BuzzMachine

Ungrateful louses
: For the first time in years, Muslims in Iraq were able to go to Friday prayers in public.

And did their imams take just a moment to thank Allah, if not the U.S. for this new religious freedom and their escape from tyranny?

Not according to this report. Instead, they railed against both the U.S. occupation — and democracy.

That, of course, is because these religious dictators would like to take over.

Fartusi urged the faithful to follow the dictates of the Shiite “Hawza,” the council of senior clergymen, and spelled out a code of conduct including a ban on music, mandatory veils for women and the primacy of Islamic over tribal law.

The cleric at one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in the city of Karbala south-west of here was more explicit in denouncing the presence of US troops he called “unbelievers.”

It is time for us infidel Westerners — religious leaders and the leaders of the U.N., France, Germany, and all their fellow travelers — to demand democracy for Iraq, to make it clear that we cannot trade a secular dictatorship for a religious dictatorship.

North Korean defections
: The Australian reports that up to 20 high-ranking Korean officials and scientists — including the “father” of the North Korean nuclear program — have defected to the U.S. with the help of 11 countries, some nongovernmental organizations, and private citizens of South Korea.

Among those now believed to be in a safe house in the West is the father of North Korea’s nuclear program, Kyong Won-ha, who left his homeland late last year with the help of Spanish officials. Debriefings of Mr Kyong are said to have given intelligence officials an unprecedented insight into North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, particularly at the feared reactor number one in the southern city of Yongbyon.

The operation — dubbed Weasel — has been largely facilitated through non-government organisations and private citizens from South Korea, the US and its allies. It has deliberately been kept at arm’s length from any government.

Iraq defeated. Syria cooperating. North Korea compromised and weakening.

We’re getting there.

First antiquities, now animals
: I’m waiting for someone to scream that we should have guarded the zoo.

Meanwhile, in Germany
: A few updates from the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung:

: Germany and France stonewall the issue of forgiving Iraq’s debts — hiding, as has become their new habit, behind the U.N., as if they are not soverign nations capable of making their own damned humanitarian decisions.

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary of the United States, has asked Germany, France and Russia to forgive debt to Iraq totaling around EUR20 billion ($21.8 billion), of which it owes Germany EUR4 billion. But the German chancellery remained tight-lipped, saying only that the United Nations was in charge of forgiving debt.

:Meanwhile, Joschka Fischer, the German Green foreign minister who is apparently up for the new position of EU foreign minister, got into an diplomatic tussle with Wolfowitz:

[Wolfowitz] accused Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of twisting the contents of an exchange between the two men in Washington just days after the collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001.

Fischer told Der Spiegel magazine:

Caveat john
: German brothels may have to post price lists. I await similar EU regulation.

Irony of the ‘war for oil:’ fuel efficiency
: The military is taking a liking to hybrid engines that store energy as electricity to reduce fuel use. That’s an obvious need when you need to truck supplies up a 300-mile supply chain. The Army’s goal is a 75 percent increase in fuel efficiency. [via Die Zeit]

Baghdad Broadcasting Company
: I’ve been pushing for a Baghdad blog newspaper and for wi-fi’ing the country to get a free press jumpstarted in a nation that has not known freedom.

Now NZ Bear adds an good wish: a 24-hour news channel from Baghdad:

I know, I know, television is soooo old media — but teevee is where we’re losing the meme war to the Islamists and Arab nationalists who want to paint America as Evil Oppressor.

Note the approach: I don’t favor shutting down Al Jazeera. I do favor countering its messages with the perspective of an Arab people recently liberated by American military power. It is my hope their perspective will be a positive one towards the U.S. — but that’s up to them.

Agreed. It is time for media people to pitch in where possible.

A price on Saddam’s (other) head
: Somebody wants Saddam’s head — the metal one with the hole in it and all the footprints. [via Ken Sands]