Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Check it out! Sgt. Zach in the news!Joseph Galloway of Knight-Ridder published one of Sgt. Zach's stories in his column today. How completely cool!! 7:48:56 PM | You can read it here at michaelmoore.com or here. Congratulations, Zach! Fantastic!! Your stories are so important. They need to be read! 
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"...the purpose of regime change 'has no basis under international law'"Finally, a major newspaper reports on the MANY Downing Street memos and minutes. This is from today's Los Angeles Times: 6:08:16 PM | [Foreign
Secretary Jack] Straw, writing to Blair on March 25, 2002, expressed
concern about a lack of support among members of Parliament from the
governing Labor Party.
"Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad," he wrote. "But we have a long way to go to convince them as to: The scale of the threat from Iraq, and why this has got worse recently; what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of e.g. Iran and North Korea so as to justify military action; the justification for any military action in terms of international law; and whether the consequences really would be a compliant, law-abiding replacement government. "Regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal," he said. "Elimination of Iraq's WMD capacity has to be the goal." [...] "Washington believes the legal basis for an attack already exists. Nor will it necessarily be governed by wider political factors. The U.S. may be willing to work with a smaller coalition than we think desirable," it said. The paper said the British view was that any invasion for the purpose of regime change "has no basis under international law." The best way to justify military action, it said, would be to convince the Security Council that Iraq was in breach of its post-Gulf War obligations to eliminate its store of weapons of mass destruction. Hopefully Senator John Conyers' hearing tomorrow will get press coverage. We've got to explore this all the way.
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HanniBolton Lecter at Zen ComixI've just "discovered" this hilarious Big Brass blog, Zen Comix. Check this out, and this and this and this. 5:15:24 PM | Laughing out loud!!
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Trying to keep it togetherI have been dealing with anxiety since last fall when my husband's unit was
activated. It didn't help that we had been trying to get pregnant for
nearly two years, and that he was called up the day after our first
consultation with a fertility specialist. The zen has helped a lot, but
sometimes I just can't handle it all. This week has been difficult,
though it's hard to pinpoint why beyond the obvious: S gone, Casey
dead. On Friday I'm going to LA with my mom to visit a close friend of
ours who's been diagnosed with cancer. He's going through six months of
chemo: one solid week of treatment, then three weeks off, then back
again for six cycles. We're going to cook and clean for him and his
wife, do whatever else we can to help out. I can't wait to see my old
friends. I miss them too. 3:03:42 PM | I'm glad I was already practicing zen before S was called up and our lives fell into this chaotic mess. Even when I feel terrible, I'm able to keep myself together (at least relatively) through zen. It's not perfect, but then what is? Last fall I took anti-depressants for a few months, after having panic attacks that sent me to the emergency room. I was able to take myself off of them quickly, thanks to zen. I get lazy, though, and I don't practice as often as I should. Weeks like this one remind me why it's so important to practice every day, so I have a habit of mental clarity to fall back on. Sometime I'll write more about this experience, perhaps.
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Fanning the flame of hatred
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And speaking of no WMDs in Iraq...Stacy Schiff is a woman after my own heart: 10:50:19 AM | What
is new is our odd, bipolar approach to fact. We have a fresh taste for
documentaries. Any novelist will tell you that readers hunger for
nonfiction, which may explain the number of historical figures who have
crowded into our novels. Facts seem important. Facts have gravitas. But
the illusion of facts will suffice. One in three Americans still
believes there were W.M.D.'s in Iraq.
And speaking of no WMDs in Iraq... The New York Times, as I pointed out yesterday, continues to dismiss the Downing Street memos as "old news," insisting that they covered this news back in 2002. They have yet to come clean, though, on their integral role in pushing the lies that gave Bush justification for the war during this same period. Through a trusty google search, I found this excellent piece by Franklin Foer about Judith Miller's tragically flawed WMD reporting in 2001/2002 from the June 7, 2004 issue of New York Magazine: During
the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of
stunning stories about Saddam Hussein's ambition and capacity to
produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information
provided by Chalabi and his allies -- almost all of which have turned out
to be stunningly inaccurate.
For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi's credibility into question. But never once in the course of its coverage -- or in any public comments from its editors -- did the Times acknowledge Chalabi's central role in some of its biggest scoops, scoops that not only garnered attention but that the administration specifically cited to buttress its case for war. And of course they still haven't acknowledged Chalabi's role, or Miller's role for that matter. Now Chalabi is Iraq's Oil Minister. What a surprise given how tight he has been with the neocons over the years, a tight relationship only rivaled by Miller's own with Wolfowitz, Perle, et al. The entire piece is damning to the Times, especially in light of their negligent coverage since the war began. There is a difference between reportage and opinion. The Times can run as many editorials by outside writers like Schiff as they want, but it won't excuse their complicity in the lies that led up to the war, a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and has torn so many families apart. Maybe their editors need to hear a thing or two about this. What do you think?
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Last update: 8/24/05; 8:18:09 PM .
