Month: December 2003

Via Zeyad.

Tim Blair has a nice collection of Democratic Underground reaction to the capture of Saddam; summary: “Oh shit, we’re in trouble now.” Gloat, gloat, gloat.

I happened to see the live TV coverage of the press conference in Baghdad Sunday morning announcing the capture of Saddam, and about an hour’s worth of fill before the briefing. CNN, for all of its spin, still has the best on-the-ground coverage in Iraq, and they actually showed some videophone imagery of Iraqis firing shots into the air, passing out candy, honking their horns, and yes, dancing in the streets. On this day, there was no doubt that they’re happy to have the Coalition’s troops in their country.

MSNBC was the first to bring a translator on-line for the press conference, which was good because the reaction of the Baghdad press was so amazing. About half-a-dozen Iraqi newspaper people were called on, but only two actually asked questions; both about the trial. The others simply thanked the US and the Coalition for capturing the monster, called out for his death, and generally praised Allah, George Bush, and Tony Blair. They weren’t pretending to straddle some imaginary line that makes murderous tyrants excusable, in other words. Howard Dean is probably on the brink of a heart attack, as is his Internet guru Joe Trippi who was bumped from Meet the Press by the story of Saddam’s capture, appropriately enough.

Somewhat lost amid the celebration is another large piece of news, the memo discovered by the UK Daily Telegraph on the training of 9/11 pilot Atta in Iraq:

In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta “displayed extraordinary effort” and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be “responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy”.

The second part of the memo, which is headed “Niger Shipment”, contains a report about an unspecified shipment – believed to be uranium – that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.

Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq’s ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

I believe the memo is probably genuine, but we will see. If it is, then it means that the liberation of Iraq was anything but a “distraction” from the war on terror, and we can therefore say goodnight to Dr. Dean, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Edwards.

The elation and relief that Iraqis feel over Saddam’s capture is something you can best read about in their own words; go to The Mesopotamian and then follow his links to Iraqi blogs.

UPDATE: The Atta Memo was most likely a hoax, which I should have realized all along. Most things that seem too good to be true, are.

It seems to me that Noam Chomsky’s dodging on his claim that a genocide was taking place in Afghanistan as a result of the US/UK invasion is the real miserable failure, and I’d like to encourage others who share this view to link to Rob Hinkley’s page on the subject. As you may know, the pro-Saddam element on the far left of the Blogosphere has Google-bombed miserable failure to an inappropriate place, and we should give credit where it’s deserved: Noam Chomsky and his ilk are the real miserable failure of our time.

Zeyad’s Healing Iraq blog reports from the anti-terrorist demonstration in Baghdad today:

We started at Al-Fatih square in front of the Iraqi national theatre at 10 am. IP were all over the place. At 12 pm people started marching towards Fardus square through Karradah. All political parties represented in the GC participated. But the other parties, organizations, unions, tribal leaders, clerics, school children, college students, and typical everyday Iraqis made up most of the crowd. Al-Jazeera estimated the size of the crowd as over ten thousand people.

You can find a list of some of the parties that we noticed there at Omar’s blog. At one point it struck me that our many differences as an Iraqi people meant nothing. Here we were all together shouting in different languages the same slogans “NO NO to terrorism, YES YES for peace”.

I spent most of the time taking pictures. heh, I really enjoyed playing the role of a journalist. Everyone was tugging at my sleeves asking me to take their photos mistaking me for a foreign reporter. Some people recognized a reporter from Al-Arabiyah station and they started taunting him. One old man shouted to him “For once, speak the truth”.

He’s got pictures (and more pictures), so check it out. This is the kind of thing that makes me proud to be an American.

Zeyad’s buddy Omar lists some of the participants:

• Iraqi communist party.
• INC.
• SCIRI.
• KDP.
• PUK.
• INA.
• Al-Da’wa party.
• Iraqi Islamic party.
• Independent democrats’ congregation.
• Iraqi democratic trend.
• The Iraqi Turkomen front.
• Iraqi Assyrian democratic movement.
• Iraqi medical association.
• Iraqi dental association.
• Iraqi workers union.
• Iraqi women association.
• Iraqi human rights organization.
• Iraqi farmers union.
• Iraqi independence party.
• And many independent individuals like us.

Via Jeff Jarvis.

Oregon is a nice place, isn’t it? Yes, it is. You
should live there. So should I. As of now
it’s not crowded, but you never know. So
ummmm, ok…Oregon….yeah.

What State Is Perfect For You?
brought to you by Quizilla

This David Brooks column, Boots on the Ground, Hearts on Their Sleeves, is a must read:

If anybody is wondering: Where are the young idealists? Where are the people willing to devote themselves to causes larger than themselves? They are in uniform in Iraq, straddling the divide between insanity and order.