4. desember 2003

Former Israeli intelligence officer: Saddam intelligence flawed A former Israeli intelligence officer, Shlomo Brom of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, has issued strong criticism against the Israeli intelligence community for exagarating the dangers of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Israeli intelligence agencies produced a flawed picture of Iraqi weapons capabilities on the eve of the Iraq war and contributed substantially to the mistaken assessments of their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Brom said Thursday. Israeli intelligence, accuses Brom, is guilty of an unprofessional approach, poor supervision and "a dogmatic conception based on one-dimensional images of the enemy."  Israeli intelligence is highly respected, and generally considered the most reliable intelligence service on Middle East issues. There is little doubt it played an important role in pre-war assessment of Iraqi capabilities. 10:13:23 PM    comment []  trackback []

— British anti-war groups taken over by communists The British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War coalition is threatened by a takeover by Trotskyist groups and the Communist party, according to veteran peace campaigner Jimmy Barnes. He argues that left-wing extremist groups will hijack the specific objectives of the peace movement for a wider criticism of "western militarism and colonialism." This autumn, the extreme left managed to take over many key positions in the movements. As can be expected, the charge was rejected with personal attacks against Barnes. His stance was condemned as "divisive and destructive" by the current chairwoman, Kate Hudson, who last night dismissed any suggestion that the organisation had been taken over by a cabal of like-minded political campaigners as "ridiculous". The punchline comes a few paragraphs later: Ms Hudson, who is a Communist party member .... But a communist takeover? Of course not, Comrade Hudson. 7:00:57 PM    comment []  trackback []

The soul of Europe: the fight over the EU-constitution Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and his convention of uber-eurocrats insisted that not a iota on their holy EU constitution draft could be soiled by the hands of people who are actually elected by Europeans, but the fight is already on for substantual changes. Naturally, the reform that would double Germany influence in the EU is never going to be accepted by countries like Spain and Poland. The UK is sympathetic to this, especially if it gets return support for scrapping the idea of tax harmonisation. Also, very late, Britain wants to change the energy provisions that would give the EU control of its oil. Britain's government has, as always, stupidly relied too much on the always sleeping Foreign Office to evaluate the draft constitution. Now that top politicians have actually investigated the ghastly document, Tony Blair's government has the difficult job of both starting to care about Britain's interests and at the same time pretend they did so earlier, when they argued this constitution was no big thing. Even with the changes to the constitutions that are on the agendas, and which has many eurocrats weep blood, it is clear that the changes to the EU towards a superstate will be substantial. Yet at the same time, ironically, the union is split up along other axis. Germany and France wants an even closer intergration (at least some of its politicians do). Many countries want a military alliance separate from NATO, and Britain has half-heartedly joined it. Of course Britain is the only credible military force in Europe (France would have, if it had credible politicians). At the same time, most think it will be a cold day in hell before Britain joins the Euro-zone, and few expect Sweden and Denmark to join either. The EU is feeling the friction from its success, with the old and new member countries all wanting to take it in different directions. All it takes now is one more Iraq-sized conflict to expose its differences and all may be torn apart. All this because eurocrats far removed from the reality of Europe's citizens couldn't let it remain a good free trade area, but started dreaming about a United States of Europe that most Europeans are never, ever going to accept. 3:56:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

France, Germany want to sell arms to China In perfect timing after Beijing has resumed its open threats of war against Taiwan, France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schröder is calling for resuming arms sales to China. The arms embargo was initiated after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and the US remains committed to keeping arms and sensitive technology away from the communist state. The EU remains split on the issue (as about darned near everything else), but with a arms producers wanting a bite of the Chinese market there is a pressure to start supplying China with weapons. So much for Schröder's neo-pacifism. Nobody is surprised about France, of course. They would sell arms to Saddam Hussein... but wait, they do. 3:24:18 PM    comment []  trackback []

Bad sex prize Aniruddha Bahal, an Indian investigative journalist turned author, has received the Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction" award for what is described as the most inept description of sex in a novel. Then as the temperature between the two rises, Bahal shifts into top gear: "Your RPM is hitting a new high. To wait any longer would be to lose prime time... "She picks up a Bugatti's momentum. You want her more at a Volkswagen's steady trot. Squeeze the maximum mileage out of your gallon of gas. But she's eating up the road with all cylinders blazing. You lift her out. You want to try different kinds of fusion."  This must be what is called car fetishism. 1:41:50 PM    comment []  trackback []

Howard Dean on the Soviet Union Here's a transcript of an NBC Hardball interview with Howard Dean, where we get a good overview of where he stands on a number of issues. We also get a bit of a clue to his level of knowledge on, for example, foreign policy, which used to be George Bush' very weak spot before he was elected. Look at this: DEAN: Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight. Let’s act now so we don’t have to have a confrontation which may result in force, which would be very disastrous in the case of North Korea and might be disastrous in the case of Iran. Maybe not a very bad idea regarding Iran, but slightly outdated terminology. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. I assume Dr Dean refers to Russia. Now, imagine the ridicule Bush would be subject to for such a gaffe. Let's see if this comes back to haunt Dean later. 1:40:28 AM    comment []  trackback []

Eat me! The Beeb brings us everything we wanted to know about cannibalism, but couldn't be bothered to ask. The headline says "a modern taboo" as if the disgust with someone who kills another person to eat his penis is some cultural superstition. 12:27:09 AM    comment []  trackback []

Cheap Google entertainment If you type in "miserable failure" in Google and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button you get the official White House biography of George W. Bush. So, Google can be manipulated by a group of dedicated bloggers with way too much time on their hands 12:02:04 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.01.2004; 02:46:20.