Friday, February 07, 2003

I see that the Bush Administration has raised our Terrorist Alert Color Coordination System from yellow to orange this afternoon. Apparently, this means that it will be "harder to enter some buildings" and we can expect "delays at facilities and events." Take that, those of you who think the administration has dropped the ball on terrorism! Does This Mean It Will Be Harder to Get Into the Gamestop at the Mall? - Consider Arms 1:51:22 PM    comment []

The Don't Give Up On Them Yet Message of the Day: My day has been made!  All of this murky, cynical crap that we get on a daily basis from the President has a way of getting me down, but I've received a temporary lift: I just walked out of my office a little while ago to find that there was a small but respectable anti-war protest right outside my office.  There were, of course, also a couple of fat, balding guys yelling swears at the protestors from their cars (I would note that there were small children among the protestors, so this perhaps casts some light on the type of people who oppose the protestors), but I'll take the love where I can get it.  And, in case Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly are curious, I didn't see any Iraqi spies handing out paychecks to the protestors, nor did I see any evidence of America-Hating In Progress (henceforth AHIP?).  But don't worry, I'll keep looking for it. - Marcus-Marcus 1:23:26 PM    comment []

I don't know if this is "the foreign intelligence equivalent of being caught stealing the spoons," but it's pretty funny. The British government's vaunted dossier detaling Iraqi weapons violations turns out to be plagiarized from three different sources, including a California grad student's 12 year old term paper. Eyes On Your Own Paper, Mr. Blair! Who needs France, Germany, Russia, and China when you have the support of Chile, Angola, Estonia and Albania? Move over, buddy: The Great Nations of Earth are coming through! Saddam Fears Angola Here's something that all of those people planning to fight in Bush's Iraq war can look forward to a few years down the line. Lousy Mooching War Heroes Did Colin Powell help arm Iraq illegally during the Reagan Administration? Why wasn't this covered on "That '80s Show"? Thanks for the Weapons, Colin! This seems important, unless British intelligence just copied it from some other college kid. No Link Between Iraq and Al Qaeda -Consider Arms 12:05:45 PM    comment []

More on the Axis of Allies: There's a fairly decent point made in a recent article about how the French, far from being the timid sissies of Rumsfeldian fantasy, have actually done a lot to help stymie Al Qaeda. Here: "It is easy enough for Americans to ridicule the French, the nation whose intelligence services alerted the Bush government to the potential threats of Al Qaeda before anyone else and before—not after—September 11. While the FBI and CIA were asleep at the switch, French intelligence provided early reports about Al Quaeda operations. French journalists reported the shocking news that major oil companies connived with Saudi Arabia to quash FBI efforts to get at Al Qaeda, beheading prisoners before we could talk to them. Where did these journalists get their information? From a former top FBI official." The article also makes the point that Jimmy Carter's administration declared Iraq a terrorist state in 1979 and prohibited the sale of military equipment to it. This policy was reversed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. Does that mean The Gipper is an appeasement sissy, a "Defender of Saddam" as William Safire calls anti-war folks in his column today, or "objectively pro-Iraq," as Andrew Sullivan labels Joe Conason today? I don't know - let's ask Richard Perle, if he isn't at his vacation home in France. Read About Gallic Perfidy Here - Consider Arms 11:11:23 AM    comment []

More from our Axis of Allies: Oh, to be in Munich on Saturday! After weeks of Donald Rumsfeld's vicious rhetorical attacks, it turns out that the Germans are angry enough to plan some mass protests of his speech in that city this weekend. Rumsfeld's latest gaffe was to compare Germany - which has the third largest economy in the world after the U.S. and Japan, which is the dominant power in the European Union, and which will occupy the U.N. Security Council presidency for the next two years - with Libya and Cuba because Germany opposes the war in Iraq. Ho, ho, ho! That Rummy! I can certainly see why the U.S. press gives this venomous thug such a wide berth! Why, nothing could be funnier than deliberately antagonizing one of the most powerful countries in the world (and one which, as a German official pointed out in a Reuters story today, currently supplies a large percentage of the peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Afghanistan, larger in any case than the U.S.'s share). More Euro-Twitting: Richard Perle, the John Erlichmann of this administration, said yesterday that the U.S., apparently unsatisfied with "regime change" in the Arab world, now wants to force it on Europe, too. Check it out: "After the way the current government has treated the United States, repairing the damage in the near future is unlikely," he told the Handelsblatt business daily. "With a new government that would certainly be possible." God, why can't these foreigners learn to have governments that are acceptable to the Bush regime? Haven't they got the message yet? Anyway, here's the link. - Consider Arms 9:48:56 AM    comment []

I can’t take the President seriously anymore. I never took him too seriously, but before it was more a skeptical cautiousness. Now I can’t pay attention to him. Watching him speak, my eyes roll to the back of my head and I find my mind wandering to more important things, like whether my shoes are too tight. The reason I can no longer listen to him is that he has been giving the same speech for months now. The exact wording of his phrases changes sometimes, but it’s always the same thing. "Time is up" becomes "waiting for Saddam Hussein is not a strategy and it’s not an option" becomes "the game is over." The Security Council and the U.N. as a whole are continually mocked by Bush, who challenges them to prove their "credibility" and show that they will not be "mocked by a dictator." (It is my opinion that they are proving their credibility by not allowing themselves to be bullied by Bush. He is by far a greater danger to the world than Hussein and, ironically enough, in their "defiance," countries like France are showing that they have the balls that the U.S. is loath to credit them for.) I didn’t watch Colin Powell’s show and tell presentation, either. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in him. There was a point when he was the administration’s last holdout; I don’t know when the transformation happened or how Bush threatened him if he didn’t play along, but the transformation has taken place. And I knew that such a presentation, given the Bush Administration’s standards of proof and evidence, would be a meaningless dog and pony show. The relentless spinning and bald cynicism of this administration about this war in particular has given the world no reason whatsoever to believe the contents of Powell’s speech would be anything but total b.s. Even I could take photos of buildings and tell people that they were chemical weapons plants, but the difference is that nobody would believe me. Why does anybody believe him? - Marcus-Marcus 9:33:19 AM    comment []

I have been saying for years that Camille Paglia is totally overrated as an intellectual, and today in her big Salon interview she proves me right.  In one of the more witless commentaries yet offered by any opponent of war with Iraq, she is obnoxious, arrogant, and needlessly provocative.  A "cultural war" with Islam? Sure, why not? It's good that Rumsfeld "put France in its place"? You betcha! Why should oil hack Condoleeza Rice run for vice-president in 2004? Because it would "put Hillary in her place," of course! Sigh.   The most unintentionally hilarious part of her interview comes when she says that the real reason we shouldn't go to war with Iraq is because the Columbia shuttle disaster was "an omen." Suggesting that America's military should adopt the entrail-consultation stratagems of ancient Rome and Persia, Paglia ACTUALLY SAYS that the fact that shuttle debris landed in Bush's home state of Texas is proof that our war in Iraq is doomed.   Let's be honest:  I am totally opposed to the war in Iraq.  Additionally, as anyone who has seen my collection of Fast Luck candles can attest, I am as superstitious as a medieval peasant. On the other hand, I have more worries about the planned invasion than whether or not "the hand of Allah" blew up a space shuttle as a warning to our Texan president (She actually says this! No shit!).   - Consider Arms 9:12:35 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Marc Hatfield. Last update: 02/28/2003; 9:38:47 AM.