Month: February 2005

After a year-end holiday slump, Antiwar.com is back on Alexa/Amazon’s Top 50 News Site list.

Combining reach and rank, Antiwar.com ranks #37 among the Top 50 News Sites on the Web. We are just behind Los Angeles Times, CBS News, and the Chicago Tribune, and just ahead of USA Today, Time Magazine, and Newsday.

There’s much speculation going on about the selection of the Prime Minister of the Shiite and Kurdish National Assembly. A couple of items to remember.

Parties have three days after election ballots are released to challenge the results. Al Jazeera reports today that the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission has received six complaints from political groups challenging the results of the January 30th elections.

Even before the results were announced, the commission had received some 359 complaints from inside and outside Iraq; not only from political groups but also from tribal congregations and citizens who weren’t able to vote.

There have been serious allegations of voting irregularities especially around the northern city of Mosul, further complicating the count. Some leading Sunni Arab and Christian politicians have stated that thousands of their supporters were denied the right to vote.

Considering that it took them two weeks to count the ballots in the first place, there’s no telling how long it will take to sort through all the challenges.

Adel al-Lami, an official with the electoral commission said, “We received six complaints until now, but there are other complaints sent by e-mail and we haven’t retrieved them yet.”

That email retrieval is hard work!

Second, the rule about how a Prime Minister is to be chosen:

When the votes are counted, the Iraqi people will have elected a 275-member Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will:

• Serve as Iraq’s national legislature.
• Name a Presidency Council, consisting of a President and two Vice Presidents. (By unanimous agreement, the Presidency Council will appoint a Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, cabinet ministers.)
• Draft Iraq’s new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people for their approval in a national referendum in October 2005. Under the new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government in December 2005.

So, whoever ends up on the “Presidency Council” must be elected by the Assembly. That means there must be an Assembly before there is a PM and although we all know there will be jockeying and horse trading behind the scenes the Assembly still has to vote for three people who will unanimously choose a PM.

At this point, we don’t even know the names of the candidates who were elected and we don’t know how the challenges to the balloting will be settled, so although it might be amusing to speculate on the identity of the Prime Minister candidates, choosing that person is the last step of a very ambiguous and complicated process.

In Backtalk:

Monica Benderman announces the establishment of the Kevin Benderman Defense Committee’s Web site: BendermanDefense.org.

John Mayew suggests that we write to our elected representatives in support of Sibel Edmonds, while T. Tunney says that letter-writing is futile.

Kent Johnson: Bush is the American Robespierre.

Don Bacon, of the Smedley Butler Society, thinks Bush doesn’t care who runs Iraq – it’s all about war-profiteering and controlling the oil. “Scheherazade” agrees that oil is a motivator but suggests that the U.S. has intentionally empowered Iraq’s Shias as a counterweight to the Saudi Wahhabi Sunnis.

Mohamed Shukri defends Islam’s treatment of women.

And more…

Bill Maher sure is popular. I have never gotten so much mail about anything as I got about this. The typical message went along these lines; A) I don’t have a sense of humour, so B) I am unable to appreciate the subtle irony of Maher’s remarks, therefore C) I should shut up, even though D) virtually none of us actually watched the show. Well, it doesn’t work, because I got two messages from people who did watch it, and agree with my interpretation of Maher’s remarks. He was not being ironic or satirical (two of the most common adjectives used in the emails). Far from it, Maher’s remarks were intended as serious commentary and accurately reflect his views.
Further, CNN has made available a transcript of the event, and I can therefore confirm the accuracy of my quotes.

“But Iraq, we attacked because we could. That’s what the historians will write eventually. They’ll write, why Iraq? No weapons. They didn’t attack us on 9/11. We could. We needed to do make a statement to the Arab world and I don’t think it’s the worst idea in the world to make that statement which was, you know what? You attack our country like you did on 9/11, I’m not only going to kick the asses of the people who did it, I’m going to kick your cousins ass too. They had nothing to do with it, that’s just how ticked off we are. There’s something to be said for that method of diplomacy.

But Iran, that’s a different story. That’s a big country. I know a lot of Iranian people. They’re not Iraqis. They’re not backwater people.“

And this exchange which I also reported, concerning North Korea and Africa. At first, Maher sorrowfully rules out the possibility of intervening in North Korea, but then urges Bush to consider it anyway; Continue reading “More on Maher”

I had no idea the war was going this badly. The Editors take us right into the bloody trenches of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders with this action-packed report from the home front:

BLOGOSPHERE (Reuters) – Declining rates of reenlistment among right-wing pundits is forcing units on the home front in the War on Terror to operate at partial strength, limiting their effectiveness, say media sources. Factors such as long tours of duty, fierce and costly battles against a ruthless and evil enemy, and carpal tunnel syndrome have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the conservative punditry, and many pundits are opting not to enlist for second or third tours. There are rumors that a draft may be necessary to ensure that cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere have sufficient manpower to defeat the terrorists and their liberal allies.
[…]
Some pundits, however, continue to serve their cause, no matter the cost. We caught up with the unit of PFC Jonah Goldberg during a pitched battle against some objectively pro-Saddam Bush-haters. Goldberg shouted over the sound of mouse clicks and key strokes exploding all around.
[…]
“It’s like this,” said Goldberg said, grabbing a fistful of Cheetos from his pack. “I believed in this fight, and my country needed me. They needed able-bodied men – doughy, able to handle the rigors of sitting in a swivel chair for seven, eight hours at a time, and not afraid to put on a little TV make-up when the shit gets heavy. So I signed up.” He spit Cheetos-orange on the carpet. “Any man who won’t opinionate for his country and what he believes … well, I don’t call that a man at all.” At that he pulled up the sleeve on his regulation-issue Tommy Hilfiger powder-blue dress shirt to show me the tattoo on his meaty, girlish bicep. ‘Born to Bloviate’, it read, emblazoned on the bulging tummy of the Pillsbury Doughboy – the symbol of the feared 101st Fighting Keyboarders.

The enemy had brought in a few independent studies to fortify their position. Goldberg called for reinforcements, and emails supporting his stand began pouring in. As quickly as they arrived, Goldberg posted them to his weblog on the front. The action was getting furious, and, without looking, Goldberg opened an email from an unknown address. On the monitor was the image of a single white feather. Goldberg fell back in his office chair, and hit the ground and began moaning, softly and piteously.

“Medic!” shouted Derbyshire…….

“Heh. Indeed,” remarked Reynolds, Grand Field Marshall of All Blogospheric Forces. “Read the whole thing.”

On Larry King’s mostly unwatchable show, I just caught the thoroughly disgusting Bill Maher say something pretty close to this; “You know, attacking Iraq wasn’t such a bad idea; we attacked them because we could. They had no weapons and we could do it. You know, it was a statement to the entire Arab world. We said that you attacked us on 9/11, and now we’re going to attack you, and your cousins, who had nothing to do with it. Mess with us, and we’ll kick your a$$, and your cousin’s a$$.”
Maher also suggested that attacking North Korea and (I guess) the entire continent of Africa, for humanitarian reasons of course, would also be a good idea.
If this greasy bastard loves war so much, why doesn’t he give up his hedonistic lifestyle, take up arms, and join the mayhem?
King inexplicably said absolutely nothing to all of this. And I’m sure none of Maher’s colleagues or friends, media critics or certainly any of his fans, will come along and say that there’s something funny about this. Except in radical quarters like this, reactionary hyperboli of this sort nearly always passes by without comment. Is there going to be any mention in the mainstream press? I doubt it. Maher sounds like Julius Streicher, and this stuff is right out of Der Stürmer, but I guess few care.