Whenever a public figure insists he is not going to resign, take the over.

Posted by: annika at 11:34 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

In yet another striking display of tone-deafness, President Bush ignored critics of his administration by *gasp* failing to name a liberal as his new chief of staff.

Developing . . .

Update: A despondent David Gergen was seen crying in his beer at a Georgetown pub, muttering something about "number six."

Developing . . .

Posted by: annika at 10:20 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.

Please find out about Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas and why he's on a hunger strike for what you and I take for granted. Start at The Cotillion and Fausta's Blog.

Posted by: annika at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 34 words, total size 1 kb.

I loved the book Reagan's War, by Peter Schweizer. It tells the story of Reagan's lifelong commitment to anti-communism. The most striking thing about Reagan's foreign policy was the breadth of his offensive against the Eastern Bloc. It wasn't just the overt moves: the arms race, SDI, the summits. He put a lot of resources into more subtle efforts to encourage democracy, most notably support for Poland's Solidarity movement. He also revitalized the Voice of America, which had lost sight of its original purpose as a propaganda tool.

No serious person doubts that Reagan's multi-pronged offensive worked. We should be using the same combination of threats, negotiation and propaganda against Iran. But Congress doesn't see it that way, as reported by ThreatsWatch:

From the House Committee on Appropriations comes word of the failure to fully fund the $75M requested by the administration to assist in broadcast/ telecast/ satellite communication efforts into the people of Iran.

"Promotion of Democracy in Iran - The committee did not fund the $75 million requested by the Administration for the promotion of democracy in Iran because it was poorly justified. Instead, $56 million was provided through proven, existing programs that will have an immediate, positive impact on the fostering of democratic ideals in Iran."

. . .

The $75M was not enough and, as it was, decades late in the game. To see Congress slash the belated efforts by nearly one-third out of the gate, in light of the current urgency, borders on disconcerting.

The Iranian problem is a very tough one, and we're in a situation which requires a creative solution. Of all the options available to us, encouraging regime change from within Iran is the least unattractive, in my opinion. Thus, I don't think now is the time to be skimping on resources devoted to that end.

Posted by: annika at 09:17 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 328 words, total size 2 kb.

Woke up to this news today:

U.S. forces, joined by Iraqi troops, on Thursday launched the largest airborne assault since the U.S.-led invasion, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital, the military said.

The military said the operation was aimed at clearing 'a suspected insurgent operating area' northeast of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and was expected to continue over several days.

'More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation,' the military statement said of the attack designed to 'clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra,' 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The province is a major part of the so-called Sunni triangle where insurgents have been active since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.
Saddam Hussein was captured in the province, not far from its capital and his hometown, Tikrit.

Waqas al-Juwanya, a spokesman for
Iraq's joint coordination center in nearby Dowr, said 'unknown gunmen exist in this area, killing and kidnapping policemen, soldiers and civilians.'

Near the end of the first day of the operation, the military said, 'a number of enemy weapons caches have been captured, containing artillery shells, explosives, IED-making materials, and military uniforms.'

Posted by: annika at 08:44 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.

What exactly is "civil war" and is Iraq really edging closer to it?

Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses — men shot to death execution-style — as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare. Twenty-nine of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single grave Tuesday in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.

. . .

Police began unearthing bodies early Monday, although the discoveries were not immediately reported. The gruesome finds continued throughout the day Tuesday, police said, marking the second wave of sectarian retribution killings since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month.

In the mayhem after the golden dome atop the Askariya shrine in Samarra was destroyed on Feb. 22, more than 500 people have been killed, many of them Sunni Muslims and their clerics. Dozens of mosques were damaged or destroyed.

Underlining the unease in the capital, Interior Ministry officials announced another driving ban, from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday to protect against car and suicide bombs while the Iraqi parliament meets for the first session since the Dec. 15 election.

People are throwing the term "civil war" around a lot lately, and I think it's interesting that nobody defines what that means. So I looked to that unassailable source, the Wikipedia, which has this to say:

A civil war is a war in which parties within the same country or empire struggle for national control of state power. As in any war, the conflict may be over other matters such as religion, ethnicity, or distribution of wealth. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles. Other historians state the criteria for a civil war is that there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not). In simple terms, a Civil War is a war in which a country fights another part of itself. [links omitted]

An insurrection is legally construed to be an organized and armed uprising for public political purposes; it may seek to overthrow the government, or it may seek merely to suppress certain laws or to alter administrative practice. A rebellion in general is considered to have a much more highly developed political and military organization than an insurrection; in international law it conveys belligerent status. Generally, such belligerent status implies that the belligerent government is attempting by war to free itself from the jurisdiction of the parent state, that it has an organized de facto government, that it is in control of at least some territory, and that it has sufficient proportions to render the issue of the conflict in doubt. An international war, on the other hand, is one between two or more independent states who are recognized members of the family of nations.

In international law the rights of parties to an armed conflict vary greatly with their status. Insurgents have a very limited status; they are not mere pirates or bandits, but their activities do not constitute 'war' in the de jure sense, and they cannot claim against neutrals the privileges of the laws of war. A full rebellion, on the other hand, is a 'war' so far as international law is concerned and the rebel government possesses all the belligerent rights of a fully recognized international state, toward both neutrals and the parent state. Needless to say, a parent state may attempt by force to suppress either an insurrection or a rebellion. In domestic law rebels may be criminals in the eyes of the parent state, and answerable to its courts if their movement fails. (Kelly, Harbison and Belz, The American Constitution, Its Origins And Development, 1955, 6th ed. at pp. 306-07.)

I think it's clear that there is no civil war yet, by any accepted definition of the term. Can it happen? Perhaps, but there would need to be a lot more organization on the part of the al Qaeda and Baathists who are currently running the opposition. I think that's a long way off. Right now, it's just an ad hoc campaign of violence, much like a gang war, with no clearly articulated end other than to chase the US out.

Posted by: annika at 05:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 855 words, total size 6 kb.

. . . it's President Bush - 0, the base - 2

Posted by: annika at 01:52 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 26 words, total size 1 kb.