Saturday, 1 March, 2003The Stranger on Iraq 02Well, I have to hand it to The Stranger, they're even-handed. This week, Sherman Alexei—the "Sherman" referred to in "Sherman's March" which I mentioned earlier—gets to issue his rebuttal. posted 2255 Z-8 [more..] You got style... My beloved wife Carolyn got me a copy of The Economist Style Guide to help with my writing. She is so sweet and supportive of my projects. Hopefully, you will notice an improvement in my writing in weeks to come. posted 2222 Z-8 [link] Greece: nation of traitors Today, I ran across an article in The Observer, titled "Greece faces shame of role in Serb massacre". After reading the article, shame is the least Greece deserves. Much of the basis for this article is the publication of a book, Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia in the Nineties by Takis Michas (of which you can read a review here), which charts the sympathy given to Serb nationalists like Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic in the 1990s by the Greek media, diplomatic support given by the Greek government, and more. posted 0038 Z-8 [more..] Thursday, 27 February, 2003Iraq's al-Samoud II - al-Part IIBoth the BBC and CNN report Iraq has told UNMOVIC that it will comply with UNMOVIC's instructions that Iraq destroy its al-Samoud II missiles. Notably missing from the BBC report, however, is the mention that Iraq also stated that the demand was "unfair," that it claims it does not know how to destroy the missiles and wants technical discussions first, or even that Iraq has not actually said within when it intends to start with the destruction. In short, it's the classic "Baghdad Two-Step": the Iraqi government says it will comply with UN requirements, and then doesn't, stalling for time. I think the world has lost count of how often Baghdad has performed this manoeuvre. Through all this, it should be noted, as this International Herald Tribune article does, UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans "Blix said Wednesday that Iraq had not yet shown it had made a 'fundamental decision' to disarm." Similarly, CNN reports that "Blix also notes that so far, Baghdad's actions to comply with the United Nations demand to disarm 'have been very limited.'" You know, it's been almost four months since Iraq agreed to comply with UNSC resolution 1441; I'd say if it hasn't made that "fundamental decision" by now, it should be pretty damn obvious that it doesn't ever intend to. But we knew that, really. Roll on régime change. posted 2129 Z-8 [link] Tuesday, 25 February, 2003Seselj surrendersExcellent news - Vojislav Seselj has surrendered himself to the Yugoslavia Tribunal. He probably has some vision of doing some "This is illegal trial before illegal tribunal" crap like the stuff that Milosevic tried in 2001. I doubt he'll pull it off; if the man were as smart as Slobo, Slobo wouldn't have been president of Serbia. But Slobo didn't manage it, and this time the judges (and the Prosecutor) will be ready. Do vidjenja, Seselj. posted 0249 Z-8 [link] Iraq's al-Samoud II So it's official: Saddam set to defy missile ban Well, no surprises there. Going by the usual pattern, Saddam will hold out and refuse to comply until a couple of days after the March 1st deadline to destroy the cursed things passes, and then—right when it looks like the US and UK have the case for non-compliance sewn up—magnanimously offer to get rid of a number of them (probably faulty prototypes). And once again, the nay-sayers to war in the UNSC will cry "Inspections are working!" conveniently ignoring the fact that Saddam ignored the deadline and didn't get rid of the lot. Saddam will, as always, do too little, too late, but it's more than nothing (only just) so it's "progress." Whoop-de-fucking-doo. The unhappy seven-year career of UNSCOM revisited. No member of the UNSC is this stupid—there's a lot of bad faith going on here. Frankly, it's getting to the point that I find myself wishing the US and UK would just push forward and launch the invasion of Iraq. If that jeopardises the role of the Security Council, well ainsi soit-il. I reckon the Security Council is worth saving, but right now it's not the responsibility of the US and UK to do so. I say, launch the invasion already; if the Russian, Chinese, German and especially the French governments want to save the UNSC, they'll have to make it worth saving. The bastards have jeopardised it by being obstructionist to protect their filthy oil deals with Saddam—or in the case of Germany's Schroeder government, to avoid breaking the one election promise it hadn't broken already—and they should bear the burden of salvaging the blue flag. posted 0202 Z-8 [link] Monday, 24 February, 2003The Stranger on Iraq 01I live about an hour south of Seattle, WA; in Seattle, there is a free weekly paper called The Stranger. This week's feature is an article by Neal Pollack urging both pro- and anti-war writers to "Just Shut Up" I enjoyed it. Also enjoyable was the piece "Sherman's March", in which the author—Josh Feit, who is actually opposed to the war—relates his experience of the protests in Seattle, adding: "I Went to the Antiwar Protest Looking for the Dumbest Protester. I Found Him: the Keynote Speaker." Good stuff. Actually, I respect Feit's stance on the war (though I don't agree with him) mainly because he attempts to bring something more to the discussion than the default "War is Bad"; he's actually thought about the issues. Sadly, this appeares to be a rare trait on both sides of the debate. posted 0158 Z-8 [link] Lightening the mood: Nick and Ro Time for something positive. Check out Nick and Rozane's Home Page. These are seriously two of the nicest, funniest, warmest people it has ever been my pleasure and privilege to meet, and the Boy (their cockatoo) is an utter sweetie as well. Nick and Ro, alias the dotmoes, also hang out at 3WA. posted 0155 Z-8 [link] CounterPunch & Christopher Hitchens More brilliance from CounterPunch; Jack McCarthy's "I'll Drink to That". The editorial header reads "Another Ad Hominem Attack on Christopher Hitchens," and that is no more and no less than the truth. So Hitchens drinks; if he actually reads CounterPunch, I'm hardly surprised. So he's an alcoholic; that's in the best Anglo-French journalistic tradition. I read this article with an increasing feeling of "Is there going to be a point to all this? Perhaps an illustration of how this drinking drove him to write a piece of political opinion that was factually incorrect or suffered from specious logic?" The answer was "evidently not." Just some illustrations of how Hitchens is a mean drunk. What a waste of bandwidth. So I'll have to do it instead. posted 0154 Z-8 [more..] Elson Boles in CounterPunch Out of Bounds Magazine (whatever it is, since it has no online presence that Google can discern) may describe CounterPunch as "America's best political newsletter" but if contributors like Elson E. Boles are indicative of its content, one can only hope Out of Bounds is wrong. For otherwise, the state of political thought in the United States is in lamentable condition. Take a dekko at Boles' piece "Helping Iraq Kill with Chemical Weapons" to get an idea of what I mean. Boles may be at the far end of the political spectrum from Dennis Prager (see below), but neither seems to have mastered the art of reading a newspaper at any time. posted 0138 Z-8 [more..] The German government Man, I would hate to have to try to defend the Schroeder government's position right about now. The German government will not support military action against Iraq, it says, regardless of the outcome of a second UNSC resolution. Schroeder & Fischer are pretending to have principles, and what's worse, enough of the German electorate believed them. Now, last time I looked, the German constitution forbade the deployment of German troops abroad for the purposes of fighting a war, unless Germany was called upon to do so under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. So the German government couldn't send troops into Iraq, even if it wanted to; this is what kept them out of the 1991 Gulf War. But in the 1991 Gulf War, Germany picked a fair chunk of the bill; well hey, it was their oil supply being secured too. But since the introduction of the Euro, Germany has to take into account that there is a limit on its budget deficit. Since this has landed Schroeder in enough trouble already, he'd prefer to avoid having to make a financial contribution to any military action as well. So the German government's opposition to military action against Iraq is merely a matter of expediency; principle has nothing to do with it. But for some reason, enough German voters bought into the lie. In the meantime, the German government has said it will ignore the opinion of the Security Council. Well, that's at least against the spirit of the UN Charter; certainly, a government which has said it will ignore the UNSC's opinion has no business being represented on the UNSC, let alone chairing it. If any moral principle were involved, Germany would step down from the Council. But as I pointed out, moral principle has nothing to do with the policies of the current German government. posted 0122 Z-8 [link] Why "No Cameras"? So why the title "No Cameras"? Fair question. On the 16th of April, 1993, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Stewart, commanding officer of BRITBAT (the British battalion of UNPROFOR), stood outside the village of Ahmici in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Bosniak inhabitants had just been massacred by units of the Bosnian Croat HVO. BBC correspondent Martin Bell was on hand with his crew to film an exchange between Stewart and an HVO soldier who was trying to stop the British blue helmets from entering the village. Interpreter: "[He asks,] do you have the permission of HVO?" Stewart: "I don't need the permission of the bloody HVO. I am from the United Nations, and as far as I'm concerned what has happened here is disgraceful." After a brief further exchange, Stewart addresses Bell and says "I've just had the HVO telling me no cameras. I told them to get stuffed." Colonel Stewart's behaviour stands as an excellent example of a UN peacekeeper trying to do the right thing, despite being restricted by a shamefully inadequate mandate. But in spite of all the petty politicking that takes place in the Security Council, it is the actions of men like Bob Stewart that ultimately make the UN a force for good in the world. (The Ahmici massacre is depicted in the BBC TV miniseries Warriors, which I thoroughly recommend.) Moreover, since this weblog deals with words, not images, the title "No Cameras" makes eminent sense. posted 0120 Z-8 [link] Dennis Prager All right, let's get some things upfront. I'm European - Dutch, to be exact - and in October 2002, I emigrated (or immigrated, depending on your point of view) to the US and got married to an American citizen. I'm also a former employee of the UN ICTY. There's been lot of column inches wasted in the American print media lately about the relationship between "Europe" and the US. And I do mean wasted—in the sense that the writers rarely have the slightest idea of what they're on about. One of the worst examples it has been my distinct displeasure to come across recently is "When have millions of Europeans ever been wrong?" by Dennis Prager, who seems to live in a rather unpleasant right-wing fantasy world. In this post, I take it apart. posted 0116 Z-8 [more..] New software, new page Okay, I've discontinued my initial foray using Blogger to produce this page, and have switched to Grey Matter. So there's going to be some revamping going on, and I'm reposting the stuff I did earlier. I can't really be bothered to redo the time/date stamps, so it's all going to look a bit weird, but hey. posted 0102 Z-8 [link] Why I got a weblog So, at some point Jackie, who posts over on ThreeWayAction like I do, told me "You need to get yourself a blog, mate." I'd previously resisted the idea, for the rather irrational fact that I don't much care for the term "blog"; it reminds too much of "bog" and "blag." But I reckoned she had a point, and with Carolyn's support, I decided to go for it. So here we are. posted 0053 Z-8 [link] |
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