Antiwar.com Blog

A post from an Aussie to Americans.

“In a morning meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Bremer warned the Iraqi leaders that they risked isolating themselves and their country if they continued to snub the United Nations.”

NY Times

Poland’s president: “That [U.S. officials] deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that’s true. We were taken for a ride.”

And yet, this giant walking spleen goes on to dismiss any talk of withdrawing “his” country’s troops from Iraq, adding, “We cannot alter our mission to stabilize Iraq to one to destabilize the country” and “Passiveness will lead us nowhere.” Don’t dust off your Polack jokes yet, warbots, cos’ this guy is your kind of foreign leader: a fatalistic serf.

The anti-imperial Maccabees, that is. Thank goodness the Seleucids were made of sterner stuff than some modern-day Euroweenies we could mention.

(Please don’t send me any pro- or anti-Gibson screeds. I plan to remain one of the last dozen people in all Judeo-Christendom without their knickers in a twist about The Passion.)

WARSAW (AFP) – In a first sign of official criticism in Poland of the US-led invasion of Iraq, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said that his country had been “taken for a ride” about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in the strife-torn country.

“That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that’s true. We were taken for a ride,” Kwasniewski said Thursday.

“The war may have been a mistake. Perhaps there were ways it could have been avoided,” said European Affairs Minister Rocco Buttiglione in an interview published Thursday by the daily newspaper Il Messaggero.

“What is certain is that it wasn’t the best thing to do,” he added.

“Terrorism cannot be defeated only by the force of arms, and if we give the impression that weapons play the dominant role, we will only stir up nationalist feelings among the Arabs against us,” he added.

The statement, the first apparent crack in the unity of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Iraq, came two days before the first anniversary of the US-led invasion, which Berlusconi has strongly backed.

And, of course, there’s Zapatero. Dump Bush.

In addition to spinning the organized Albanian pogrom of Serbs as “ethnic clashes,” newspapers and wire services include in their reports a claim that Albanians rose up after three Albanian boys drowned in the Ibar river “because Serbs chased them with dogs.”
The story appeared in Albanian newspaper Wednesday, just as the pogrom began, but UNMIK officials – in the past all too eager to accept Albanian ‘grievances’ – this time issued a clear denial. Two boys did drown, and one is still missing, but there is no indication whatsoever that Serbs or dogs played any role in their death.
According to my sources, UNMIK”s denunciation of this accusation as false has been public knowledge since around 1700 local time Wednesday. So far, none of the agency or newspaper reports have quoted it, though all mention the Albanian allegation.
But if, as many UNMIK officials say, this pogrom is obviously organized and premeditated, then the “drowning story” is just a deliberate piece of inflammatory propaganda, aimed to both incite the mob and create a justification for outside observers. Encountering fertile minds in both instances, it seems to have succeeded splendidly.