Thursday, April 10, 2003

I'm Speechless! Oh! What a whopper! What shameless Gallic hypocrisy!! What barefaced lies! How could anyone report this shamless weaseling with a straight face! "LONDON, England (CNN) -- French President Jacques Chirac says his country is "rejoicing" in the apparent collapse of the Iraqi dictatorship. Chirac ... said in a statement released by the Elysee Palace Thursday: "France, like every democracy, is rejoicing over the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and hopes for a quick and effective end to the battle." His foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, added: "With the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, a dark page has been turned." 11:40:13 AM    comment []

A Complete Epiphany   What a surprise! For me, at least. I've always been very, very dubious about Moslem clerics and their views, probably tainted by long exposure to the rantings and ravings of the lunatics of the WestBank and Gaza, Teheran and elsewhere (even London and New Jersey!). But right there on CNN, around midnight last night, Aaron Brown starts chatting with an Imam from Dearborn, MI. An Iraqi guy in his late forties, perhaps. Smiling, for a start. A friendly looking kind of guy; almost Church of England material <g>. I didn't properly catch his name, and CNN is not featuring this material on its site, that I can say. I think I recall it as Al-Husainy. Was he happy about the fall of Saddam? He was ecstatic. "I've waited 23 years for this," he said. Then he cranked up into one of those familar sounding litanies about infidels, murderers, criminals, etc., but meaning the Ba'athists and the Saddam Hussein gang in general. And how did his community there feel? Just the same, he insisted. Many would want to go home soon to visit family and friends, some might even stay to help the reconstruction, using the knowledge and skills they acquired here. You could have knocked me down with a feather!   11:32:57 AM    comment []

Domino Theory   I wonder ... If the rest of the Iraqi Freedom operation goes as anticipated, and ends soon, what next? We might well expect to see some popular uprising in Iran, and soon. Perhaps by the summer, and inspired by the demise of Saddam. And maybe with no help from the US, although a bit of covert support and recognition for the rebels would be a good move. And how much longer can Syria hold out? The dynastic Assad regime, and the Ba'athist party are pushing their luck very hard at present. We may not be quite ready to swat them yet, but I sense that their time is coming. Which would be a damned good thing, because it would kick the props out from under the nutcase militias in the Lebanon, and force the removal of the Syrian 'peacekeepers' -- read, army of occupation -- there. We may not get 'democracy', precisely, or not immediately. But we'd certainly get some common sense.   11:23:00 AM    comment []

Who Said Greed Was Dead?   Charlie Cooper has the following pithy editorial comment on CNet News today ... "There may be a new world order a hemisphere away, but judging from events in the last week, it remains business as usual in the cozy, coddled boardrooms of Silicon Valley. Consider the following: Hewlett-Packard shareholders received a contemptuous response from the company after passing a well-considered proposal requiring their approval before management doles out any more ridiculous severance packages (worth more than 2.99 times the executive's base salary and bonus, for example) to departing execs. Instead of doing the right thing, management fudged, saying it will "duly consider" the recommendation. Huh? That's a kind way of saying, "Don't stick your snoot into our decision-making process." But the mandarins sitting on HP's board of directors are in dire need of a wake-up call after paying out $14 million to Michael Capellas, the company's former president, when he resigned to take over as CEO of WorldCom. Broadcom announced it will take a charge of at least $238 million to pay for the cost of allowing employees to trade underwater stock options for shares. The company's management says it had to do this in order to retain talent--this during one of the softest job markets in the history of the technology business. This wins the "Chutzpah of the Year" award by a country mile. Richard Brown, recently bounced as CEO of Electronic Data Systems, walked away with a severance package in excess of $32 million in cash and stock. That tidy payday is so big it will require the company to take a charge of 6 cents per share in the first quarter. Nice work if you can get it. Maybe the public is as dumb as the local gentry obviously assume, and its memory of recent corporate excess has already been relegated to the status of ancient--and thus nonesssential--history. But we've been down that road once before and know where it leads. Before these folks repeat the follies of yesteryear, they would handsomely benefit from a refresher course." 11:16:58 AM    comment []

The Axis Of Losers   Let's treat comments about a developing "European-Arab alliance" with the derision they deserve ... but let's give a name to the Herr Dye-Chiraq-Dobbie 'summit' in St. Petersburg this weekend ... The Axis Of Losers What is the likely reaction to this chinwag by a bunch of washed-up nations? The 'Mediterranean' and 'Eastern' Europeans will see it for what it is: a pathetic attempt at self-promotion by two deadbeat politicans of 'old Europe', eager to cling to whatever power they imagine they have in the EU. The 'Eastern' group will also have a very cynical view of the Russians being involved: they remember the Soviet Union, real well. This whole concept of 'balance of powers' belongs in the dustbin of history. Although you can't dispute that France itself has become an Arab-European Alliance, all within its own borders ... 10:08:17 AM    comment []

A Good Opportunity To Keep Quiet   The WSJ got it dead right this morning, on the editorial page ... Liberation Day Downtown Baghdad yesterday looked like Berlin in 1989. Jubilant Iraqis celebrated the demise of a hated regime. The picture of Saddam Hussein's statue falling to the ground was one for the history books, symbolizing his end, even as his whereabouts remain unclear. Now we'd think this would give France's Jacques Chirac, as the French president famously said not long ago, "a good opportunity to keep quiet." That sounds like good advice as well for Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. This self-declared "camp of peace" used every resource at its disposal to prevent the campaign that brought about these scenes in Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriyah and other Iraqi cities. If France and Russia had gotten their way, Saddam would be running Iraq now. Alas, unlike the coalition troops, Moscow, Paris and Berlin haven't had a good war. The coalition went to an unprecedented extent to spare civilian lives and infrastructure and by any standard, succeeded. Liberation inevitably carries a price. In Iraq, that price has been miraculously and thankfully low thus far. Without batting an eyelid, Mr. Schroeder yesterday hailed the "welcome victory" by U.S. and British forces, who must mop up throughout Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. Mr. Chirac's spokesmen were plotting their response last night when we called, and didn't get back to us. The pro-Putin United Russia party chose an unfortunate day Wednesday to hold the "biggest ever" anti-war demonstration in Moscow; only a few thousand Russians turned out. Mr. Chirac likes to tell others to "keep quiet" -- most recently future EU members from Eastern Europe who wanted Iraq liberated too -- but isn't exactly known for his humility. Unbowed by the turn of events, the French president on Tuesday decided to pontificate about the fate of a postwar Iraq, no matter that France's only contribution to the entire venture consisted of raising the risks and costs for the Americans and British. The United Nations -- "and it alone" -- should run Iraq, Mr. Chirac said, aiming his sights at the White House, which wants to turn over the reins to the Iraqis themselves after the country settles down. The Chirac-Schroeder-Putin trio called their own summit for this weekend in St. Petersburg. Kofi Annan was set to round out the circle, but even the U.N. secretary general knew a lame party when he saw one and pulled out. These three leaders can protest all they want. The din from the celebrations in Iraq will inevitably drown out any further pronouncements they might make. That is as it should be.   9:58:24 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Peter Savage.