Month: April 2003

The pro-Saddam cynics who’ve been poo-pooing the US war plan for Iraq are taking big gulps now that cheering crowds ransack the remains of the torture regime in Baghdad. MSNBC reports:

Reuters journalists watched cheering crowds sack the U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel to the east of the city center. One witness saw looters ransack sports shops around the bombed Iraqi Olympic Committee building, the effective headquarters of Saddam’s elder son, Uday.

And CBS News adds:

In parts of Baghdad the power vacuum and chaos are a boon to some civilians. People are both celebrating and looting.

“Freedom! FFREEEEDOM, YES!” yelled an older Iraqi man.

ABC News chimes in:

Iraqis cheered arriving U.S. troops and then went on looting rampages as vestiges of President Saddam Hussein’s authority collapsed.

And Fox News says:

“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Bush,” some of the looters shouted. One elderly man beat a portrait of Saddam with his show.

And CNN has the coup de grace:

But in the Baghdad suburb of Saddam City, residents took to the streets to celebrate the apparent end of the Iraqi regime. A Shiite Muslim leader told a group of 400 to 500 people, “The tyrant of the world is finished, thanks to the coalition. Thank God for Iraq the victorious.”

And just a few days ago, the anti-liberation crowd was talking about “fierce resistance”, “fighting to the last breath”, and “repelling foreign invaders”.

Not hardly, folks – it’s a party.

The truth is getting stranger and stranger. Not only do 2/3 of Bay Areans support the war, nationally the age group that supports it most strongly is none other than Vietnam-era Boomers, those of us with the most finely-tuned sense of justice. Ha.

The Pentagon announced today the formation of an elite military force called the “U. S. Redneck Special Forces.”

Bubba, Hoss, Cooter and Boo will be dropped behind enemy lines with the following information about the Fedayeen:
1. The season opened last weekend.
2. There is no limit.
3. They taste just like chicken.
4. The don’t like beer, pickups, country music, or Jesus.
5. Some is queer.
6. They’re directly responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt.

The war should be over next week.

Thanks to brother Eric for the pitcher and text.

Yahoo! News – Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs

BAGHDAD (AFP) – More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.

Doing it for the children, the American way.

Liberated Iraqis in Basra discuss the past with a member of Saddam’s Fedayeen goon squad. Perhaps this helps explain why the Fedayeen have been fighting almost as hard as Frisco peaceniks.

One more thing on the claim by the French press and the Al Mercury News-zeera that Silicon Valley oppose the liberation of Iraq: a new Field Poll showing 63% in the Bay Area support the war:

Despite the Bay Area’s reputation as a hotbed for anti-war dissent, the overwhelming majority of residents support U.S. military action in Iraq, a Field Poll released today shows.

In other words, the pacifist claims are crap.

Saddam’s dead, Chemical Ali’s dead, coalition forces are met as liberators by cheering crowds in Basra, saran-tipped missiles are found, the INC Army is in southern Iraq, Kofi Annan says the UN shouldn’t take the lead in post-war Iraq, and the anti-war movement has shrunk to practically nothing.

So the worst nightmares of the anti-war (really just anti-Bush) movement have come true: the Iraqi people wanted us to liberate them, the campaign was remarkably swift and painless, and Iraq now faces a future free of terror and fascism, and the most fierce battles of the war weren’t fought in Baghdad, but in places like San Francisco and Oakland. So what’s their excuse gonna be for valiantly trying to keep the heinous dictator in power and the people oppressed?

Some will deny it’s happening, like Al Jazeera and Saddam’s info minister; others will change the subject, like Al Sharpton and David Weinberger; and others will simply go incoherent, like the French press does in this article “Les Echos” writer Laetitia Mailhes cribbed from material she got from this blog and a phone conversation with its author, on Silicon Valley and the war:

Le debat moral difficile a trancher

Wind River Systems developpe une technologie equipant les equipements medicaux, les systemes de transport, mais aussi les reseaux de telecommunications, civils et militaires, et les systemes de guidage des missiles. Son PDG, Jerry Fiddler, un ancien militant contre la guerre du Vietnam, donnait son point de vue dans le “San Francisco Chronicle”: “La generation de mon pere a combattu dans une guerre gigantesque qui a fait enormement de victimes et cause des destructions massives. Ma generation a fait une guerre e grand renfort de bombardements, de napalm et de mines.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes capables de mener une guerre avec des avions fantomes, des outils de telecommunications, des senseurs et un armement d’une telle precision que les degats sont limites a une zone aussi reduite que possible. La guerre est toujours detestable, mais une technologie comme la notre reduit les destructions et rend notre monde plus tolerable.”

Pacifiste de longue date, David Weinburger reconnait que le debat moral est difficile a trancher. “Premierement, indique-t-il, accepter des contrats militaires quand on est pacifiste, c’est de l’hypocrisie, mais en realite, les gens qui s’opposent a cette guerre ne sont pas necessairement pacifistes.

Deuxiemement, les scientifiques ne peuvent pas davantage esperer controler l’usage qui sera fait de leur technologie que la maniere dont leurs impots sont employes. Enfin, il est tres difficile pour une entreprise de dire : “On vous vend notre technologie a condition que vous ne l’utilisiez que pour des applications que nous approuvons…” Il ne s’agit pas d’absoudre les entreprises de toute responsabilite. Elles ont le pouvoir de decider quel monde elles veulent batir.”

Isn’t that just the silliest thing you’ve ever read, with that implication that Silicon Valley wants to restrict its products to applications that don’t involve the liberation of suffering people? Chirac’s minions will resort to some even more desperate means to try and escape accountability for the role they played in keeping Saddam in power for the last twenty years, and this is only the beginning.

Bad Google translation follows.
Continue reading “Now what?”

ABCNEWS reports that INC leader Ahmad Chalabi has been flown into southern Iraq along with 1,000 of his troops:

April 5 — The United States military has begun to airlift Iraqi opposition fighters into southern Iraq, ABC News has learned. It is the first major step towards establishing a physical Iraqi presence on the side of the coalition push against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The airlift, which began Friday night, will put about 1,000 Iraqi opposition forces into a base in southern Iraq controlled by coalition forces.
The force is under the control of the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi, who will accompany his troops into Iraq.

The opposition forces will also attempt to help set up liason relationships between U.S.-led forces and the Shiite leadership in southern Iraq, help coalition forces clear out remaining paramilitary forces and restore security.

This is significant for a couple of reasons: it will solidify the Iraqi resistance already present in Iraq and it will give Chalabi a leg up in taking a major role in the new regime, which will reportedly come on-line Tuesday. With Saddam’s loyalists dropping like flies in suicidal actions, the only real fight for control of Iraq pits the Pentagon and the White House against the State Department and the CIA.

Check this article from The Independent at Rantburg and tell me if the place it describes doesn’t sound like Auschwitz on a somewhat smaller scale.