even killed, face a foe who is a past master at deception.

Stories of multiple doubles, deep underground bunkers, decoy convoys and the like swirl around the Iraqi leader who has developed a legendary paranoia with personal security.

Given past reports of numerous coup attempts, the brutal violence of the Baath regime, and previous US efforts to target Saddam, his fears may be justified.

The snap bid to "decapitate" Saddam and his high command precipitated rather than prevented Gulf War (news - web sites) II on Thursday.

An anonymous British offical told the BBC he was dead, but US officials now seem to be groping in the dark again.

Hopes that surgicial Tomahawk missile strikes at least injured Saddam receded after a series of statements from senior Iraqi officials that the president and his family had again escaped.

Repeated television footage of Saddam and statements attributed to him promising "victory" and urging Iraqis to resist to the death did nothing to help the US case, even if they are far from convincing evidence of his survival. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad only began Friday night after the administration failed to find out whether Saddam was alive and it was evident he was not going to quit Iraq.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:02 AM 0 comments

 
More good c.o.v.e.r.a.g.e.:

--The Agonist has up-to-the-minute war coverage and a situation map.

--Web Sites CNN correspondent Kevin Sites photoblogs from northern Iraq.

--Eric Umansky has the Saddam Death Watch covered.

--More from Blogs of War and a blogger in Baghdad

[These listings are thanks to Cursor.com]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:54 AM 0 comments

 
Minute after minute the missiles came, with devastating shrieks
Robert Fisk in Baghdad, The Independent, 22 March 2003

Saddam's main presidential palace, a great rampart of a building 20 storeys high, simply exploded in front of me ­ a cauldron of fire, a 100ft sheet of flame and a sound that had my ears singing for an hour after. The entire, massively buttressed edifice shuddered under the impact. Then four more cruise missiles came in.

It is the heaviest bombing Baghdad has suffered in more than 20 years of war. All across the city last night, massive explosions shook the ground. To my right, the Ministry of Armaments Procurement ­ a long colonnaded building looking much like the façade of the Pentagon ­ coughed fire as five missiles crashed into the concrete.

In an operation officially intended to create "shock and awe'', shock was hardly the word for it. The few Iraqis in the streets around me ­ no friends of Saddam I would suspect ­ cursed under their breath.

From high-rise buildings, shops and homes came the thunder of crashing glass as the shock waves swept across the Tigris river in both directions. [...]

How, I ask myself, does one describe this outside the language of a military report, the definition of the colour, the decibels of the explosions? When the cruise missiles came in it sounded as if someone was ripping to pieces huge curtains of silk in the sky and the blast waves became a kind of frightening counterpoint to the flames.

There is something anarchic about all human beings, about their reaction to violence. The Iraqis around me stood and watched, as I did, at huge tongues of flame bursting from the upper stories of Saddam's palace, reaching high into the sky. Strangely, the electricity grid continued to operate and around us the traffic lights continued to move between red and green. Billboards moved in the breeze of the shock waves and floodlights continued to blaze on public buildings. Above us we could see the massive curtains of smoke beginning to move over Baghdad, white from the explosions, black from the burning targets.

How could one resist it? How could the Iraqis ever believe with their broken technology, their debilitating 12 years of sanctions, that they could defeat the computers of these missiles and of these aircraft? It was the same old story: irresistible, unquestionable power. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:37 AM 0 comments

 
Re-ordering the world
The Economist Global Agenda, Mar 21st 2003

It is already clear that whatever the outcome of the war in Iraq, relations between the world's most powerful countries have shifted significantly. How far-reaching will the post-war changes in international relations be?

IT IS always easy, at times of great international turmoil, to spot a turning point that is not there. For many people, the war in Iraq, and the anxious months leading up to it, seem to represent the most dangerous period in their lifetimes.

For those young enough to have only vague memories, if any, of the Gulf war of 1991 or the cold war, let alone the Cuban missile crisis of more than 40 years ago or the Korean war of the early 1950s, their perception might be right. But set Iraq in the context of even relatively recent world history, and it is clear that it is much too soon to gauge what sort of turning point, if any, the current war will be. Is a new world order taking shape? And if it is, what will it look like?

For now, nobody can be certain of the answers. But it is possible to see what issues will determine the shape of international relations in the war’s aftermath. Most important will be the United Nations. America, Britain and others blame the UN Security Council—and especially French intransigence—for its failure to endorse an invasion of Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein.
Those countries that wanted to avoid war argue that America simply wanted backing for actions it planned to take whatever the UN said. There is talk that the UN might now be a busted flush, just in the way the League of Nations was after its failure to stop Italy invading Abyssinia in 1935.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:30 AM 0 comments

 
'Dead bodies are everywhere'
smh.co.au, Lindsay Murdoch, March 22 2003

Herald Correspondent Lindsay Murdoch, travelling with a Marines artillery unit, reports on one of the war's first battles on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

There was little initial resistance as the United States Marines swept into southern Iraq early yesterday. One of the first encounters of the ground war was more like a massacre than a fight.

The Iraqi gunners fired first, soon after United States President George Bush announced the attack on Saddam Hussein was under way.

It was a fatal mistake.

The Iraqi artillery unit, preparing for the American invasion, had tested the range by firing registering shots at a likely spot where the American tanks would cross from Kuwait. US radar picked up the incoming shells and pinpointed their source.

Within hours, the Iraqi gunners and their Russian-made 122mm howitzers were destroyed as the Americans unleashed an artillery barrage that shook the ground and lit up the night sky with orange flashes.

"Dead bodies are everywhere," a US officer reported by radio.

Later in the day, the American firepower was turned on Safwan Hill, an Iraqi military observation post a couple of kilometres across the border. ... Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the Iraqi observation post was obliterated.

"I pity anybody who's in there," a marine sergeant said. "We told them to surrender."

The destruction of Safwan Hill was a priority for the attacking forces because it had sophisticated surveillance equipment near the main highway that runs from Kuwait up to Basra and then Baghdad. The attacking US and British forces could not attempt to cross the border unless it was destroyed. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:27 AM 0 comments

 
We Begin Combing in Five Minutes!
Lloyd Grove, Washingtonpost.com, March 21, 2003

The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein.

The British network broadcast 1 minute and 37 seconds of presidential primping to hundreds of millions of viewers in 200 countries around the world (and locally on WETA, Channel 26) before Bush's formal address at 10:15 p.m. Yesterday the BBC's White House producer, Mark Orchard, profusely and repeatedly apologized to irked staffers for airing video of an "unauthorized" portion of the pool feed while Washington anchor Mishal Husain chatted up a colleague about the significance of the moment.

CBS News Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, whose news crew was responsible for pool coverage of the speech, also apologized to the White House, explaining that a technician accidentally flipped a switch that fed the images of a not-ready-for-prime-time Bush -- his eyes darting to and fro as a female stylist sprayed, combed and patted down his hair.

A BBC spokeswoman told us that her network promptly realized the video was not for broadcast "but they couldn't pull away because of technical difficulties." Meanwhile, we hear that in Britain, the commercial network ITV also aired the hair-raising feed.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:24 AM 0 comments

 
Bubbles of fire tore into the sky above Baghdad
Robert Fisk in Baghdad, 21 March 2003

It was like a door slamming deep beneath the surface of the earth; a pulsating, minute-long roar of sound that brought President George Bush's supposed crusade against "terrorism" to Baghdad last night.

There was a thrashing of tracer on the horizon from the Baghdad air defences – the Second World War-era firepower of old Soviet anti-aircraft guns – and then a series of tremendous vibrations that had the ground shaking under our feet. Bubbles of fire tore into the sky around the Iraqi capital, dark red at the base, golden at the top.

Saddam Hussein, of course, has vowed to fight to the end but in Baghdad last night, there was a truly Valhalla quality about the violence. Within minutes, looking out across the Tigris river I could see pin-pricks of fire as bombs and cruise missiles exploded on to Iraq's military and communications centres and, no doubt, upon the innocent as well.

The first of the latter, a taxi driver, was blown to pieces in the first American raid on Baghdad yesterday morning. No one here doubted that the dead would include civilians. [...]

The sheer violence of it, the howl of air raid sirens and the air-cutting fall of the missiles carried its own political message; not just to President Saddam but to the rest of the world. We are the super-power, those explosions said last night.
This is how we do business. This is how we take our revenge for 11 September.

Not even George Bush made any pretence in the last days of peace to link Iraq with those international crimes against humanity in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. But some of the fire that you could see bubbling up through the darkness around Baghdad last night did remind me of other flames, those which consumed the World Trade Centre.

In a strange way, the Americans were – without the permission of the United Nations, with most of the world against them – acting out their rage with an eerily fiery consummation.

Iraq cannot withstand this for long. President Saddam may claim, as he does, that his soldiers can defeat technology with courage.
I doubt it.
For what fell upon Iraq last night – and I witnessed just an infinitely small part of this festival of violence – was as militarily awesome as it was politically terrifying. The crowds outside my hotel stood and stared into the sky at the flashing anti-aircraft bursts, awed by their power.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:54 PM 0 comments

 

President Bush Announces Military Strikes
Washington Post.com, March 20, 2003

Following is the text of President Bush's remarks as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks Inc.

BUSH: My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:05 PM 0 comments

 
Saddam Hussein's family
San Fracisco Chronicle, March 19, 2003

The Iraqi leader rose from a poor childhood to assume brutal control of his country and head a sometimes brutal family.

Hussein al-Majid, Hussein's father: A peasant farmer, he died a short time after Hussein's birth. Little is known about his life or where he is buried. .

Subha Tulfah al-Musallat, Hussein's mother: A domineering woman, she defied the typical status of women in the town of Tikrit, where they were often kept isolated. After her death in 1982, a huge shrine was built in Tikrit at government expense to celebrate the "Mother of Militants." .

Ibrahim al-Hassan, Hussein's stepfather: Subha married "Hassan the Liar," as villagers called him, after the death of Hussein's father. His stepfather was an illiterate shepherd from the poorer fringes of an already poor village. His sons - Hussein's half brothers - have played a critical role in government intelligence and security agencies. .

1 SADDAM HUSSEIN: Hussein was born April 28, 1937, in the small village of al-Auja near Tikrit. At 20, he joined the Baath party. A year later, he escaped to Egypt after a failed Ba'ath Party coup. He attended the Cairo School of Law and returned to Iraq when the Baathists briefly seized control of Iraq in 1963. He played a prominent role in a 1968 coup that re-established the party's control, becoming vice chairman of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council. Just over a decade later, he emerged as Iraq's absolute ruler,

a position he has occupied for 23 years. He has three daughters - Raghad, Rana and Halan - and at least two sons, Odai and Qusai; he is widely thought to have a third son, Ali, who is about 18. .

Sajida Tulfah, Hussein's wife: As is customary in traditional Iraqi tribal society, Hussein was betrothed to marry his first cousin, Sajida, at an early age. The two reportedly didn't meet until Hussein was 21, and married soon afterward. Sajida bore Hussein five children, and in her early years worked as a schoolteacher. She later became known for her excessive shopping sprees in Geneva and Paris. .

Rana Hussein, Hussein's daughter: Wife of Saddam Kamel. She defected to Jordan with her husband in 1995. She is believed to be alive but hasn't been seen in public since. .

Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Hussein's cousin and son-in-law: His claim to fame is a starring role in the Iraqi film "The Long Days," a story about Saddam Hussein's 1959 attempt on the life of then-President abd al-Qassim. He was married to Hussein's younger daughter, Rana, until he was executed along with his brother, Hussein Kamel, for defecting to Jordan. .

Raghad Hussein, Hussein's daughter: Favorite daughter and wife of Hussein Kamel. She defected to Jordan with her husband and has also not been seen in public since her husband's death. .

Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Hussein's cousin and son-in-law: The former liaison with U.N. weapons inspectors, Kamel rose in the ranks from presidential chauffeur to running a special security agency to protect Hussein. He created the elite Republican Guard and supervised the Iraqi nuclear weapons project. After a fierce family feud in 1995, Kamel, who married Hussein's favorite daughter, Raghad, defected to Jordan with his brother and wife and called for Hussein's ouster. Seven months later, he and his brother returned to Iraq believing they had been pardoned. Three days later, they were executed by a presidential guard led by "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid. .

Ali Kamel, Hussein's grandson: Hussein's first grandson and son of Raghad and Hussein Kamel. .

Odai Saddam Hussein, Hussein's older son: Commander of the Fedayeen Saddam, a militia force of 30,000 trained to squelch any popular uprising, Odai, 38, has a fearsome reputation for brutality and violence. He gained his power base through control of about a dozen newspapers and the most popular television and radio stations in Iraq. He is estimated to have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars gained from a number of other businesses, including food processing and, allegedly, illegal oil smuggling. He was badly wounded in an assassination attempt in 1996. .

Qusai Hussein, Hussein's younger son: Qusai, 36, is known for inheriting his father's skill in administration. His executive responsibilities have included playing Kurdish factions against each other, managing the U.N. weapons inspectors and guarding the security of his father. After his uncle Hussein Kamel defected and was murdered, Qusai assumed Kamel's key command posts. He was shot in the arm last year in an assassination attempt. .

Halan Hussein, Hussein's daughter: Not much is known about Halan. .

Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother: The Iraqi representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1998. .

Watban Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother: Iraq's interior minister until his dismissal in 1995. Later that year, his leg was amputated after Odai, Saddam's older son, shot him at a family gathering. .

Sabawi Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother: Chief of general security of the secret police agency, Mudiriyat al-Amn al-Amma, until Hussein fired him in 1995. .

Khairallah Tulfah, Hussein's uncle: An officer in the Iraqi army and a nationalist who spent four years in prison after a 1941 coup against the then- ruling monarchy and the British. He was Hussein's first political mentor. At 10, Hussein lived with Tulfah in Baghdad and later married his daughter, Sajida. .

Adnan Khairallah Tulfah, Hussein's cousin and brother-in-law: Hussein's boyhood friend and his wife's brother, Tulfah served as minister of defense until his mysterious death in 1989. In a family feud, over a mistress, Tulfah supported his sister. He was killed a year later in a helicopter crash that many believe was orchestrated by the president. Although that has never been proven, a former Hussein bodyguard interviewed on "60 Minutes" claimed Hussein ordered him to plant a bomb in the helicopter.


Ali Hassan al-Majid, Hussein's cousin: Also known as "Chemical Ali," for his role in the attacks on Kurds in northern Iraq in which between 60,000 and 200,000 were killed with poison gas in 1988. In 1991, he was appointed Hussein's interior minister and later served as defense minister.

Source: www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/family.html; Associated Press
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:42 PM 0 comments

 

Meet Chemical Ali
The Straits Times, March 20, 2003

He used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurds

He heads wanted list of 'Dirty Dozen' Iraqi leaders
PRESIDENT Saddam Hussein has appointed a cousin, nicknamed 'Chemical Ali', as commander of the southern region, a move seen as a signal to any invasion force.

General Ali Hassan Majid is wanted especially for his role in a 1988 operation in which chemical weapons were used to kill tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq.

He also heads a so-called list of 'Dirty Dozen' Iraqi leaders whom the Bush administration wants tried for genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass executions, rape and other crimes against humanity. The list also includes Mr Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay.

The appointment of Gen Ali to command the Basra region could be aimed at intimidating US and British troops, who are expected to launch their invasion of Iraq from that area. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:38 PM 0 comments

 
US begins attack on Iraq
Rediff.com, March 20, 2003 08:46 IST

The US launched its attack on Iraq after its deadline for President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq expired at 2000 EST [0630 IST, 0100 GMT].

Anti-aircraft fire was heard in Baghdad early in the morning.

"The act of disarmament of Iraq is on," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced in Washington.

The US said it had fired a Cruise missile at a 'target of opportunity' in Iraq.

The US has not indicated what this 'target of opportunity' is and the outcome of the missile strike.

US President George Bush is to address the nation at around 2215 EST (0830 IST).

US troops, however, have not yet crossed the Iraq-Kuwait border.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:19 PM 0 comments

 
'You Just Can't Imagine It'
Rachel Corrie, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, March 19, 2003

Editor's note: The parents of Rachel Corrie, the American woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza this week, released excerpts of an e-mail message Corrie sent them Feb. 7. This material is taken from that e-mail.

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States -- something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An 8-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me, Ali -- or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say "Bush Majnoon," "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited Arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) . . . . There are 8-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago -- at least regarding Israel.

Nevertheless, I think about the fact that no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it, ..[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:54 PM 0 comments

 
Commando force poised to track and kill Saddam
Jack Kelley, USA TODAY, March 18, 2003

KUWAIT CITY — Armed with high-tech weapons, night-vision goggles and pictures of their targets, small teams of Delta Force commandos will soon descend on the outskirts of Baghdad to begin the most anticipated mission of the war: capturing or killing Saddam Hussein.

Teams of the Army's elite 360-man force have been assigned to hunt and, if necessary, kill Saddam, his sons Qusai and Uday, and at least a dozen of Iraq's top military and political leaders, according to senior Pentagon officials with direct knowledge of the mission.

The commandos, now based in Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and northern Iraq, are prepared to storm Saddam's presidential palaces, attack his convoys and suffer casualties to bring Saddam's 24-year rule to an end, the officials say.

The Delta Force - a commando group so secretive that the U.S. government regularly denies its existence - and the CIA have been training clandestinely for this mission for several years, U.S. intelligence officials add.

Officially, the U.S. objective in Iraq is not to kill Saddam but to force a change in the country's regime and to secure the banned weapons that Iraq is accused of developing.[...]
................
The Uday Profile :

Age: 39. He is the first of five children from Saddam Hussein's marriage to his first wife, Sajida.

Personal: Reportedly married three to five times; no children.

Positions: Sits in the Iraqi parliament. Owns Al-Shabab ("Youth") television and Babil, Iraq's most popular newspaper. Leads the Fedayeen Saddam ("Saddam's Men of Sacrifice") paramilitary troops.

Background: Known for capriciousness and depravity, Uday has a fondness for Cuban cigars and Porsches. As head of Iraq's Olympic committee since 1984, he built a 30-cell torture unit and brutalized athletes who didn't perform to his liking, according to defectors and human rights groups. An assassination attempt in 1996 left him barely able to walk and raised questions about his authority within Saddam's inner circle. Before that, he was considered the heir apparent. When his playboy persona failed to persuade a young woman to accompany him, his henchmen would kidnap her, defectors say.
.................
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:51 PM 0 comments

 
Turkey to hold new vote on U.S. presence
Mike Blanchfield, The Ottawa Citizen, March 20, 2003

Military leaders prod government; country fears loss of $15B U.S. aid plan

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey -- On the eve of war with Iraq, the United States will get one more chance to open up a northern front when the Turkish parliament considers a proposal today to allow the American military on its soil or in its skies.

Turkey's cabinet held an emergency meeting yesterday and the matter is expected to come before parliament for a vote today, 18 days after the government refused to allow 62,000 U.S. troops into southeastern Turkey, near Iraq's northern border.

Despite pressure from the White House, including from President George W. Bush himself, it appeared the reluctant government had stalled the matter to the point of killing the northern front option.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:47 PM 0 comments

 
War within the war: shaping perceptions

How conflict is viewed will influence larger outcome.
Howard LaFranchi and Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2003 (edition)

WASHINGTON – However fierce the fighting on the ground turns out to be, another war is under way that may end up being just as important to the ultimate outcome of a conflict in Iraq: the war of perceptions.
Whether the war is seen as one of liberation and international security, or of imperialist occupation and part of a crusade against Islam, will go a long way in shaping global security, international relations, and perceptions of the US for years to come.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:44 PM 0 comments

 
Diplomatic blunders led to war
William Pfaff, IHT, March 20, 2003

PARIS And so we go to war, the United States, Britain, and Australia - alone. George W. Bush and Tony Blair see this as a Churchillian moment: Alone? So be it!
.
If their troops are received in Basra by surrendering Iraqi soldiers, and by Iraqi civilians cheering their liberators, they say all the rest will be forgotten. We shall soon know.
.
We can certainly expect the war to be run with more professionalism than the diplomacy that has led up to the war. This in the past two weeks has recalled Freedonia going to war in "Duck Soup," except that the Marx Brothers meant to be funny. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:42 PM 0 comments

 
The Nightmare World of a Paranoid President
Mary Dejevsky, Independent/UK, March 19, 2003

Exile or war, he threatened the Iraqi regime: you have 48 hours to decide. But neither the staging of the President's address nor his manner matched those words. Rather than sitting behind his Oval Office desk, Mr Bush had chosen to stand at a lectern, between two flags. He was visually diminished by the upright comparisons. He looked pale (what had the make-up and lighting people been doing?) and diffident. His brow permanently furrowed, his eyes squinting, he fluffed lines. He could not settle on a constant pronunciation of even his chief adversary (Iraq or Eye-rahq, or Eye-rakk). Was this the sole superpower's Commander? In Chief? [...]

At times, the American President came across as a scared suburban parent, terrified of the unknown, averse to all risk and fixed on keeping his household and his neighborhood"safe". "Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety." And before "the day of horror" could come, "this danger will be removed".

Having annihilated the tyrant (Biff! Bang!), erased the evil tentacles of his power (Crash! Wallop! Zap!), Mr Bush held out for Iraq's hard-pressed and soon to be bombed people a paradisiacal future in the image of the American ideal. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

 
We Have a Winner in Iraq. Corporate America.
by Arianna Huffington, Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2003

We finally have a winner in Iraq. Yes, I know that the first laser-guided smart bomb has yet to be dropped on Baghdad. But that's just a formality. The war has already been won. So who's the big winner? Corporate America, that's who.

The Bush administration is currently in the process of doling out more than $1.5 billion in government contracts to U.S. companies lining up to cash in on the rebuilding of postwar Iraq. So bombs away! The more destruction the better -- at least for the lucky few in the rebuilding business.

The U.N. has traditionally overseen the reconstruction of war zones like Afghanistan or Kosovo. But in keeping with its unilateral, the-world-is-our-sandbox approach to this invasion, the White House has decided to nail a "Made in the USA" sign on this Iraqi fixer-upper. Postwar Iraq will be rebuilt using red, white and blueprints.[...]
.....................

Arms And The Man: Who's Making A Killing On Killing In Iraq?
Major Barbara, March 15, 2003

The Devil's Disciple?

So who are these Chairmen of the Board of Boots & Coots IWC, past and present, who watched as their board of directors signed off on a short-term, million-dollar loan from a "shadowy group of Texas oilmen"? [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:34 PM 0 comments

 
The Slate Field Guide to Iraq Pundits
David Plotz, Julia Turner, and Avi Zenilman, Slate.com, March 14, 2003

You've seen them pontificate gravely on Meet the Press, explain military strategy to Oprah, denounce France on The O'Reilly Factor, and solve the war's aftermath in 30 seconds on The NewsHour. But face it, it's impossible to tell them apart.



What's the difference, if any, between William Kristol and Robert Kagan? Which one of those ex-generals worked for Bush the Father, which worked for Clinton, and which worked for Bush the Son? Who is Frank Gaffney, and why is he always on my TV set?

The Slate field guide to Iraq pundits is arranged in order of bellicosity, from blood-red hawks to snow-white doves.

1. Richard Perle
Aka: The Hawk's Hawk
Authorized bio: Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. American Enterprise Institute fellow.
Unauthorized bio: Easily mistaken for an actual administration official. Suing Sy Hersh, who criticized him in The New Yorker for establishing a company that would allegedly profit from war. [...]

2. Frank Gaffney
Aka: Mini-Perle
Authorized bio: President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy. Assistant secretary of defense under Reagan.
Unauthorized bio: The cable networks call him when Perle is busy [...]

3. William Kristol
Aka: The Happy Warrior
Authorized bio: Chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. Editor of the Weekly Standard. Co-author of The War on Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission. Chairman and co-director of the Project for the New American Century, etc., etc., etc.
Unauthorized bio: Irving Kristol's son, Dan Quayle's brain.[...]

4. Robert Kagan
Aka: The Thoughtful Superhawk
Authorized bio: Washington Post columnist, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, author of Paradise and Power: America vs. Europe in the New World Order, co-director of the Project for the New American Century.
Unauthorized bio: The guy who explains why the Europeans are wimps.[...]

5. Laurie Mylroie
Aka: Ms. Iraq=Al-Qaida
Authorized bio: Iraq scholar and investigator, author of The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A Study of Revenge, which links Iraq to both World Trade Center attacks.
Unauthorized bio: The one who blames everything on Saddam.[...]

6. James Woolsey
Aka: The Clintonite Who Sounds Like a Bushie
Authorized bio: CIA director under President Clinton.
Unauthorized bio: The guy who advocated looking into Saddam's ties to Sept. 11 as early as Sept. 13

7. Steve Emerson
Aka: The Terrorism Guru Doves Love To Hate
Authorized bio: NBC terrorism analyst; author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us; producer of 1994 Frontline film Jihad in America.
Unauthorized bio: Journalist most loathed by American Muslims. Has been documenting American links to Islamic terrorists for years. [...]

8. Christopher Hitchens
Aka: The Latter-Day Orwell
Authorized bio: Astonishingly prolific author of Why Orwell Matters and The Trial of Henry Kissinger, columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate.
Unauthorized bio: Iconoclast who broke ranks with the left over Islamist terrorism and Saddam Hussein. Quit writing a column for The Nation in September 2002 because the magazine was an "echo chamber of those who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than Osama bin Laden."

9. Henry Kissinger
Aka: As Always, the Realist
Authorized bio: Former secretary of state and national security adviser, prolific author. CEO of Kissinger Associates.
Unauthorized bio: Minion of Satan. [...]

10. Gen. Wayne Downing
Aka: The Go-to General
Authorized bio: Retired Gulf War general and special-ops expert. Former adviser to the Iraqi National Congress. Appointed by Bush to head the White House Office for Combating Terrorism in October 2001; resigned 10 months later.
Unauthorized bio: TV general who explains why current U.S. military plans make sense. [...]

11. David Kay
Aka: Hell Hath No Fury Like an Inspector Scorned
Authorized bio: U.N. chief nuclear weapons inspector after Gulf War I, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies senior fellow.
Unauthorized bio: Accused of being a CIA spy after he found documents indicating Iraqi WMD programs in late 1991. He was subsequently locked in a bus and held hostage by Iraqi troops.[...]

12. Kenneth Pollack
Aka: The Lefty Sort-of Hawk
Authorized bio: National Security Council staffer under Clinton. CNN analyst. Brookings Institution senior fellow. Author of The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.
Unauthorized bio: His book is responsible for persuading many on the left to support the war (The "I-Can't-Believe-I'm-a-Hawk" Club). Disingenuously cited by conservatives trying to prove bipartisan unanimity about the war.[...]

13. Norman Schwarzkopf
Aka: Not-So-Stormin' Norman
Authorized bio: Commander of U.S. forces during the Gulf War.
Unauthorized bio: The Gulf War celebrity most likely to criticize today's political and military leaders. In January, he panned Donald Rumsfeld and Gulf War II, though he clammed up once Colin Powell turned hawkish.[...]

14. Lawrence Eagleburger
Aka: The Old-Fashioned Cautious Republican
Authorized bio: Secretary of state under the first President Bush.
Unauthorized bio: Secretary of state for about 15 minutes under the first President Bush.[...]

15. Thomas Friedman
Aka: The Earnest Reformer
Authorized bio: New York Times Pulitzer-Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist.
Unauthorized bio: Along with Pollack, the guy who can make the (reluctant) liberal case for war. Now a charter member of the balking hawks club.[...]

16. Gen. Wesley Clark
Aka: The Democratic General
Authorized bio: Former NATO supreme commander, ran Kosovo operation. CNN military analyst.
Unauthorized bio: Auditioning for presidential campaign.[...]

17. Richard Butler
Aka: The Ex-Inspector
Authorized bio: Former chair of the UNSCOM inspection team; author of The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security.
Unauthorized bio: This Aussie was tougher than the Swedish Hans Blix, which is why Saddam booted Butler in 1998.[...]

18. Jessica Mathews
Aka: The Force-Loving Dove
Authorized bio: President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Served in the Carter and Clinton administrations. Former Washington Post columnist.
Unauthorized bio: Authored the Carnegie Endowment's proposal for "coercive inspections," which got press last summer and then was ignored.[...]

19. Scott Ritter
Aka: The Hawk Who Magically Became a Dove
Authorized bio: Former U.N. weapons inspector.
Unauthorized bio: Hawkish U.N. weapons inspector turned aggressive dove. In new incarnation, addressed Iraqi parliament and made a documentary asserting that Iraq is now harmless.[...]

20. Tom Andrews
Aka: The Mainstream Dove
Authorized bio: Director of Win Without War. Former Democratic congressman from Maine.
Unauthorized bio: The politician doves recruited so they'd seem less radical.[...]

21. Janeane Garofalo
Aka: The Celebrity Dove
Authorized bio: Comedic actress. Appears in anti-war TV commercial.
Unauthorized bio: A celeb doves recruited so they'd be more visible. More appealing and famous than Mike Farrell, celebrity dove No. 2.[...]

22. Dennis Kucinich
Aka: Candidate Dove
Authorized bio: Democratic congressman from Ohio. Former mayor of Cleveland.
Unauthorized bio: Currently competing with Al Sharpton for "fringiest candidate" mantle in the 2004 Democratic primary.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:31 PM 0 comments

 
The war has started
By Robert Fox, Defence Correspondent and David Taylor, Evening Standard, March 19, 2003

British and American troops were involved in fierce fighting near Iraq's main port today as the war to topple Saddam Hussein began.

The firefight broke out near Basra as men of the Special Boat Service targeted the strategically vital city and the oilfields in southern Iraq.

At the same time allied troops were flooding into the demilitarised zone on the Iraqi border with Kuwait 40 miles away to take up positions for an all-out invasion.

Cruise missiles were also loaded onto B52 bombers at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, a clear sign that the bombardment of Baghdad could be only hours away.

British troops taking up "forward battle positions" were ordered to switch off satellite phones and allied warplanes bombed targets in Iraq after coming under fire in the no-fly zone. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:00 PM 0 comments

 
UN session on Iraq before deadline
Irib (Persian) News, 19 March, 2003

United Nations, March 19 - Hours before a US deadline runs out for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave his country, the UN Security Council meets Wednesday to discuss the Iraqi crisis and hear a report from its chief UN weapons inspector.

The council's public, ministerial meeting of an expected half a dozen members -- Angola, Cameroon, France, Germany, Guinea and Russia, has been set for 10:30 am (1530 GMT).

The US deadline expires after 8:00 pm (0100 GMT, Thursday). [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:40 AM 0 comments

 
Saddam's bomb
The Rediff Special/Shyam Bhatia/Daniel McGrory, March 19, 2003

On May 18, 1974, Saddam Hussein was chairing a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council in his vice-presidential office when a nervous aide slipped a single sheet of paper in front of him. It was a copy of a news story from Reuters that morning, confirming that India had successfully tested a nuclear bomb in the remote Thar desert of Rajasthan. Saddam was impressed, but not amused.

'If the Hindis (Indians) can do it, why can't we?' he asked those at the table.

He had already secretly spent millions on his bomb project and had precious little to show for it. And yet here was starving India, an inferior Third World country that had dragged its bomb to the test site on the back of an ox cart, banging on the doors of the exclusive nuclear club.[...]

The first six defectors embraced by the Americans were generously rewarded to tempt other colleagues to follow them. The one man they wanted above all was Dr Jaffar Dhia Jaffar. CIA agents who masqueraded as UN inspectors were told their priority was to contact Jaffar and offer him anything he wanted.

Relatives living abroad were courted. His half-English sons were approached and colleagues who had worked with him in the West were contacted to persuade him to leave Iraq. Nothing worked.

Jaffar is so closely watched he knows it would be suicide to try to make a run for it. He is not even sure he wants to. No other job will ever match what he has now. Where else will he have the opportunity to play with the most powerful forces of nature? Jaffar sees himself as the father of the Iraqi bomb. Saddam may have paid for the nuclear programme, but Jaffar has made it work.[...]
[Excerpted from Saddam's Bomb, by Shyam Bhatia and Daniel McGrory, TimeWarner ]

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:59 AM 0 comments

 
Genre: Marriage Jokes: You Don't Need to Be a Weatherman

It was two o'clock in the morning and a husband and wife were asleep, when suddenly the phone rang.

The husband picked up the phone and said,
"Hello? ... How the heck do I know? What am I, the weather man?" -- and promptly slammed the phone down.

His wife rolls over and asks, "Who was that?"
The husband replies, I don’t know. Some guy who wanted to know if the coast was clear.
...............................

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Online Newshour, March 17, 2003

Four historians share their perspectives on President George W. Bush's ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:22 PM 0 comments

 
Genre: Work Jokes

A young man at this construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone based on his strength. He especially made fun of one of the older workman.

After several minutes, the older worker had enough.
"Why don't you put your money where you mouth is?" he said.
"I'll bet a week's wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to the other building that you won't be able to wheel back."

"You're on, old man," the young man replied. "Let's see what you've got."

The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then nodding to the young man, he said with a smile, "All right. Get in."
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:18 PM 0 comments

 
A legacy of 'Made in China'
Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor, March 18, 2003

Tuesday, Premier Zhu Rongji formally hands over power to Wen Jiabao.

BEIJING – For China, it is the end of an era.
Monday marks the departure of Premier Zhu Rongji - the face of China's epic economic transformation over the past decade, and the man whose policies opened centuries of closed doors, created a vibrant market ethos in a Communist state, and put China into the global mainstream as a member of the World Trade Organization.

Premier Zhu, a Hunanese orphaned at age 9 and twice put in prison for his pro-capitalist "rightist" views under Mao Zedong, took the reins of reform in the early 1990s, [...]

Mr. Zhu's departure as premier - he is succeeded by Deputy Premier Wen Jiabao - is part of a sweeping set of generational changes that began last fall.

In China, the Communist Party is all-powerful, and last November's Party Congress, which occurs once every five years, the top party slot shifted from Jiang Zemin to the youthful Hu Jintao in the first peaceful transition of rule in modern China.

Monday closed the annual National People's Congress, which oversees state, as opposed to party, affairs - [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:46 PM 0 comments

 
Fatal Asian outbreak could be new flu strain
Marin Independent Journal, March 17, 2003

A deadly, mysterious respiratory illness spread largely among health care workers in Asia could be a new strain of flu or even an exotic virus passed from animals to people, a health official said yesterday.

Probably the most feared by health experts, however, would be a new and deadly strain of flu.

The illness, which carries flu-like symptoms, has killed nine people - seven in Asia and two in North America. Its rapid spread in southeast Asia in recent weeks caused a rare worldwide health alert to be issued on Saturday.[...]

Experts discounted the possibility that terrorism is the source and believe it almost certainly is a contagious infection that spreads most easily from victims to their doctors, nurses and families through coughing, sneezing and other contact with nasal fluids.

"Nothing about that pattern suggests bioterrorism," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Officials said they are encouraged that some recent victims seem to be recovering, although they are unsure whether that is because of the many antibiotic and antiviral drugs they have been given or simply the natural course of the disease.

Heymann said three or four patients had stabilized enough to be moved out of intensive care yesterday in Hanoi, Vietnam, although all still had breathing problems.

The illness is being called "severe acute respiratory syndrome," or SARS. The incubation period appears to be three to seven days. It often begins with a high fever and other flu-like symptoms, such as headache and sore throat. Victims typically develop coughs, pneumonia, shortness of breath and other breathing difficulties. Death results from respiratory failure.

The World Health Organization has been aware of the outbreak for about three weeks but issued its global alert this weekend because of concern that the illness would spread to North America and Europe.

The WHO estimates that perhaps 500 people in all have been sickened if an earlier outbreak that peaked last month in Guangdong province in China turns out to be part of the same disease, as they suspect it is. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:37 PM 0 comments

 
Genre: Animal Jokes

Late one night, a burglar broke into a house he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say, "Jesus is watching you!"

Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. "Jesus is watching you," the voice boomed again. The burglar stopped dead again. He was frightened.

Frantically, he looked all around. In a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and in the cage was a parrot. He asked the parrot: "Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?"
"Yes," said the parrot.

The burglar breathed a sigh of relief and asked the parrot: "What's your name?"
"Clarence," said the bird.

"That's a dumb name for a parrot," sneered the burglar. "What idiot named you Clarence?"
The parrot said, "The same idiot who named the Rottweiller Jesus."

..............................................

Things to Come
Paul Krugman, New York Times, 18 March, 2003

Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.

What frightens me is the aftermath —

The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that
other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops,
or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis)
or that what the world thinks doesn't matter.
They're wrong on all counts.

Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration
told Europe to take a hike on global warming,
told Russia to take a hike on missile defense,
told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals,
told Mexico to take a hike on immigration,
mortally insulted the Turks and
pulled out of the International Criminal Court
— all in just two years.

Nor, as we've just seen, is military power a substitute for trust.
Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise.
"What can the Americans do to us?" one African official asked. "Are they going to bomb us? Invade us?" [...]

Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance — [...]

It's a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project.
In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran."
In February 2003, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria and North Korea

What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. [...]

...But I can't help worrying that in domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been the shape of things to come.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:22 PM 0 comments

 
Confronting Our Fears So We Can Confront the Empire
by Robert Jensen, Commondreams.com, March 18, 2003

I am finally ready to admit what for months I have kept hidden: I am terrified.

I am more scared than I have ever been in my adult life. For weeks now I have felt a new kind of free-floating terror at what has been unfolding, as the Bush administration has made it clear that nothing would derail its mad rush to war. [...]

This fear I feel is not just of power-run-amok but of an empire with the most destructive military capacity that has ever existed -- an empire with thermobaric bombs and cruise missiles, cluster bombs and nuclear "bunker busters." No matter how hard the government works to try to keep us from seeing the results of those weapons -- and no matter how much the news media cooperate in that project -- we understand how many civilians could die under the onslaught of these horrific weapons.
They can censor the pictures, but not our imaginations.

This fear I feel is not just of the unchecked power of the United States but of the fact that Bush and his advisers seem to think they understand their own power and can control it. It is the arrogance of virtually unlimited power married to lifelong privilege. It is hubris, and in a nuclear world there is no sin that is potentially more deadly.

This is the fear that I feel, that I think so many of us feel. The Bush administration wants us to be afraid, but remain quiet about it. Our power will come not from denying the fear but in confronting, and overcoming, it.

So, we must speak of it, not to scare others but to bring us closer together. Our only hope against the fear is in each other, in our organizing, in our resistance. And if we can confront our fears, we can confront this empire. [...]
...............................................

Protesters Vow to Greet War with Widespread Civil Disobedience
by Jeff Donn, Commondreams.com, March 18, 2003

Having had months to focus on the buildup toward conflict with Iraq, America's anti-war activists say they are ready to mark the first days of war with protests in dozens of cities coast to coast.

They vow to block federal buildings, military compounds and streets in a rash of peaceful civil disobedience. They say they will walk out of college classes, picket outside city halls and state capitols, and recite prayers of mourning at interfaith services.

"It is sort of an acknowledgment that we are probably not going to be able to stop the war," said Joe Flood, who is helping to plan a student walkout from classes at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. He said more than 1,000 people have pledged to participate.

Some plans for the first day or two of war are writ large, like paralyzing traffic with bicycles and cars and disrupting commerce in San Francisco's financial district. Others are small, like showing a single lit candle on a Web site of the United Church of Christ.

Some are meant to be noisy, like a march in Portsmouth, N.H., with clanging pots and pans. Others will be quiet and solemn, like a vigil in Ann Arbor, Mich., with Christian, Jewish and Muslim prayers.

Many groups intend to carry out die-ins, where activists lie on the ground to symbolize war victims and to block passers-by. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:11 PM 0 comments

 
Why I had to leave the cabinet
Robin Cook, The Guardian, March 18, 2003

I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us

I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

In recent days France has been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic criticism. However, it is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany is opposed to us. Russia is opposed to us. Indeed at no time have we signed up even the minimum majority to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac.

The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading member. Not Nato. Not the EU. And now not the security council. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:00 PM 0 comments

 
A Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush on the eve of war

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM!
Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works! [...]

... After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year's election.

Of course, that's still a long ways away, so we'll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

But, hey, who knows -- maybe you'll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis -- they got our oil!!

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:53 PM 0 comments

 
A naked bid to redraw world map
Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2003

The island bit over the weekend was a revealing farce. The three wannabe liberators, determined to export popular rule to Iraq, had to flee the protests of their own peoples to an inaccessible retreat in the Azores.
How fitting to choose an island chain originally settled by a Portuguese Crusader whose goal was to encircle the Muslim world with Christian armies.

Unlike the other leaders of his tiny "coalition of the willing," George W. Bush can at least claim a slim majority at home in support of his war after selling frightened Americans the big lie that Iraq is connected to 9/11. [...]

.......................................

Genre: Animal Jokes

A lady was walking down the street to work and she saw a parrot on a perch in front of a pet store.The parrot said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." Well, the lady is furious!

She stormed past the store to her work.
On the way home she saw the same parrot and it said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." She was incredibly ticked now.

The next day the same parrot again said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly."
T
he lady was so ticked that she went into the store and said that she would sue the store and kill the bird. The store manager replied profusely and promised he would make sure the parrot didn't say it again.

When the lady walked past the store that day after work theparrot called to her, "Hey lady."
She paused and said,"Yes?"

The bird said, "You know."
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:47 PM 0 comments

 
Iraqi oil and the US war
T.V.R. Shenoy, Rediff.com, March 18, 2003

Amman: Everyone in the Jordanian capital takes it for granted that I am a journalist. How do they know? Because everybody else, even diplomats, is making a beeline out of the Middle East before the shooting starts.

So, when is the war due to start?
Jordanians are sure it will ignite as soon as 'The Resort' is complete. Thinking this to be a code-word of some sort, I ask for a clarification. It turns out that 'The Resort' is just what the name suggests, 150 luxurious villas on a hundred sprawling acres of land somewhere in the north of Iraq, about 70 kilometres from the Syrian border. Owned by a Kurd, the capital is apparently coming from the United States. Jordanians are convinced this has been earmarked as the operational headquarters for this part of the world by American and British officers. As soon as the last inch of optic-fibre cable is laid and the last satellite dish tilted just so, the invaders shall arrive to take possession.

Jordan seems to be resigned to the inevitability of war. They are most worried about the fallout on their own kingdom. Most of Jordan's petroleum comes courtesy Iraq, and they have wangled a special deal -- a whopping 50 per cent -- 75 per cent below the market rate. The United States has promised to find a replacement, but oil supplies are low everywhere thanks to an unusually cold winter in the northern hemisphere and civil unrest in distant Venezuela.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

 
No need to panic: Crisis management group
Josy Joseph in New Delhi, Rediff.com, March 18, 2003

A high-powered Crisis Management Group on the Gulf situation concluded in its first meeting on Tuesday that there was no need to panic, even as India stepped up its monitoring of the unfolding situation.

The CMG is headed by Secretary (Asia and North Africa) R M Abhyankar with members from various ministries, including the Ministry of Defence.

The first meeting of the CMG was held on Monday with External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha in the chair.

"Besides MEA officials, there were representatives from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Ministry of Defence and we plan to invite representatives of the Ministry of Petroleum and the Ministry of Labour in our next meeting," MEA spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters.According to senior government officials, the first meeting concluded that "there was no need to panic" because of the one-sided affair this war was expected to be.

Indian Ambassador to Iraq B B Tyagi and other Indian staffers left the Iraqi capital and reached Amman on Sunday night. There were about a dozen businessmen and 15 Indian students in Iraq. "We believe most of them would be leaving the country within the next 48 hours," a senior official said. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:33 PM 0 comments

 
Web before Wicket!
Bijoy AK, January 23, 2003, Rediff.com

As the countdown to the Cricket World Cup begins, Bijoy AK takes a look at what the Net has to offer fans of this game

If the print, visual and audio media are gearing up for the arrival of Cricket World Cup with gusto, can Net be far behind? With astrology, analysis, predictions, quizzes, contests, cartoons, games, discussions and web logs galore, the Internet is all set to capture the excitement of the tourney and bring it to your desktop.

The Indian portal cricketnext.com has bagged the prestigious rights to webcast the event. For official information on the tournament you can head to the International Cricket Council.

Cricketastrology.com already predicts good things for Sachin Tendulkar, who has displayed a low-key form during the New Zealand tour. 'Watch him this session. Scintillating performances' it says.

According to Terry Walsh of Cricket Online, the Net allows people to get 'instant' access to information that other media cannot provide due to time constraints and obligations to sponsors. "Online information can be presented in a more interactive manner," Walsh adds.

Predictions:
- Cricket Astrology
- Fantasy Factory
- Sport Punter


Links:
- About Cricket
- Web log
- Records

Rediff Cricket too will provide its readers with lots of interactivity. Its World Cup coverage will have a mix of information, tools, analysis and loads of fun. It plans to send a team to South Africa and leverage its relationship with cricketers and administrators to offer the best possible coverage for cricket fans who throng the site.

Detailed statistics is another area where the Web scores. According to Walsh, statistics are not easily available on television. Else, you might find them in the next day's newspapers. Online, you can find almost anything you want, on any player.

Some cricket enthusiasts have gone further. US based Ramkumar Duraikannu has created a web log that will track the event. The Net will be the first choice for NRIs like him to enjoy the event. "Since I am in the US, I don't get to see much of sport magazines about cricket. So the only way I can get news is online," explains Duraikannu. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:23 PM 0 comments

 
Winning the Web: Will India emerge victorious in the Cricket World Cup? Check out the online buzz
Bijoy AK, Rediff.com, March 18, 2003

As Zaheer Khan ripped through the New Zealand batting line-up in India's last Super Six match, I entered a Kolkota chatroom where a discussion on India's World Cup chances was going on.

Just to check the mood online, I typed this message in big bold red letters: "Sourav Ganguly is India's weak link." In the next five minutes my chat friends almost ripped me apart!

It was one of my worst online adventures. But also testimony to the strong sentiments about the World Cup that are alive and kicking on the Internet. Cricket crazy fans take active part in online discussion forums, message boards, blogs and chat rooms.

There is no doubt that the extensive Web coverage of this year's tournament has been aided by the latest technologies, as we also explored in an earlier feature. It has even outdone war cries and inflation and budget talk. The interactive nature of the online experience has kept fans engaged and entertained. Another form that is slowing gaining popularity is the Web log. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:08 PM 0 comments

 
Russia and France angered by end of diplomacy
France rejects blame as Putin warns of gravest consequences

Gary Younge in New York, Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Jon Henley in Paris and Oliver Burkeman in Washington, March 18, 2003, The Guardian

The United States and Britain walked away from the United Nations yesterday, withdrawing their bid for a second resolution, abandoning their pursuit of security council support for war against Iraq and sparking acrimonious exchanges with France and Russia. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:05 AM 0 comments

 
A photograph, a kiss and a bitter end to UN hopes
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad, March 18, 2003, The Guardian

The sun was sinking low in the afternoon sky when the two weapons inspectors emerged to pose for photographs in front of the limp blue United Nations flag, taking their personal record of the day when diplomacy failed and gave way to war.
In New York, barely two hours earlier, Mohamed El Baradei, chief of the UN nuclear monitoring agency, had given notice that his inspectors were to leave Iraq after receiving a warning from Washington to quit. Later the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, gave the formal order for hundreds of humanitarian staff, oil monitors and weapons inspectors to withdraw. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:02 AM 0 comments

 
Full text: Bush's speech: A transcript of George Bush's war ultimatum speech from the Cross Hall in the White House
Tuesday March 18, 2003, The Guardian

My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991 ...

Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals - including journalists and inspectors - should leave Iraq immediately.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:29 AM 0 comments

 
After Gaza death, activists resolute
Nicole Gaouette,The Christian Science Monitor, March 18, 2003

American Rachel Corrie was killed Sunday in Gaza when an Israeli army bulldozer ran over her.

JERUSALEM: The death of peace activist Rachel Corrie has done little to still violence in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli army raid into a Gaza shantytown early Monday left seven Palestinians dead, including the Islamic Jihad militant the troops were pursuing and a four-year-old girl.

Coming on the heels of Ms. Corrie's death Sunday, the battle and army seizure of land in the northern Gaza Strip underscores the question many activists had been asking themselves in the hours after the young American was killed: What next?

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) works in small teams with each member assigned a specific task. One person always photographs an event, and the pictures of Rachel's encounter with the bulldozer show a slim, tall young woman holding a megaphone as she stands in front of the massive machine. She is wearing a neon-orange vest with Day-Glo striping and is clearly visible.

Witnesses say Corrie was standing in front of a house set for demolition and shouting as the bulldozer approached her.

"Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," Greg Schnabel, a fellow protester from Chicago, told the Associated Press.

"She waved for the bulldozer to stop. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled 'stop, stop,' and the bulldozer didn't stop at all. It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her."

Mr. Delano took part in a few ISM "actions" with Corrie in Rafah and says he felt threatened by army bulldozers.

"The situation was always fluid, and the army doesn't live by regular rules," he says of his experiences. "The bulldozer [driver's] tactic is just to keep coming and hope that people get out of the way. One situation I was in was very dangerous - the bulldozer just kept coming, and it was three or four feet away and there was a wall behind us. I was completely shocked that the driver would act the way he did. It was insane." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:00 PM 0 comments

 
George W. Queeg
Paul Krugman, New York Times, March 14, 2003

Over the past few weeks there has been an epidemic of epiphanies. There's a long list of pundits who previously supported Bush's policy on Iraq but have publicly changed their minds.

None of them quarrel with the goal; who wouldn't want to see Saddam Hussein overthrown? But they are finally realizing that Mr. Bush is the wrong man to do the job.

And more people than you would think ,including a fair number of people in the Treasury Department, the State Department and, yes, the Pentagon, don't just question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that America's leadership has lost touch with reality.

Mr. Bush's inner circle seems amazed that the tactics that work so well on journalists and Democrats don't work on the rest of the world. They've made promises, oblivious to the fact that most countries don't trust their word. They've made threats. They've done the aura-of-inevitability thing, [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:53 PM 0 comments

 
Repairing the World
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, March 16, 2003

ome days, you pick up the newspaper and you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Let's see, the prime minister of Serbia just got shot, and if that doesn't seem like a bad omen then you missed the class on World War I. [...]

Congress is renaming French fries "freedom fries." George Bush has managed to lose a global popularity contest to Saddam Hussein, and he's looking to build diplomatic support in Europe by flying to the Azores, a remote archipelago in the Atlantic, to persuade the persuaded leaders of Britain and Spain to stand firm with him. [...]

Having said all that, I am glad Mr. Bush is meeting with Tony Blair. In fact, I wish he would turn over leadership on the whole Iraq crisis to him. Mr. Blair has an international vision that Mr. Bush sorely needs. [...]

Why? What does Tony Blair get that George Bush doesn't?
The only way I can explain it is by a concept from the Kabbalah called "tikkun olam."
It means, "to repair the world." If you listened to Tony Blair's speeches in recent weeks they contain something so strikingly absent from Mr. Bush's. Tony Blair constantly puts the struggle for a better Iraq within a broader context of moral concerns. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:42 PM 0 comments

 
Mashing Our Monster
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 17, 2003

WASHINGTON: Everyone thinks the Bush diplomacy on Iraq is a wreck.
It isn't. It's a success because it was never meant to succeed.

For the hawks, it's a succès d'estime.[...]

The Bush hawks never intended to give peace a chance. They intended to give pre-emption a chance.

They never wanted to merely disarm the slimy Saddam. They wanted to dislodge and dispose of him.

The president's slapped-together Azores summit is not meant to "go the last mile" on diplomacy, as Ari Fleischer put it.

If Mr. Bush really wanted to do that, he'd try to persuade some leaders who disagree with him; he'd confront the antiwar throngs in London, Paris or Berlin and not leave poor, exhausted Tony Blair to always make the case.

The hidden huddle in the Azores is trompe l'oeil diplomacy, giving Mr. Blair a little cover, making Poppy Bush a little happy. Just three pals feigning sitting around the campfire singing "Kumbaya," as the final U.S. troops and matériel move into place in the Persian Gulf and the president's "Interim Iraqi Authority" postwar occupation plan is collated.

The hawks despise the U.N. ...[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:37 PM 0 comments

 
Is Bush A 'Dry Drunk'?
Harley Sorensen, SF Gate. com, March 17, 2003

Bush appears to me to have a bit of that attitude. In fact, Bush appears to have many of the characteristics of what Alcoholics Anonymous members call a dry drunk

A dry drunk, in simplest terms, is someone who doesn't drink but still retains many of the characteristics of a drinking alcoholic.

One can argue over what those characteristics are, but I like the list I found in a Counterpunch article about the possibility that Bush is a dry drunk:
exaggerated self-importance and pomposity,
grandiose behavior,
a rigid, judgmental outlook, impatience,
childish behavior, irresponsible behavior, irrational rationalization,
projection and overreaction.

Now, if you're a rabid conservative, the kind who called Bill Clinton a sex maniac and a rapist, you'll accuse me now of not showing proper respect for the office of the presidency.

OK, so I don't have much respect for offices, but that doesn't change the fact that George W. Bush seems to have every one of the characteristics attributed to dry drunks.

Last Friday, for a recent example, [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:20 PM 0 comments

 
The water crisis is taking a toll worse than any war
Peter Woicke, IHT, March 18, 2003

KYOTO, Japan More people are likely to suffer and die this decade from lack of clean water than from all armed conflicts combined. This should be widely regarded as one of the great tragedies of our time. But that is not the case, despite the many grim statistics.[...]

This week, water will briefly take center stage at the third World Water Forum in Japan. There is much work to be done. The world's population has tripled in the last century. Meanwhile, water use has increased sixfold, drying up rivers and ravaging about half the world's wetlands.

Access to safe water is and should be regarded as a human right. But most of the progress in addressing this challenge will be achieved through more practical and less ideological means.

Investments in infrastructure for water storage are critical, especially in countries where climatic variability is high. Such investments have multiple benefits. They provide water for consumption, industrial use, flood control, irrigation and electricity generation.

If water issues are not aggressively addressed, they may cause more wars in this century than any other natural resource. But that need not be the case.

Experience has shown that cooperative programs for development and management of water resources have played an important role in regional integration and stability in Eastern Europe (the Baltic Sea), Southeast Asia (Thailand and Laos), and South Asia (the Indus Basin). African nations, whose economic development has been hobbled by conflicts and water scarcity, are a particularly compelling example. The 10 countries of the Nile Basin are working together to generate and share benefits from the waters of the Nile.

It should not take conflict to mobilize our efforts. Even under some of the optimistic forecasts, as many as 76 million people will die from preventable water-related illnesses between now and 2020. This rate of loss rivals the rate of battlefield casualties during World War II.

Some might choose to dismiss these figures as hyperbole or wildly improbable scenarios. Unfortunately, they are real. And they should alarm all of us.

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:54 PM 0 comments

 
Genre: Animal Jokes

A police officer sees a man driving around with a pickup truck full of penguins. He pulls the guy over and says, "You can't drive around with penguins in this town! Take them to the zoo immediately."
The guy says okay, and drives away.

The next day, the officer sees the guy still driving around with the truck full of penguins -- and they're all wearing sunglasses. He pulls the guy over and demands, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo yesterday?"

The guy replies, "I did. Today I'm taking them to the beach!"
.............................................

Saddam May Attack Preemptively!
RushLimbaugh.com, [Comment], March 14, 2003

[I found the most amazing ABC News story headlined: "First Strike? U.S. Military Concerned Saddam Hussein May Launch First Attack." The way some of the sentences in it are written, boggle my mind. The bottom line is that the Iraqis may attack us, but the way ABC reports it, such an action won't start the war. Only when we fire our guns, will the evil of WAR be unleashed upon the world. ]

ABC: "U.S. officials fear that once President Bush signals the U.S. is headed to war, Saddam Hussein will strike preemptively... "

[What's Bush been doing these past 14 months if not signaling we're headed to war? "If the U.S. takes action to stop an Iraqi first strike, especially if they try to seize and protect the oil fields, U.S. officials admit that may end up starting the war itself."

You have to be kidding me! Do we not want to start the war? Even Saddam is getting tired of waiting, apparently!]
[...]
...................

First Strike? U.S. Military Concerned Saddam Hussein May Launch First Attack
John McWethy, ABC News, March 14

U.S. officials fear that once President Bush signals the U.S. is headed to war, Saddam Hussein will strike pre-emptively, administration sources told ABCNEWS.

This new level of concern about Iraq is caused by an accumulation of intelligence including troubling new details that focus on three areas:

Specific new evidence indicates that Iraqi activity in the Western desert shows the strong likelihood Scud missiles are hidden there. These missiles could easily reach Israel carrying chemical or biological warheads which could draw Israel into any war.

Detailed new intelligence from the southern Iraqi oil fields shows that many of the 700 wells have now been wired with explosives. These explosives appear to be connected to a central command post, so Saddam could easily set the wells ablaze.

Near the border with Kuwait, where 135,000 U.S. troops are now stationed, recent surveillance indicates Iraqi artillery batteries have been moved dangerously close. The artillery is capable of firing shells filled with poison gas.

The United States is now considering moving against all three of these targets before any war begins in an effort to prevent Saddam from acting first, sources told ABCNEWS.

..............................................

Dixie Chicks Explain Anti-Bush Comment
Yahoo News, Mar 13, 2003

The Dixie Chicks are stirring up controversy with a recent negative comment about President Bush while overseas promoting their current album, Home.

The trio performed a live show in London on Monday (March 10th) night, and Natalie Maines (news) told the crowd, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."

That statement prompted all kinds of reactions from the American public, causing the group to further explain their stance on their official website. "We've been overseas for several weeks and have been reading and following the news accounts of our government's position," the group explains. "The anti-American sentiment that has unfolded here is astounding. While we support our troops, there is nothing more frightening than the notion of going to war with Iraq (news - web sites) and the prospect of all the innocent lives that will be lost."

Maines also says, "I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view."

.....................................................................
HANS BLIX: Caught Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Norris, MTV News

Three years ago, Hans Blix was enjoying retirement after a lifetime in diplomacy and law. Then, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan came calling. Now, as Blix oversees weapons inspections in Iraq, he finds himself a key player in a standoff that seems destined to lead to war.

The 74-year-old Swede, who originally planned to go into teaching, is the head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and the man whose opinions about the Iraqi weapons program ultimately carry the most weight. As the world urges Saddam Hussein to disarm, it is Blix and his team that will — through on-site inspections — try to determine if the Iraqi leader is complying. The U.S. and its allies are pushing for justification for military action in Iraq, while key opponents on the U.N. Security Council are calling for further inspections. Blix stands between the two, trying to fairly and impartially determine the true scope of Iraq's weapons program.

MTV News' John Norris sat down with Blix at the U.N. this week for a rare interview, and found an agreeable and surprisingly calm man at the middle of this global storm.

Norris: This recent flap over not mentioning the drone is somewhat indicative of the fact that just about every time you have something to say nowadays, one side or the other takes a word or a phrase or a sentence and they want to use it to bolster their case. Do you feel like you're caught in sort of a squeeze play at times?

Blix: Everybody has tried to get mileage out of us and what we say. But I'm the servant of the Security Council.

I'm not the servant of any individual member, whether it's the United States, or Russia, or anyone. We are in nobody's pocket and we are not supposed to be. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:01 PM 0 comments

 
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX)

Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon".

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft,
we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

.....................................................
Khalid: A test for US credibility
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, March 6, 2003

KARACHI - The circumstances surrounding the arrest in Pakistan and handing over to US authorities of a man said to be Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a reportedly leading member of al-Qaeda, raise a number of important issues, not the least of which is the credibility of the US in its "war against terror".

Khalid himself is shrouded in mystery. He was reported to have been killed in Karachi in a bloody shootout with Pakistani security forces on September 11, 2002 (See A chilling inheritance of terror) and there is dispute over whether or not he was one of the key planners of the September 11 attacks on the US a year earlier.

There is even doubt over Khalid's nationality. Some say he is Pakistani, others that he is a Kuwaiti. Certainly, though, he does appear to be of Pakistani origin, probably Baloch, and raised in Kuwait. He is thought to have been in Pakistan for about two-and-a-half years, well before September 11, 2001. [...]
....................................

Is there more to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than meets the eye?
Paul Thompson, Cooperative Research, March 4, 2003

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003. General elation greeted the news. Porter Goss (R), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, even proclaimed, "This is equal to the liberation of Paris in the second World War." [AP, 3/2/03 (C)] But its not that simple. Frankly, the official story of his arrest is a mass of lies, cover-ups and contradictions. It is highly likely Mohammed was not arrested on that day. What exactly did happen when is unclear, but the details of his arrest suggest something very disturbing is going on. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:57 PM 0 comments

 
Mr. Bush Goes For The Kill
Terry Jones, The Observer, March 13, 2003

Mr. Bush is right, Saddam Hussein is a nasty man and nobody I know has the least objection to Mr. Bush killing him. It's just the way he proposes doing it that worries me. Dropping 3000 bombs in 48 hours on Baghdad is going to kill a lot of other people who, as far as I am aware, are not nasty at all.

That's the bit of the 'moral' argument I don't follow. It's a bit like the police saying they know a murderer comes from the south of England so they are going to execute everybody in Epsom. [...]
...................................

The Xanax Cowboy
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 9, 2003

WASHINGTON — You might sum up the president's call to war Thursday night as "Message: I scare."
As he rolls up to America's first pre-emptive invasion, bouncing from motive to motive, Mr. Bush is trying to sound rational, not rash.
Determined not to be petulant, he seemed tranquilized.

But the Xanax cowboy made it clear that Saddam is going to pay for 9/11.[...]

We are scared of the world now, and the world is scared of us. (It's really scary to think we are even scaring Russia and China.)

Bush officials believe that making the world more scared of us
-- is the best way to make us safer and less scared.
So they want a spectacular show of American invincibility to make the wicked and the wayward think twice before crossing us.

Of course, our plan to sack Saddam has not cowedthe North Koreans and Iranians, who are scrambling to get nukes. to cow us

It still confuses many Americans that, in a world full of vicious slimeballs,
we're about to bomb one
that didn't attack us on 9/11 (like Osama);
that isn't intercepting our planes (like North Korea);
that isn't financing Al Qaeda (like Saudi Arabia);
that isn't home to Osama and his lieutenants (like Pakistan);
that isn't a host body for terrorists (like Iran, Lebanon and Syria).

I think the president is genuinely obsessed with protecting Americans [...]
..................................................

Fire, Ready, Aim
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, March 9, 2003

I went to President Bush's White House news conference on Thursday to see how he was wrestling with the momentous issue of Iraq.

One line he uttered captured all the things that are troubling me about his approach. It was when he said: "When it comes to our security, we really don't need anybody's permission." [...]

Fact: The invasion of Iraq today is not vital to American security. Saddam Hussein has neither the intention nor the capability to threaten America, and is easily deterrable if he did. ...When Mr. Bush takes a war of choice and turns it into a war of necessity, people naturally ask, "Hey, what's going on here? We're being hustled. The real reason must be his father, or oil, or some right-wing ideology."

A story. In 1945 King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia met President Franklin D. Roosevelt on a ship in the Suez Canal. Before agreeing to meet with Roosevelt, King Abdul Aziz, a Bedouin at heart, asked his advisers two questions about the U.S. president: "Tell me, does he believe in God and do they [the Americans] have any colonies?"

The real question the Saudi king was asking was: how do these Americans use their vast power?

Like the Europeans, in pursuit of colonies, self-interest and imperium,
or on behalf of higher values?

That's still the most important question for U.S. national security.

... the world is still ready to be led by an America that's a little more humble, a little better listener and a little more ready to say to its allies:
how can we work this out?
How much time do we need to give you to see if inspections can work for you to endorse the use of force if they don't?

Think about F.D.R. He had just won World War II. America was at the apex of its power. It didn't need anyone's permission for anything. Yet, on his way home from Yalta, confined to a wheelchair, F.D.R. traveled to the Mideast to meet and show respect for the leaders of Ethiopia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Why?

Because he knew he needed them not to win the war, but to win the peace.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:27 PM 0 comments

 
Doing The Numbers
Patrick Keaney, ZNet, March 13, 2003

There's a whole lot going on right now - too much to track, really. I'm going to try to give you the best overall look at what's happening, in a little different format than usual (with apologies to Harper's Index). Ready? Here goes...

18,000: The number of pounds of "high explosive" carried in the "Mother of All Bombs" that the U.S. Air Force tested in Florida yesterday. "This is not small," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to today's New York Times article. ...

2: The number of patriotic Congressmen who, according to a front-page story in today's Times (!), had the word "French" removed from all menus inside the House of Representatives. Our hard-working lawmakers now can order "Freedom Toast" and "Freedom Fries," thanks to the bold actions of Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Walter Jones (R-N. Carolina). ...

10: The number of days that have passed since a British newspaper broke the story that the U.S. government had bugged the phones at the U.N. in order to get as much useful information as possible out of their fellow Security Council members. ... Believe me, the story is all over the press in the rest of the world, but for some reason, we just don't read or hear about it here.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:19 PM 0 comments

 
Liberate? For centuries we've been 'liberating' the Mideast. Why do we never learn?
Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 10, 2003

On March 8, 1917, Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude issued a "Proclamation to the People of the Wilayat of Baghdad". Maude's Anglo-Indian Army of the Tigres had invaded and occupied Iraq - after storming up the country from Basra - to "free" its people from their dictators.
"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators," the British announced. ...

... What is it, I sometimes wonder, about our constant failure to learn the lessons of history, to repeat - almost word for word in the case of Gen. Maude's proclamation - the same gratuitous promises and lies? A copy of Gen. Maude's original proclamation went under the hammer at a British auction at Swindon last week,
but I'll wager more than the 1,400 pounds sterling it made that America's forthcoming proclamation to the "liberated" people of Iraq reads almost exactly the same. [...]
................................................

Iraq Deja Vu: Reincarnation of Failed 1930s British Policy
Issam Nahashibi & Abdelatif Rayan, Counterpunch, March 13, 2003

By all US media accounts, Saddam Hussein's days are numbered. Moreover, Pentagon pundits predict a massive US victory over Saddam's rusty military machine.

Will Bush's Iraq policy bring a real victory to crown America's hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere? Could history be our guidance.

Bush's Iraq policy is reminiscent to the 1930s British "re-occupation" of Iraq. By March 1921, almost four years after they invaded Mesopotamia, the British created Iraq as a new entity managed by "a suitable Arab" who was a member of the Hashemite clan, King Faisal I.

...For 'him' and his hard-line advisors, removing Saddam presents the US "with a historic opportunity" that is "as large as anything that has happened in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the entry of British troops into Iraq in 1917," expounded Makiya.

...If history is our guide, the Iraqi people will defy this plan just as they resisted the British 1930s plans that failed to maintain a "suitable Arab regime" because the original British sin, creating the Palestine problem, is still with us
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:10 PM 0 comments

 
Why Americans Tune in to Canada
by Antonia Zerbisias, Toronto Star, March 13, 2003

My e-mail inbox overfloweth with missives from our neighbours to the south as, I expect, those of many of my Star colleagues do.

Many Americans seem pathetically grateful for offshore, online sources for news and views of the world. ... But here, at least, there's a vigorous and wide-ranging debate on the looming war.

So who can blame skeptical Americans for resorting to Canadians when their "most trusted" and "most watched'' media are marching in lockstep to the drums of war?

Whether it's showing CNN's Connie Chung accuse actor/activist Jessica Lange of "betraying the troops" ...
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:04 PM 0 comments

 
Saddam said to be readying bombers
Salah Nasrawi , Associated Press, March 12, 2003

DOHA, Qatar — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has opened a training camp for Arab volunteers willing to carry out suicide bombings against U.S. forces in case they invade Iraq, Arab media and Iraqi dissidents said yesterday.
The dissidents, speaking by telephone from Jordan, said scores of Arab volunteers have gone to a special camp run by the Iraqi intelligence service near the town of al-Khalis, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

 
When three blind mice don't see eye to eye
By Janadas Devan, The Straits Times, March 14, 2003

THE unprecedented crisis of legitimacy in the United Nations Security Council today is due to three men - French President Jacques Chirac, UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and United States President George W. Bush.

'Three blind mice, three blind mice; see how they run, see how they run.'

The only person who benefits from the Security Council's paralysis is Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Whether or not the US succeeds in deposing him, he has successfully managed to deny Washington the mantle of legitimacy that only the UN can provide.

'They all ran after the farmer's wife; she cut off their tails with a carving knife.'

All three men are compounding the crisis by taking intransigent positions: Mr Bush by refusing to consider the possibility of inspections working; Mr Chirac by refusing to consider a reasonable timetable for Mr Saddam to disarm; and Mr Blix, by speaking with such supple confusion that all sides to the dispute, including Mr Saddam, find comfort in his statements.

'Did you ever see such a sight in your life, as three blind mice?

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:32 PM 0 comments

 
What's in play for the other Security Council members?
By David Usborne in New York, The Independent,14 March 2003

Divining how each member of the United Nations Security Council will come down when a vote is finally called on the new resolution on Iraq – assuming it happens – is not easy because each of them faces so many different political and financial calculations in deciding what to do.

Some countries face massive domestic pressure to vote one way, while their trade and financial needs push them in the other direction. "If you are not confused," one diplomat at the UN said, "you don't know anything about this story". [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:29 PM 0 comments

 
How the beggar economy promotes growth
Madan Sabnavis, Rediff.com, March 13, 2003

You come out of a restaurant and there is a miserable-looking girl who asks for money. You feel guilty about having just had a good time inside and do not mind passing on some coins. You emerge from a place of worship and in the name of the Lord give alms to the beggar.

After praying to the Almighty you cannot possibly refuse a beggar considering that your chauffeur has just opened the door of your car. You are on the train and a sweet-looking four-year-old carrying an infant comes up to you.

Out of pity you part with a few coins. Or more likely, you are at the crossroads and the eunuch scares the daylights out of you and with fear and revulsion you hand over Rs 5 and seventy five paise (to the uninitiated this is the sum they typically demand which is taken also from an old Hindi film song).

This is the world of beggars which is not just about misery and appalling conditions. It is an economy in itself. Just read on to digest what this means. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:21 PM 0 comments

 
Charles's top aide quits after inquiry into perks and gifts
Warren Hoge, The New York Times, March 14, 2003

LONDON-- The closest aide to Charles, Prince of Wales, resigned Thursday after publication of an official report into allegations of royal intervention in the trial of the former butler of Diana, Princess of Wales, and charges that members of the prince's staff peddled gifts and covered up a sex scandal within the royal household.
.
Michael Fawcett, 40, whom the heir to the throne had once called the "indispensable" member of his courtly retinue but whom rivals in St. James's Palace called "Fawcett the Fence," quit after he was found to have bent palace rules and accepted valuable perks and hospitality. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

 
Are we an apathetic nation?
Ramananda Sengupta, Rediff.comm, March 12, 2003

As anti-war protests rattle the windows in Washington, London, New York, Tokyo, in Damascus and Rawalpindi, in Cairo, Moscow, Kuala Lumpur and Karachi, a frightening calm hangs over India.

Frightening because it indicates the levels of apathy that we as a nation have sunk to. An apathy that reflects in every sphere of our lives, an apathy that is reflected in our personal, national and international dealings.[...]

Of course we do. These pressing problems make five able-bodied people turn their face when a young girl is raped by a scrawny vagabond on a suburban Mumbai train.

These pressing problems ensure that we accept corruption and governmental apathy with tired resignation. And these pressing problems prevent us from rallying together against the obvious bully boy tactics of a superpower.

This cancer of I, Me, and Mine has percolated through the entire length and breadth of our society, [...]

Let us ignore the fact that it was India that taught the world what a non-violent movement could achieve. That India was the founder member of the Non-aligned Movement, which was created to oppose colonialism in any form.

Let us brush aside the fact that in September 1990, a month after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, then external affairs minister I K Gujral traveled to Baghdad and embraced Saddam Hussein and later urged Indians in Kuwait to support Iraq.

Let us conveniently forget the fact that Saddam's Iraq has consistently supported India's position on Kashmir. That during the 1970s oil crisis, Saddam shipped crude oil to India at reasonable rates.[...]

If one thinks about the choices before India, this 'middle path,' which is also being endorsed by other nations opposed to war, seems the only viable option.

After all, if India were to overtly oppose and condemn a war, all the bonhomie between India and the US would dissolve in an instant. And that is something India can ill afford at this juncture.

While if it were to openly endorse a US invasion of Iraq, it risks antagonising a huge Muslim population already seething over Gujarat, as well as the Arab nations worldwide.[...]

Protests, if nothing else, would prove that we care about issues that matter. That we are unwilling to let the government make all our choices for us. In a democracy, protests put the politicians on notice.

And finally, they would at least indicate our awareness of the fact that it is but a very, very short step from being an apathetic nation to a pathetic one
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:50 PM 0 comments

 
Allied Troops Prepare for Gulf Heat
ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press

KUWAIT CITY (AP)--Fierce winds swept across desert camps near the Iraqi border Wednesday, enveloping soldiers in blinding clouds of sand and rattling tents like a drumroll.

And weatherwise, the worst is yet to come.

U.S. and British soldiers massed in desert camps at the gates of Iraq are entering the danger zone their commanders had long feared _ a summer of stifling heat and choking sandstorms. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:42 PM 0 comments

 
This War Violates International Law
Rahul Mahajan, Counterpunch, March 12, 2003

That is the fundamental question ...whether or not the war is illegal.

Interestingly, in this, as in so many other things, the Bush administration turns this question on its head and claims that the war is necessary in order to uphold international law.

Let's start with that argument.

Iraq is threatening no country with aggression and its violations of Security Council resolutions, while clear, are technical, mostly a matter of providing incomplete documentation about weapons that may or may not exist, and for the use of which there are no apparent plans.

At the same time, Israel is in violation of, at a very conservative count, over 30 resolutions, pertaining among other things to the very substantive issue of the continuing illegal occupation of another people, along with violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention through steady encroachment on and effective annexation of that land. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:34 PM 0 comments

 
Pakistan Accused of Staging Bin Laden Aide Arrest
Simon Denyer, Reuters, March 11, 2003

ISLAMABAD - A grainy video purporting to show the arrest of two al Qaeda leaders has done little to deflect accusations that Pakistan may have staged this month's raid to give it leeway to abstain in a U.N. vote on an Iraq war.
On Monday, the powerful military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) held an unprecedented news conference to show foreign journalists what it said were images of a March 1 raid in Rawalpindi that netted al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

But few of journalists present were convinced the video -- which did not show Mohammed's face nor any sign of a struggle -- was genuine. Many said it looked like a crude reconstruction.

On Tuesday, a former ISI chief said he believed Mohammed was actually arrested some time ago in a different city.
"They are trying to cover up," Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul told Reuters. "I believe he was arrested before, probably in Karachi."

One intelligence source said Mohammed had been arrested three days before, from the Tench Batta suburb of Rawalpindi.
Rumors of Mohammed's arrest had circulated in Pakistan for months, but were consistently denied.

Gul said news of the arrest appeared to have been leaked at a critical time, just as Pakistan was facing huge U.S. pressure to support a U.N. Security Council vote authorizing war on Iraq.[...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 11:50 AM 0 comments

 
Gender Jokes: The bum on a street

A bum asks a man for $2. The man asked, "Will you buy booze?" The bum said, "No." The man asked, "Will you gamble it away?" The bum said, "No."

Then the man asked, "Will you come home with me-- so my wife can see what happens to a man who doesn't drink or gamble?"
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 11:14 AM 0 comments

 
War's Power of Attraction
by James Carroll, Boston Globe, March 11, 2003

UNTIL THE WAR begins, one must insist that it is not inevitable. The conventional wisdom is that the United States, having already deployed its massive fighting force, cannot back down from the assault against Iraq without humiliation -- and a grievous loss of ''credibility.'' But that ''wisdom'' fails to take into account the most basic fact of military strategy. ''Violence is most purposive and most successful,'' the theorist Thomas C. Schelling wrote, ''when it is threatened and not used. Successful threats are those that do not have to be carried out.''

The Bush administration seems confused about this, as if the movement from threat to action is inexorable. Why else would Washington manifest such consistent indifference to the obvious success its threats have been having with Saddam Hussein? The tyrant has steadily bent to Washington's will and shows every sign, despite his bluster, of continuing to do so.

To put the question another way, why has Washington not declared victory, explaining that this slow yielding by Iraq to a range of pressures -- inspector Hans Blix on one side, General Tommy R. Franks on the other -- is what victory looks like now?

Instead of a loss of credibility, this solution short of open warfare could be said to represent the triumph of lethal threat combined with political process, a supreme example of military force used with real power.

Essential to that power is restraint. But instead of laying claim to this accomplishment and building on it, ...
... Washington seems intent on squandering its achievement and going to war -- despite the steady accumulation of good reasons not to. Why? [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 11:01 AM 0 comments

 
How Kofi Annan Can Stop the War
Paul F. deLespinasse, Commondreams.org, March 11, 2003

According to recent reports, the United States may be about to warn the U.N. inspectors and reporters to leave Iraq within three days. The purpose of this warning will be to protect the inspectors and reporters from harm when U.S. forces attack Iraq, perhaps late next week.

The situation provides an interesting opportunity for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. If the U.S. issues the expected warning, he can and should announce that the U.S. has no authority to evict the inspectors, who are United Nations employees. Furthermore, Annan can say that he will not withdraw the inspectors from Iraq unless he is ordered to do so by the U.N. Security Council or the inspectors report that they are not being allowed to do their job.

Any effort to get the Security Council to order the inspectors out under current circumstances would undoubtedly fail, and if by some miracle it did get the needed nine votes it would certainly be vetoed by France, Russia, or China.

Such an announcement by the Secretary General would have three very beneficial consequences. First, it is unlikely that President Bush and his advisors would proceed with an attack, which would be a public relations nightmare as long as the inspectors are still in Iraq.

Second, the announcement would not undermine the work of the inspectors, but could even increase their clout, and that of the Secretary General, vis-à-vis Saddam Hussein. As long as they remain, the inspectors would protect Iraq from an American attack, [...]

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:55 AM 0 comments

 
Turk PM moves to hand over power, U.S. watches
Hidir Goktas, Reuters, March 11, 2003

ANKARA - Prime Minister Abdullah Gul resigned on Tuesday to hand power to ruling party chief Tayyip Erdogan, bete noire of Turkey's secular establishment, hours after Erdogan emerged from a political ban to enter parliament.

The process will be watched closely by Washington, which seeks quick clarification on a request to deploy 62,000 troops in Turkey for a possible attack on Iraq. Such a plan was rejected by parliament on March 1, but the United States hopes deputies will reconsider it after Erdogan takes over.

Gul, prime minister since Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) stormed to victory in November, tendered his resignation to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Sezer was expected to nominate Erdogan within hours to form a government.

Erdogan would visit the palace to submit a cabinet list to Sezer, possibly on Wednesday. He would take office the moment Sezer approved that list, probably at the same meeting.

Erdogan had been unable to run in the November poll because of a 1990s conviction for Islamist sedition. That ban has since been lifted with a constitutional amendment, opening the way for his election at a weekend byelection and appointment as premier.

The former Istanbul mayor is viewed warily by the powerful military and hardliners in the political establishment for the Islamist roots he now renounces. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:57 AM 0 comments

 
Invasion forces face ring of fire
Philip Coorey and Michael Harvey, Herald Sun, 12 March, 2003

Suicide bombers and desperate Iraqi troops are poised to set Middle East oil fields ablaze in the belief war will break out within days.

The al-Qaida terrorist network has appealed for radical Islamic martyrs to sabotage refineries in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has started circling Baghdad with oil-filled trenches to create a giant smokescreen in the hope of confusing laser-guided smart bombs.

US officials also claim Saddam's forces are booby-trapping oilfields in northern Iraq.

The plan to torch refineries and trenches emerged as a draft resolution authorising war against Iraq faced certain defeat in the United Nations Security Council.

The resolution's authors, America and Britain, delayed the Security Council vote after failing to secure a majority.

After France and Russia declared they would use their vetoes, the US and Britain said they were prepared to scrap the March 17 deadline for action in favour of a new date.

But the US - out of patience and ready to wage war without a UN mandate - said the vote must be held this week and the new resolution must not give Iraq more than another week's grace.

The vote is expected to be held tomorrow at the earliest. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:50 AM 0 comments

 
Saying No to War
Editorial, New York Times, Sunday March 9, 2003

Within days, barring a diplomatic breakthrough, President Bush will decide whether to send American troops into Iraq in the face of United Nations opposition. We believe there is a better option involving long-running, stepped-up weapons inspections. But like everyone else in America, we feel the window closing. If it comes down to a question of yes or no to invasion without broad international support, our answer is no.[...]
..............................................

A supreme international crime
Mark Littman, The Guardian, March 10, 2003

Any member of a government backing an aggressive war will be open to prosecution

The United Nations Charter is a treaty, one to which 192 out of a total of 196 sovereign states in the world are parties. It takes precedence over all other treaties.

At the Nuremberg trials, the principles of international law identified by the tribunal and subsequently accepted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations included that the planning, preparation or initiation of a war contrary to the terms of an international treaty was "a crime against peace". The tribunal further stated "that to initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime".

It was for this crime that the German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop was tried, convicted and hanged.
......................................

Let Them Hate as Long as They Fear
Paul Krugman, New York Times, March 7, 2003

"Why does our president condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has 'oderint dum metuant' really become our motto?" So reads the resignation letter of John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who recently left the Foreign Service in protest against Bush administration policy.

"Oderint dum metuant" translates, roughly, as "let them hate as long as they fear." It was a favorite saying of the emperor Caligula, and may seem over the top as a description of current U.S. policy.

But this week's crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations — a crisis that has been almost ignored north of the border — suggests that it is a perfect description of George Bush's attitude toward the world. [...]
.........................................
What Would Genghis Do?
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 5, 2003

It's easy to picture Rummy in a big metal breastplate, a skirt and lace-up gladiator sandals: Rummius Maximus Pompeius.

During the innocent summer before 9/11, the defense secretary's office sponsored a study of ancient empires — Macedonia, Rome, the Mongols — to figure out how they maintained dominance.

What tips could Rummy glean from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan? [...]

Niall Ferguson, a professor at Oxford and New York University who wrote the coming book "Empire," said that while "it was rather sweet" that the Pentagon was studying ancient empires, he thought the lessons were no longer relevant.

"The technological and economic differences between modernity and premodernity are colossal," he said.

Besides, he says Americans aren't temperamentally suited to empire-building. "The British didn't mind living for years in Iraq or India for 100-plus years," he said. "Americans aren't attracted to the idea of taking up residence in hot, poor places." [...]
............................................

Chicken à la Iraq
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, March 5, 2003

What you now see unfolding before your eyes is the last few minutes of a game of geopolitical chicken between George Bush and Saddam Hussein. It's called: Whose Coalition Will Break First?

Let's start with Saddam. Surely the funniest line of the week was his spokesman's explanation of why Iraqi TV was not showing Saddam's men destroying his Al Samoud missiles, as the U.N. had demanded. The Iraqi spokesman said it was because if the Iraqi people saw this, they would be so angry at the U.N. there's just no telling what they might do. Right, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bus.

The reason Saddam is not showing this to his people is because it makes him look weak, ...
Giving into the demands of the bespectacled Hans Blix is not a healthy thing for Saddam. It's like the Godfather taking up knitting. It evinces weakness, and Saddam rules by fear. The minute he looks less ferocious, he is in danger from those around him. This is not Norway.

What continues to breathe life into Saddam's camp is not the Arab street (which already smells his weakness and mostly wants him gone) but the French street, which is so obsessed with countering U.S. power that it can't acknowledge what is happening right before its eyes:
[...]

We could still get lucky and find that Mr. Bush's decision to begin this game of chicken by throwing away his steering wheel leads Saddam to cave or quit. .... Otherwise, brace yourself for the crash and hope for the best — because we're all in the back seat.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:34 PM 0 comments

 
Iran's Nuclear Threat --
Massimo Calabresi, TIME.com, Mar. 17, 2003

With war in Iraq looming and North Korea defiantly pursuing its own nuclear program, the last thing President Bush needs is another nuclear crisis. But that is what he may soon face in Iran.

On a visit last month to Tehran, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed El Baradei announced he had discovered that Iran was constructing a facility to enrich uranium — a key component of advanced nuclear weapons — near Natanz. But diplomatic sources tell TIME the plant is much further along than previously revealed. The sources say work on the plant is "extremely advanced" and involves "hundreds" of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and "the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled." [...]

The revelations come at a bad time for Washington. Critics of the Administration say Bush's hard public line against the so-called axis of evil, combined with the impending war with Iraq, have acted as a spur to both Iran and North Korea to accelerate their nuclear programs. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:24 PM 0 comments

 
IOL: UK and US delay Saddam deadline vote Ireland On-Line, 10 March, 2003

The US and Britain were today forced to delay the United Nations Security Council vote in a bid to build up support, with France and Russia poised to block a resolution setting a March 17 deadline for Iraq to disarm or face war.

America had hoped to present the resolution to the council tomorrow, but despite an urgent phone campaign waged by US President George Bush, it was evident the US and its allies had not yet picked up the nine votes they needed for a majority.[...]

But on the surface, at least, today was not a good day for the coalition’s efforts.

Pakistan’s prime minister said for the first time publicly that his country, a key swing vote on the council, would not support war with Iraq. And Chile, another vote which Washington seeks, suggested it was not prepared to approve the resolution without changes.[...]

The United States is assured the support of Britain, Spain and Bulgaria, with Cameroon and Mexico leaning heavily toward the US position.

But with Germany, Syria and now Pakistan preparing abstentions or “no” votes, Washington is left trying to canvass the support of Chile, Angola and Guinea.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair struggled to head off a growing revolt within his own party unhappy with his Iraq policy. [...]

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:02 PM 0 comments

 
Pakistan Says Al Qaeda Captive Met With Bin Laden
John Lancaster,WashingtonPost.com, March 11, 2003

ISLAMABAD -- Breaking its official silence on the recent arrest of top al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Pakistan's secretive Inter-Services Intelligence agency today said that Mohammed told interrogators he met with Osama bin Laden in December, but wouldn't tell them where. [...]

Officials from the intelligence agency, known as ISI, rarely make themselves available to the foreign press. In keeping with the reputation for secrecy, the ISI officials who conducted the briefing declined to give their names.

The most powerful of Pakistan's multiple security services, the organization worked closely with Afghanistan's Taliban movement andhas provided training and logistical support to Islamic groups fighting Indian forces in Kashmir. But ISI officials said they wanted to counter the impression that the agency was not serious about fighting terrorism or did so only because the United States gave it no choice.

"We thought it was necessary because this organization is making tremendous efforts to combat terrorism," said one of the briefers. "We are not getting our due."

Over tea and sandwiches in their modern headquarters here, ISI officials gave a slide presentation summarizing Pakistan's anti-terror efforts and then showed a videotape that they said showed the pre-dawn raid that netted Mohammed and another senior al Qaeda figure, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, in the city of Rawalpindi earlier this month [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:53 PM 0 comments

 
Police Jokes: Where are you from?

Theater Guest: A man lay sprawled across three entire seats in the posh theater.

When the usher came by and noticed this, he whispered to the man, "Sorry, sir, but you're only allowed one seat."The man groaned but didn't budge.

The usher became impatient. "Sir, if you don't get up from there I'm going to have to call the manager."
Again, the man just groaned, which infuriated the usher who turned and marched briskly back up the aisle in search of his manager.

In a few moments, both the usher and the manager returned and stood over the man. Together the two of them tried repeatedly to move him, but with no success.
Finally, they summoned the police.

The cop surveyed the situation briefly then asked, "All right buddy, what's your name?"
"Sam," the man moaned.
"Where ya from, Sam?"

With pain in his voice Sam replied "... the balcony."
.......................................

Srinath stars as India annihilates Sri Lanka
ABC News Online, March 11, 2003

Veteran paceman Javagal Srinath destroyed the Sri Lanka batting with four for 20 from his opening five overs in their World Cup Super Six match.

India won the match by 183 runs after a stunning performance with the ball left Sri Lanka confused and defenceless.

Srinath removed Marvan Atapattu and Jehan Mubarak in his first over.

Atapattu cut a short ball straight to Mohammad Kaif at cover in the second over and Mubarak also went for a duck as he edged his second delivery behind.

Left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan then trapped Mahela Jayawardene for no score and Srinath dismissed Aravinda de Silva for a duck in similar fashion.

Srinath captured his fourth victim when captain Sanath Jayasuriya hit an easy catch to Kaif.

Kumar Sangakkarra took the attack to the bowlers briefly before he was caught for 30 with the score on 59 then Arnold was another lbw victim for eight. Earlier Sachin Tendulkar fell three runs short of a record fifth World Cup century as India compiled 292 for six.

Tendulkar, who broke his own tournament record of 523 runs set in 1996, was caught behind off de Silva for 97.

In combination with Virender Sehwag (66) he put on 153 for the first wicket from 26.3 overs before Sehwag tried to hit Muttiah Muralitharan for his fourth six and was caught for 66.


- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:53 AM 0 comments

 
US paid £17m to catch al-Qaida chief
Ananova.com, March 10, 2003

The US reportedly paid an al-Qaida foot soldier £17 million for information leading to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - including a £1.2 million bonus to relocate to Britain.

The Egyptian radical, who has not been named, agreed to tell his captors the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant after he was arrested in Pakistan last month, according to Newsweek. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:44 AM 0 comments

 
A hen to guard a fox
Andy Ho, The Straits Times, March 9, 2003

Standing between the hawks in the US Administration and Iraq is the mild- mannered former Swedish diplomat, Dr Hans Blix.

He was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981-1997, during which Iraq built up its nuclear programme without his knowledge.

Today, his critics say he is too passive to stand up to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, while his supporters say he is an astute politician working to avert war. Is he cautious or stalling for time? [...]

Born in the academic town of Uppsala, Dr Blix studied at the University of Uppsala, then did post-graduate work at Columbia University. In 1959, he received his doctorate from Cambridge University, after which he taught international law at Stockholm University.

Joining the Swedish foreign ministry at age 35, he rose to be its head until he left in 1976. Two years later, he became Sweden's foreign minister.

Ever the suave diplomat, he is known for his ready smile, self-deprecating wit and an invariably courteous demeanour. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:40 AM 0 comments

 
The Fat Lady has sung. We are simply left to cheer or boo
The Sunday Herald, March 9, 2003

Thank the Yank
The Observer (Comment), March 9, 2003

From king klutz to superwarrior: The transformation of George W Bush
Trevor Royle, The Sunday Herald, March 9, 2003
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:26 PM 0 comments

 
Iraq’s disarming a charade: Bush
Nadim Ladki & Adam Entous, The Sunday Express, March 9, 2003

Baghdad/ Washington: Threatened with a March 17 deadline to disarm, Iraq scrapped more of its missiles on Saturday in a process President George W. Bush dismissed as a charade.

An attack on Baghdad could come even sooner than March 17, the date set down in a new UN resolution which was the subject of diplomatic haggling this weekend. If the resolution fails to win the backing of UN Security Council, Washington and its allies might well go to war earlier. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:01 PM 0 comments

 
U.N. evacuates personnel from Iraq-Kuwait border
CNN.com, March 8, 2003

KUWAIT CITY-- The U.N. observer force in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait has ordered the evacuation of most of its civilian staff to Kuwait City in the latest indication of rising tensions along the 200-mile strip.

The personnel being withdrawn are part of an observer force that has maintained a 10-mile-wide demilitarized zone along the border since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

The U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission [UNIKOM] has also ratcheted up its alert status to "red."

The nearly 200 observers and their 775 Bangladeshi military support units will remain. The upgrade to red alert, however, means the groups will be confined to their bases and stop conducting routine patrols of the DMZ [...]

The move comes the day after the United Nations said Kuwaiti workers have cut holes in the border fence between Iraq and Kuwait big enough to drive military vehicles through.

The workers apparently cut areas marked by U.S. Marines who have been working inside the demilitarized zone for days, according to the United Nations, in likely breach of the regulations covering the border area. [...]

On Thursday, the Security Council was told that the U.S. military had encroached into the zone.

By U.N. mandate, no military activity other than a police presence by Iraq and Kuwait may take place in the DMZ. Technically, if U.S. troops go through breaches in the demilitarized zone fence to enter Iraq from the south, they would be in violation of Security Council rules, and that would be reported to the United Nations. U.S. officials said Friday that scenario was not a concern because any war with Iraq would be justified because of Iraq's treatment of Kuwait in the past and possible mistreatment in the future. [...]
.....................................

Search Narrows: U.S., Pakistani Officials Center Hunt for Bin Laden on Caravan
ABCNews.com, March 7, 2003

U.S. and Pakistani officials have narrowed their search for Osama bin Laden to a caravan near the border of southwestern Pakistan.

The CIA and Pakistani army are electronically tracking the large caravan of people on foot and horseback through the rugged mountain area of Pakistan between the borders with Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistani officials told ABCNEWS.
Bin Laden may be traveling with the caravan and may be on foot.

Officials have cast a net around the caravan — using electronic U.S. surveillance and planes with cameras that can see through darkness to monitor its movement along a trail. [...]

President Bush has also authorized the launch of a missile attack if bin Laden is positively identified.

Bin Laden's son Saad was recently in the Iranian capital, Tehran, European anti-terrorism officials told ABCNEWS, and it was a cell-phone call to him that turned authorities onto bin Laden's trail.

"His son, apparently Saad, is in Iran and some of his wives also are in Iran and he has made apparently a big mistake," said ABCNEWS terrorism consultant Vince Cannistraro. [...]
Earlier today, Pakastani officials reported that two of bin Laden's sons were wounded and possibly arrested in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid in Afghan-Pakistani border region that killed seven suspected al Qaeda members. U.S. officials discounted the report but did not say it was entirely untrue. They confirmed that the raid did take place and told ABCNEWS that several of bin Laden's sons are being closely tracked. [...]

There have been widespread reports that the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to be at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, would lead to the capture of the al Qaeda leader.

There have been numerous unconfirmed reports of bin Laden sightings in the area on both sides of the Pakistani-Iranian border.

"They definitely have him pinned down to a small area. This will be a major operation," Cannistraro said.

Mohammed also reportedly told his interrogators that he had met bin Laden within the last month.

Authorities believe information from Mohammed's cell phones dovetails with other information they already had, [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:57 PM 0 comments

 
Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.
--Jimmy Demaret
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:03 PM 0 comments

 
Elegy for Two Giraffes and a Zebra
Bruce Jackson, CounterPunch, March 8, 2003

This morning's New York Times had a front page photograph and article about the zoo in Qalqilya on the West Bank. The photograph showed an adult male giraffe, a baby giraffe and, near them, a zebra, on its side. They were all dead, stuffed by a taxidermist. The adult male zebra had died of terror at the sound of gunfire, the baby had been born dead shortly thereafter, the zebra had been killed by teargas. I sat there at my desk and looked at that photograph and I started crying.

I thought of all those dead animals, all those destroyed homes and schools and villages and farms, all those dead children and all those dead men and all those dead women and I couldn't stop crying. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:59 PM 0 comments

 
What's up, Mr Dalmiya?
Prem Panicker, Rediff.com, March 8, 2003

Are power, influence and money -- not necessarily in that order -- the only things that matter, these days?

The question is prompted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, and its chief Jagmohan Dalmiya -- who have petitioned the government for permission to tour Pakistan.

Dalmiya, in fact, is so keen on the tour that he has gone to New Delhi this morning, to meet Sports Minister Vikram Verma and plead his case.

What is amusing, in a bizarre sort of way, is the rationale being extended: apparently, the World Test Championship will be badly affected if India does not tour. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:48 PM 0 comments

 
'Savarkar never opposed the minorities'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf, Rediff Interview, March 8, 2003

Was he a true freedom fighter or did he ask the British for mercy?

Was he involved in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi?

These two questions rocked Parliament as the ruling National Democratic Alliance unveiled Swantantraveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's portrait near Mahatma Gandhi's portrait in Parliament House.
The Opposition boycotted the event.
"The leaders of the Opposition have absolutely no knowledge of my father's contribution to India's freedom struggle," says his 75-year-old son Vishwas Savarkar.

Q: Was there a stigma on Savarkar after Mahatma Gandhi's murder? Is that why he could not succeed in politics after Independence?

It was not a stigma. Actually, his health was never good. He worked for the Hindu Mahasabha after Independence, but never took a leading role.

Q: Did Savarkar say Christians and Muslims could never be part of India because their holy land is outside India and they would be more loyal to those places?

Correct. He said who is a Hindu? A Hindu is one who thinks India is his holy land; he fights for his country, his fatherland. Christians and Muslims don't consider India their holy land. Muslims think Mecca is their holy land. Christians think Jerusalem is their holy land. They stay here but their holy lands are outside India. Therefore, they cannot be considered Hindus of this country.

These people came to India to spread their religion. Hindus will never tolerate that. You read Muslim history, they have always been aggressors. Christians converted people in the guise of preaching to them. So Savarkar opposed them.

Our Constitution says India is a secular country. Don't you think Savarkar's portrait in Parliament challenges the very thought of Indian secularism, considering he had such an extremist view of other religions?

It is not a question of the Constitution. There are some rules to be followed before someone's picture or portrait can be put up in Parliament. Earlier, there was a rule that no leader who had not been a member of Parliament could have his picture in Parliament.

Then, they put Gandhi's picture. Was he a member of Parliament? Why did they put his picture? [...]

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:44 PM 0 comments

 
Trying to decipher the Budget
A.N. Shanbagh, Rediff.com, March 8, 2003

Usually the annual 'Budget' exercise runs a typical course -- it is high on promise but falls low on action. This time, things were ever so slightly different.

The enormous dialogue and debate generated by the Kelkar committee raised people's hopes and expectations. However, true to the form of his predecessors, our debutante finance minister fell woefully short on deliverance.

The common man may just be feeling a little bewildered -- there is little in the Budget to either cheer about but, at the same time, there is nothing much to complain about either.

Dividends are made tax-free but there is a distribution tax, so rates on small savings have predictably come down. At the end of the day, therefore, you win some, you lose some [...more]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 3:38 PM 0 comments

 
FOR 'cool' George W. Bush 'movie posters'
Click on LINK
..........................................

From king klutz to superwarrior: The transformation of George W Bush
Trevor Royle, SundayHerald.com, March 9, 2003

He may have seemed a joke in the early days of his presidency ... but no one is laughing now. Trevor Royle profiles a man born into politics, moulded by oil money, family values and old-time religion, traumatised by the tragedy of the Twin Towers ... and poised to lead a reluctant world into war

War is on George Walker Bush's mind. The Security Council is still prevaricating and its members are playing for the best position but, even if they do not come down on the side of attacking Iraq, the US president is already running ahead of the game.

A vote may or may not be passed this week authorising action, vetoes might be avoided but, with or without them, Bush and his national security team are thinking ahead to the moment when the guns fire and the missiles start falling prior to the fall of Saddam -- 'the man who tried to kill my daddy'. This is the next redoubt for a leader who has made up his mind and is waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with him.

Few who saw him accept the presidency on a snow-swept day in January 2001 ever thought that young Dubya would step up from being an insipid interloper to a world leader, about to embark on adventures that will change the shape of the world. ...


... The jury is still out on whether or not Bush is a blockhead -- he seems to possess a sly, animal intelligence -- but one thing cannot be denied or rewritten. It was money that got Dubya into the Oval Office. Here was a rich kid living off his father's reputation, a guy who had been handed everything because it had been bought for him, a thin-skinned semi-failure with a tendency to reinvent his own life history, an oil baron wheeler-dealer whose money came from dubious sources, yet this bluff Texas cowpoke with a penchant for homely maxims suddenly found himself occupying the world's most powerful position .

As he stands on the brink of plunging the Middle East into turmoil or, if you prefer, of leading the next stage of his crusade against terrorism, Dubya is that curious amalgam of modern times -- a man who came from nowhere going somewhere, a latter-day Peter the Hermit blessed or cursed with big bucks, who has been permitted to decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. His election was as shabby an example of power exercised without responsibility as could be found in Richard J Daley's Chicago during the heyday of boss politics. Here was Tammany Hall meeting Midland, Texas. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:16 AM 0 comments

 
Fathers then & now

Fathers of 1900 didn't have it nearly as good as fathers of today; but they did have a few advantages:

--In 1900, fathers prayed their children would learn English.
Today, fathers pray their children will speak English.

--In 1900, a father's horsepower meant his horses.
Today, it's the size of his minivan.

--In 1900, if a father put a roof over his family's head, he was a success.
Today, it takes a roof, deck, pool, and 4-car garage. And that's just the vacation home.

--In 1900, a father waited for the doctor to tell him when the baby arrived.
Today, a father must wear a smock, know how to breathe, and make sure film is in the video camera.

--In 1900, fathers passed on clothing to their sons.
Today, kids wouldn't touch Dad's clothes if they were sliding naked down an icicle.

--In 1900, fathers could count on children to join the family business.
Today, fathers pray their kids will soon come home from college long enough to teach them how to
work the computer and set the VCR.

--In 1900, a father smoked a pipe.
If he tries that today, he gets sent outside after a lecture on lip cancer.

--In 1900, fathers and sons would have heart-to-heart conversations while fishing in a stream.
Today, fathers pluck the headphones off their sons' ears and shout, "WHEN YOU HAVE A MINUTE.."

--In 1900, a happy meal was when Father shared funny stories around the table.
Today, a happy meal is what Dad buys at McDonald's.

--In 1900, when fathers entered the room, children often rose to attention.
Today, kids glance up and grunt, "Dad, you're invading my space."

--In 1900, fathers threatened their daughters suiters with shotguns if the girl came home late.
Today, fathers break the ice by saying, "So...how long have you had that earring?"


- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:35 AM 0 comments

 
US war plans are not helped by Blix
Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 8, 2003

Oh, for the ice-cold Swedish eye on the Middle East. Ah, for the freezing Scandinavian vision of truth. Hans Blix, everybody's headmaster, delivered his school report yesterday with enough fairness to outrage both : pupil – Iraq – and parent, ultimately the US.

Yes, Iraq had provided the names of relevant scientists, but "only a few documents had come to light – a disappointment". And on Iraq's destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles – a "substantial measure of disarmament" – a Swedish bon mot. "We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks," Mr Blix said. Toothpicks, indeed.

Words of truly Nordic neutrality followed: "reluctant co-operation", "soberly judged", "immediate co-operation" (which was not obtained), "a considerable volume of documents". The famous aluminium tubes turned out – if one believes Mr Blix, and why not – to have nothing to do with nuclear weapons (goodbye, the British intelligence file). And – if you believe Mohamed al-Baradei, and again why not – quite a number of other US documents are lies. But the words from this most intransigent of Swedes to most enrage the warmongers were: "We intend to continue our inspection activities."

You could almost hear the roar of fury from the Americans. [...]

The words were no help to US war plans. "Plausible ... verifiable ... progress," he said of his mission. All words the US would welcome if they wanted the inspectors to succeed.

Hence the statement from Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister: "We see no need for a second resolution." Which, of course, was the view of the French and the Russians – and Mr Blix. So, Mr Blix, watch out
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:03 AM 0 comments

 
This story proves the involvement of Pakistan's secret service (the ISI) in the September 11 attacks:
SEPT. 11'S SMOKING GUN: THE MANY FACES OF SAEED SHEIKH
Paul Thompson, Unansweredquestions.com, September 4, 2002, updated February 25, 2003

["If you read just one thing at this website, please read this essay. Don't mind the length and complexity. Saeed Sheikh's story is not just mildly interesting. Understanding the history of this young man may not only explain many mysteries of 9/11, including solid evidence of foreign government involvement in the attacks, but may also reveal if nuclear war in the near future is likely. Please read! Note that this was first written in September 2002 but has been thoroughly overhauled based on exposure to additional evidence.
Also, click to find more details about [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed], Saeed Sheikh and his boss ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed."]

As the London Times has put it, Saeed Sheikh "is no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan's military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization." [London Times, 4/21/02] To appreciate why Saeed is so important in comprehending 9/11,

--it is necessary to first understand Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI plays a much more significant role in the Pakistani government than do its counterparts in other countries. Time Magazine has noted, "Even by the shadowy standards of spy agencies, the ISI is notorious. It is commonly branded 'a state within the state,' or Pakistan's 'invisible government.'" [Time, 5/6/02] The ISI grew into its present form during the war between the Soviet Union and mujaheddin guerrillas in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The CIA thought the Afghan war could be Russia's own costly Vietnam War, and it funneled billions to the mujaheddin resistance to keep it a thorn in Russia's side. The strategy worked: Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, partly due to the costs of the war. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01]

But the costs to keep the mujaheddin fighting were staggering, with estimates ranging between $6 billion and $40 billion. [New York Times, 8/24/98, Nation, 2/15/99] While a substantial portion of this amount came from the CIA and the Saudi Arabian government, who were both funneling the money through the ISI, much of the cost was deferred by Afghanistan's opium trade.
[...]

The ISI Muzzled? No

Musharraf has been hailed for his firing of ISI Director Mahmood, and generally has been presented as a pro-Western figure trying to root out pro-terrorist factions of the ISI. But the Observer has called this "The Myth of the Good General Musharraf." [Observer, 3/31/02]
[...]

PROFILES:
-- ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed

-- 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
--[arrested March 1, 2003: see story of his arrest]

-- 9/11 Paymaster Saeed Sheikh

A CHRONOLOGY:
-- Pakistan ISI and/or Drug Connections

THE STORY:
-- The Journalist and The Terrorist: Daniel Pearl and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Robert Sam Anson,Vanity Fair, August, 2002

--Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: Al Qaida Suspect Flown Out of Pakistan
Anwar Iqbal, United Press International, March 2, 2003
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:58 PM 0 comments

 
Web site hears from Dick Cheney after parody involving wife
Benjamin Weiser, New York Times, March 6, 2003

Vice President Dick Cheney's office has spurred an unusual dispute by asking a Web site that parodies the Bush administration to remove a satirical biography and pictures of the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney.

After receiving the request in a letter from Mr. Cheney's counsel, the Web site doctored the photographs of Mrs. Cheney, adding a red clown nose and blackening out one of her front teeth, said its creator John A. Wooden.

"The letter is, if you read it carefully, it is only a request," he said. "But there's really no such thing as a request from the vice president's office. It's a threatening letter."

The New York Civil Liberties Union said yesterday that it would go to court to defend the parody's posting if Mr. Cheney's office did not back down from its request.

"They should know better — this is pure intimidation," said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the civil liberties group.

--Whitehouse.org's Mrs Cheney page

--Letter from the Vice President's Counsel

--Whitehouse org's: Mrs George W. Bush page

--Whitehouse.org's: Bush Administration page

--Whitehouse.org's: Office of Fraternal Affairs page

..........................................

Right takes centre stage
Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, March 4, 2003

At the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute last Wednesday, the US president, George Bush, gave a speech outlining his political visions for Iraq and Palestine, and what he sees as the link between them.

"Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state," Mr Bush said. [...]

The Bush approach effectively postpones, for several years at least, any real attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its justification for doing so is bizarre.

Adopting a thoroughly US capitalist view of terrorism, that suicide bombers are only in it for the money, Mr Bush wants to wait until the funds for Palestinian attacks on Israel have been cut off.

He goes on to suggest that other countries allegedly responsible for funding Palestinian terrorism must be dealt with after Iraq. They include Syria and Iran, but also, according to the Israelis, Saudi Arabia and the EU.

Once these regimes have been sorted out, there will still be the problem of suicide bombers who are not trying to earn a bit of cash for their families, but are supposedly attracted by the prospect of 72 virgins awaiting them in paradise.

At that stage, Mr Bush may have to consider further military strikes to bring about regime change in heaven: that could prove to be an especially interesting confrontation. [...]
.............................................

Curse be on your moustache, Kuwait warned
Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, March 6, 2003

A senior aide to Saddam Hussein threw diplomatic niceties to the wind yesterday, bringing disorder to an emergency summit of Islamic states when he yelled "Shut up, you monkey!" at Kuwait's minister of state for foreign affairs.

Years of bitterness between Iraq and Kuwait boiled over at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Qatar, when Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri responded to an inaudible interruption from the Kuwaiti minister of state, Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah.

He called him a monkey and added: "Curse be upon your moustache!" - an idiomatic phrase impugning the minister's honour.

Sheikh Sabah responded immediately to Mr Douri, the second-in-command of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, accusing him of "hypocrisy and falsehood".

As Mr Douri then went on to accuse the Kuwaitis of insolence, betrayal, and being an agent of the US, Kuwait's information minister, Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Ahmed, jumped to his feet and waved a miniature Kuwaiti flag.

But the meeting's chairman told him: "We are not here for such exchanges." The 56 countries at the summit last night ended their session inconclusively, [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 5:34 AM 0 comments

 
Texas Crazy Law

--The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.

--It is illegal to drive without windshield wipers. You don't need a windshield, but you must have the wipers.

--When two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone.

--It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.

--A city ordinance states that a person cannot go barefoot without first obtaining a special five-dollar permit.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:32 PM 0 comments

 
Rumsfeld Filled His Pockets with Pyongyang's Nuclear Loot
Chris Floyd, CounterPunch, March 4, 2003

It's a well-known fact--oft detailed in this column--that the boys in the Bush Regime swing both ways. We speak, of course, of their proclivity--their apparently uncontrollable craving--for stuffing their trousers with loot from both sides of whatever war or military crisis is going at the moment.

That's why it came as no surprise to read last week that just before he joined the Regime's crusade against evildoers everywhere (especially rogue states that pursue the development of terrorist-ready weapons of mass destruction), Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld was trousering the proceeds from a $200 million deal to send the latest nuclear technology--including plenty of terrorist-ready "dirty bomb" material--to the rogue state of North Korea, Neue Zurcher Zeitung reports.

In 1998, Rumsfeld was citizen chairman of the Congressional Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, charged with reducing nuclear proliferation. [...]

Of course, that didn't prevent him from trying to profit from it. Even while he chairing commission meetings on the "dire threat" posed by the Korean program, Rumsfeld was junketing to Zurich for board meetings of the Swiss-based energy technology giant, ABB, where he was a top director. And what was ABB doing at the time? Why, negotiating that $200 million deal with North Korea to provide equipment and services for the KEDO nuclear reactors, of course! [...]

[Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:16 PM 0 comments

 
Travel Jokes: Where is this place?

A man and his wife were driving their Recreational Vehicle across the country and were nearing a town spelled Kissimee. They noted the strange spelling and tried to figure how to pronounce it - KISS-a-me; kis-A-me; kis-a-ME. They grew more perplexed as they drove into the town.

Since they were hungry, they pulled into a place to get something to eat. At the counter, the man said to the waitress:

"My wife and I can't seem to be able to figure out how to pronounce this place. Will you tell me where we are and say it very slowly so that I can understand."

The waitress looked at him and said: "Buuurrrgerrr Kiiiinnnng."