If even Christopher Ruddy and Ed Koch are heading for the exits, right behind Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, can the troops be far behind?
Quotations of Chairman Jonah (II)
Hey, what’s the moon in? The reason I ask is because I actually agree with something written by Jonah Goldberg!:
“[Woodrow] Wilson, by my lights, was the worst president of the 20th century and did more damage to that century than any other American statesman. Much of the damage he caused wasn’t deliberate, but a great deal of it stemmed from his idealism and his arrogance. He got us into an idiotic war for high-fallutin’ reasons and his incompetence in handling the aftermath created a parade of horribles we are still reviewing as it passes us by (He also laid the groundwork for the Welfare State, the National Security State, and the Corporatist State but that’s a topic for another time).”
What? A neocon opposing a war? I know I’m going to wake up soon, and realize it was all a dream …
How Goldberg reconciles his anti-Wilsonian sentiments with his support of our very own Wilson-in-cowboy-boots is not known to us in the reality-based community. But our scientists are working on it.
RE: Collective punishment
RE: Justin’s post Life in Sparta, referring to Dahr Jamail’s article on al-Dora. There is an album on Jamail’s website that illustrates the story. See here.
Breaking bones in Gaza
Ran HaCohen has one of his infrequent but always worth waiting for articles on the main page of Antiwar.com. Much discussion is ongoing as we watch the spectacle of Israel’s Sharon struggling to cope with the loss of his favorite scapegoat. (See peacepalestine here and the Head Heeb here.) Ran HaCohen:
So expect a large-scale operation in Gaza, soon. The immediate excuse — missile attacks on Israel — does not really matter: Abu Mazen, so the argument goes, does not stop the missiles, so we are forced to send the army to stop them; at the same time, the army itself admits it has no means to stop the missiles. So we are sending the army to do what it cannot do, because Abu Mazen does not do it either. After all, occupation is not about logic – it’s about breaking bones.
Crisis Pictures is keeping an updated album of the broken bones of Gaza. Scroll down to the second picture to see a photo of Mohammed Raban, a survivor of the Strawberry Field Flechette Massacre.
Quotations of Chairman Jonah
“Amid the media din about the tsunami, Dan Rather’s implosion, and the usual grim news from Iraq, an amazing story has been unfolding — but has received scant appreciation from the chattering classes. Democracy is on the march.”
— Jonah Goldberg, National Review, January 18, 2005
“A former Jordanian government minister has told The New Yorker that an American official confirmed to him that the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station last year.
“The claim is in an extensive profile of Dr. Allawi written for this week’s issue of the magazine by an American journalist, Jon Lee Anderson, the author of The Fall of Baghdad and a regular Baghdad correspondent for The New Yorker.
“Writing about his research in Jordan in December, Anderson says: ‘A well-known former government minister told me that an American official had confirmed that the killings took place, saying to him, ‘What a mess we’re in – we got rid of one son of a bitch only to get another one.’
“The New Yorker also revealed that Anderson was present during an interview conducted by the Herald‘s chief correspondent, Paul McGeough, in late June, with a man who said he witnessed the executions by Dr. Allawi.
“Dr Allawi denied the allegations when they were published in the Herald last July.
“Anderson writes: ‘The man … described how Allawi had been taken to seven suspects, who were made to stand against a wall in a courtyard of the police station, their faces covered. After being told of their alleged crimes by a police official, Allawi had asked for a pistol, and then shot each prisoner in the head. [One of the men survived.] Afterward, the witness said, Allawi had declared to those present, ‘This is how we must deal with the terrorists.’ The witness said he approved of Allawi’s act, adding that, in any case, the terrorists were better off dead, for they had been tortured for days.'”
— Sydney Morning Herald , January 18, 2005
Iraqi democracy, it seems, is marching backwards.