Our new friend… Iraq?
– Debka has some fascinating intelligence (or rumors or speculation) about Iraq:
1. Iraq forecasts a dangerous wave of radicalization being touched off in the Arab world by the capture of Taliban and al Qaeda leaders or the elimination of their operational capabilities. This wave could unseat Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordanís King Abdullah II. With this threat in store, Iraqi military intelligence advises Washington in its own interest to preserve the stability of Saddam Husseinís regime and abandon the preparations to depose him.
2. Saddam has secretly offered Yasser Arafat a safe haven in Baghdad with the entire PLO leadership and an unlimited number of security and intelligence personnel, plus the resources for continuing his political and military activities. This gesture, Iraqi military intelligence insists, is not hostile to the United States, but an escape plan to retrieve Arafat from the corner he has painted himself into.
3. Iraqi military intelligence chiefs are making every effort to dissuade Saddam from engaging the United States in a military confrontation which Iraq has no chance of winning. They warn him a U.S. attack would destroy Iraqís economic infrastructure and push the country 20 years back. They propose instead that they use their good offices in Moscow to discreetly arrange for international monitors to be allowed access to Iraqís arms industry, including missiles and other weapons of mass destruction…
– Meanwhile, our former CIA director tells the Jerusalem Post that Saddam has to be the next target.
15 bits of fame
– I can retire now. I’m in a blogwatch — the new one from Quasipundit.
100 days of flames
– The fire at the World Trade Center has been extinguished, 100 days after it was set.
Guardian unthink
– The Guardian tries to calculate meaningless math of war. They get an estimate of civilian deaths from U.S. bombing of more than 3,000 — and more than the current Sept. 11 toll — and thus imply that the scale tips our virtue into sin. Crap.
First, I don’t believe the math for one second.
Second, such exercises in arithmetic are downright offensive; one innocent death is one too many — and this started with 3,000 innocent deaths on Sept. 11. There is no scale on which ten souls weigh more than one.
Third, let’s look at what an amazing war this has been: a war fought and won in less than three months with, regrettably, a few thousand casualties but far fewer than there might have been if our bombs and bombing were not so accurate and if the war had dragged on. Compare this to the last two world wars! And this is a world war.
Fourth, shall we try to calculate the losses at the hands of the Taliban and bin Laden through stoning and starvation and execution? That is a figure we’ll never know. And now imagine how high that number would have grown if these despots had remained in power longer?
Fifth, I haven’t hard Afghans complaining about being rid of the Taliban. They are celebrating even as they mourn their terrible suffering over many years.
You have the right…
– The White House says John The Rat Traitor Superdoofus Walker does not have a right to a lawyer because he is a prisoner of war and has not yet been charged. Let’s just hope this doesn’t jeopardize the prosecution case when it comes to court.
