Smearing Scott Ritter

"Anybody who doesn't believe that Ritter was specifically targeted on account of his political activities needs to seek help: that sort of naivete can be terminal, and the patient probably shouldn't be trusted to cross the street unattended."

Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com has a great column about the smear campaign being conducted against ex-UN inspector Scott Ritter. I've read a few news reports about this story, and it really does seem more than a little odd that these supposedly sealed court records found their way into the hands of the press just as the antiwar movement (of which Ritter is a part) is gathering momentum.

Read the whole column here.

posted by Michael Curry at 10:26 PM

Comics

Especially worth seeing:

Boondocks

This Modern World [requires dealing with Salon's new ad thing to see for free]

posted by Michael Curry at 9:49 PM

More marching toward war

"United States officials have made clear that they are running out of patience with Iraq after an unexpectedly harsh report by the chief UN weapons inspector.

Iraq has complied with United Nations demands only reluctantly and may still possess biological weapons and rockets, chief inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council on Monday.

'Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament which was demanded of it,' he said.

...

However, unlike his colleague at the IAEA, Mr Blix did not specifically ask for more time to carry out inspections, saying he was aware there was a 'sense of urgency'."

In other words, because the U.S. is so anxious to attack Iraq, Mr. Blix didn't feel that it would be a good idea to ask for more time for the inspection process to actually be completed. Does this actually make sense to anyone?

It has, of course, just encouraged the Bush administration in its push to get the war against Iraq started as soon as possible. This despite the fact that in his upcoming State of the Union Address Bush still won't be telling the American people what evidence he supposedly has about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (apparently we're just supposed to trust him on it), and the fact that the stock market is already dropping before the war even starts, as investors finally realize that the war is going to do nothing but hurt the economy.

Read the BBC story here.

posted by Michael Curry at 9:48 PM