June 17, 2003

No dominoes yet

I was wondering what had happened to the "Democracy dominoes" theory. That was the one in which the liberation of Iraq was going to cause dictatorial states all over the Muslim world to throw off their blinders and adopt Western values. Even before the war, the State Department thought it was unlikely to happen. This notion hasn't died yet, though. Richard Perle, one of the so-called neoconservatives who helped form current U.S. foreign policy, now says not to expect dominoes everywhere, but that there could be changes for the better not only in Iran, where students have been demonstrating against the clerics who have ultimate say in the government, but possibly in Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well. We've got to wonder, though. We can't even get our friends over there to buy our airplanes. Instead they're buying them from the French, and you know what they thought of the war.

Posted by tbrown at 03:55 PM

Oh, no, Mr. Bill!

The ever clueless but never in doubt Bill O'Reilly, the erstwhile man of the people of the "fair and balanced" Fox network, has really blown it this time. He's attacking bloggers because someone had the gall to criticize him! His main complaint seems to be that on the Internet people can write whatever they want. Imagine! I thought that's what the First Amendment was all about, but maybe he hasn't read it. In any case, Glenn Reynolds has the story and is appropriately merciless.

Posted by tbrown at 11:59 AM

Remember the “semis of mass destruction?”

Those were the “mobile weapons labs” that the administration claimed Iraq had rolling around the countryside ready to brew anthrax, VX or something else nasty in a matter of moments. Their seizure moved President Bush to say on May 30, "For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." The CIA hastily posted an unclassified report on its web site complete with drawings of the trailers – and the two additional types of trailers, so far undiscovered, that each of the supposed WMD labs would need to function. Well, there never were any weapons found and now, it appears, you can forget about the two trailers being weapons labs as well. British experts who examined the trailers said they were for the production of hydrogen for ballons that are used to determine the accuracy of practice artillery fire – just as the Iraqis had insisted. And that’s not all: the trailers were sold, quite legally, to Iraq by a British company back in the 1980’s when Saddam Hussein was our S.O.B. for fighting the Iranians. Further, similar vehicles are made and sold in the U.S. Billmon’s Whiskey Bar blog site, has assembled administration pronouncements on the trailers chronologically. There is said to be a third vehicle, a small truck of some type that may have been associated with the supposed WMD labs. And the Aussie prime minister, John Howard, under questioning in Parliament, said U.S. and British intelligence had concluded that the vehicle had a role in weapons production. But then that’s what they were saying earlier about the trailers, too. Stay tuned

Posted by tbrown at 11:36 AM