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Wednesday, March 26, 2003
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Speaking of POWs.... Iraq has yet to account for some 600 Kuwaiti prisoners, mostly civilians, missing since the first Gulf War 12 years ago. This has not been an entirely forgotten issue in the region; the effort to keep the matter alive even includes a recent music video portraying Kuwaiti prisoners and their families.
Technically, the issue is before the U.N. Security Council, which received a report three years ago calling the matter "a humanitarian tragedy which needs [the] highest attention of all parties involved and concerned." It being a pressing matter before the U.N., nothing happened.
Iraq has had nothing to say on the matter since 1998, and the regime didn't have much to say before that, either. It denied having the prisoners, arrest records notwithstanding, and suggested that Kuwaiti officials try to find the missing POWs. Given its direct support of coalition efforts against the Iraqi regime, Kuwait may be said to have accepted the invitation.
[Hit & Run]
Here's an example of why it's a good thing that the Iraqis are putting American POWs on TV.
9:58:14 PM 
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Hard-Hitting Reporters?. Just how worried are coalition forces about their extended line of advance?
"At one forward position, soldiers asked a reporter to carry a pistol to help protect the perimeter."
And he had to holster a nifty PDA to do it. [Hit & Run]
I'll bet the soldiers who did that will get in a lot of trouble if the brass finds out who they were, alas.
7:38:19 PM
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Ed Cone: "If an Iraqi division was rolling up I-85 through Greensboro on its way to overthrow some hypothetical despot in Washington, I'd like to think I'd have the wherewithal to pick a couple of the bastards off along the way." [Scripting News]
I agree completely with this sentiment.
11:51:35 AM
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Radioactive Disinformation. The new New Yorker includes a yet another interesting report by Seymour Hersh, this time on who might be behind those forged documents alleging Nigerian assistance to Iraq's purported nuclear program.
The same issue includes an interesting profile of Noam Chomsky, but that piece isn't online, alas. [Hit & Run]
Hersh suspects the British MI6 is behind it. He may be right--after all, we already know about the British plagiarizing a graduate student's old paper and passing it off as an intelligence report (after replacing various innocuous passages with inflamatory ones).
11:46:04 AM
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Seven Nations to Join NATO Next Year [AP World News]
All are former members of the now-extinct empire that NATO defends against. So what is the point of NATO again? At this rate the entire former Soviet Empire is going to end up as members--thus ensuring that they are defended against themselves.
10:45:31 AM
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Liz Michael -
Bush administration endorses "McVeigh Doctrine" - George W. Bush
is Timothy McVeigh? Naw. Mr. McVeigh at least believed in
something. Why the Bush/McVeigh doctrine is very dangerous, very
dangerous indeed. [rrnd]
The Bush administration has decided to phrase their justification for
the war in Iraq in a very dangerous way. The latest Bush propaganda
philosophy goes like this: if you have a tyrannical government you're
trying to get rid of, anywhere in the world, you bomb its government
buildings, target its leaders, and label yourselves "freedom
fighters", and you can morally do anything you want. If there is
collateral damage in the death of innocents and babies, well, that's
okay. That's just the price of war. War is hell. We'll "kinda, sorta,
try" not to hurt innocents, but if we do... oh well... all for the
liberation of the Iraqi people: all for "Iraqi Freedom". [End the War on Freedom]
The main point of this article is very good, although I think it's silly to blame Bush (or McVeigh) for creating this policy, which has existed for a long time. Even McVeigh said he was just emulating the things the US government had been doing for years, under previous Presidents.
10:30:56 AM
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Ahem, Meanwhile..... India asks why it can't bomb the hell out of Pakistan for repeated terrorist strikes against Indians. The U.S. response -- because -- isn't selling. U.S. calls for continued talks are losing what little meaning they had.
"If dialogue per se is more critical than combating international terrorism with all necessary means, then one can legitimately ask why both in Afghanistan and Iraq military action instead of dialogue has been resorted to," a spokesman for the Indian government said.
So it will be anywhere a claim of a terrorist threat can be made. [Hit & Run]
10:03:05 AM
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Sheldon Richman at The Future of Freedom Foundation -
Make Mine a Freedom Muffin - Iraq is the place it is because of
British adventures in empire building. Hence, Mr. Sheldon no longer
eats English muffins, nor does his daughter own an English
bulldog. They're freedom muffins, and hers is a freedom
bulldog. [rrnd] [End the War on Freedom]
We can't say for certain what things would have been like had Britain kept its promise to the Arabs. But it stands to reason that they would have had far fewer grievances against the West. Indeed, if Winston Churchill "invented Iraq and laid the foundation for much of the modern Middle East," we have him and the British government to thank for many of our problems there.
9:31:40 AM
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U.S.: Iraq Chemical Suits Reinforce Fears [AP World News]
A U.S. general said Wednesday the discovery of 3,000 chemical suits in a hospital in central Iraq that had been used as an Iraqi base raised concern that Saddam Hussein's regime was prepared to use chemical weapons.
Now that's just silly. Every US soldier has a chemical suit--does that general mean to suggest that the US is prepared to use chemical weapons, as a result? Oh, wait--the US actually is prepared to use chemical weapons.
9:14:54 AM
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Yahoo News - U.S. Lifts FBI Criminal Database Checks. The Justice Department lifted a requirement Monday that the FBI ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information about criminals and crime victims before adding it to the country's most comprehensive law enforcement database. The system, run by the FBI's National Crime Information Center, includes data about terrorists, fugitives, warrants, people missing, gang members and stolen vehicles, guns or boats. Records are queried increasingly by the nation's law enforcement agencies to help decide whether to monitor, detain or arrest someone. The records are inaccessible to the public, and police have been prosecuted in U.S. courts for misusing the system to find, for example, personal information about girlfriends or former spouses. Officials said the change, which immediately drew criticism from civil-liberties advocates, is necessary to ensure investigators have access to information that can't be confirmed but could take on new significance later, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said. The change to the 1974 U.S. Privacy Act was disclosed with an announcement published in the Federal Register. The Privacy Act previously required the FBI to ensure information was "accurate, relevant, timely and complete" before it could be added to the system. [Privacy Digest]
If some bureaucrat can "change" an Act of Congress any time he feels like it, what's the point of having Congress? Full employment for politicians?
9:06:25 AM
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CA: 'Cache' of firearms found in Chatsworth. Two drug officers on routine patrol ferreted out a cache of high-powered weapons and thousands of firearms parts worth more than $3 million, authorities said Tuesday.
The weapons, along with the components to assemble hundreds of additional guns, were found Friday night inside four large containers behind a storage facility in the 9800 block of Mason Avenue. The contents included Uzis, World War II-era M-1 carbines and grenade launcher adapters, along with military fatigues, military rations and other equipment. [FirearmNews.com]
It's pretty obvious from the article that the owner of the weapons hasn't done anything wrong. This is strictly a case of someone exercising his Constitutional rights--something which the government doesn't like very much.
8:54:44 AM
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Building the Anti-Radiation Wall. Sensors that detect nuclear radiation as a first line of defense against so-called dirty bombs are already in place all over the United States. Of course no one will say where. By Charles Graeber from Wired magazine. [Wired News]
Question: What do a truckload of broccoli, a cancer patient, and a shipment of ceramic tiles have in common? Answer: They can look like threats to homeland security.
All three emit trace amounts of radiation - enough to trip the detectors that law enforcement agencies have been quietly installing in and around American highways, subways, and seaports since sometime after September 11. The system appears to be the beginning of the antiterrorist nuclear wall ("Stopping Loose Nukes," Wired 10.11). The detectors have yet to pick up evidence of what Homeland Security officials fear most: nuclear weapons.
Detectors that are so sensitive are useless, because after a few dozen trucks of broccoli and ceramic tiles the people who are supposed to check out the sensor reports will just ignore them.
I wonder if the tritium in my watch would set one off?
8:52:26 AM
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PayPal Tightens Transaction Reins. New rules at PayPal dictate what users can and can't purchase using the online payment service. Fruit in X-rated shapes is OK, but mountain lion parts are not. By Christopher Null. [Wired News]
Anyone who objects to PayPal's absurd restrictions on the purchase of perfectly legal products should consider using "e-gold" instead.
8:47:29 AM
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© Copyright
2006
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
2/15/2006; 1:52:48 PM.
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