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Saturday, March 01, 2003
Turkey puts the brakes on again "Turkey's parliament has narrowly failed to approve the deployment of US troops on its territory for a possible war with neighbouring Iraq. MPs voted 264-250 in favour of the deployment, but the motion fell four votes short of the required majority of deputies present in the chamber." Maybe this will be a short-lived victory, as they apparently might vote again on the measure next week, but for now the U.S. war plans have definitely suffered a setback. It was good to see that the members of the Turkish parliament weren't quite as willing as their leaders to ignore the fact that 80% of their citizens oppose the war. Personally, I was entertained by the fact that FOX News was scrolling something about the measure having passed for some time, until it was explained to them that it had actually failed. Read more here.
The Virtual March "Backed by a number of celebrities, volunteers jammed switchboards in Washington DC in an effort to force US politicians to think again over the prospect of war in the Gulf. Organisers online democracy group MoveOn say more than 250,000 people signed up to take part in the protest and that many more joined in during Wednesday." It was an interesting idea, having hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to the war against Iraq try to contact their representatives to let them know. And, despite some technical glitches, it seemed to work out well. I doubt this is the last time we'll be seeing something like this. Read more here, and check out MoveOn's site here.
A timely quote "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." -- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials I think that one pretty much speaks for itself. [And yes, it is an authentic quote.]
Keep out "Bernadette Devlin McCaliskey, the world-renowned Irish civil rights leader was refused entry into the United States of Ashcroft. At Chicago's O'Hare, she was told that she presented a danger and wouldn't be permitted to step foot on American soil. She begged them to recheck their computer. She insisted there had to be a mistake. She told them she came in peace. They said that Tony Blair's British government had told them by fax a different story. They said she was a risk. Yes, this is the same Devlin who at 21 became the youngest MP elected to Parliament. Deported." Just another episode that makes you proud to be an American, isn't it? Apparently it is now acceptable to keep an increasingly long list of people out of the U.S. because of their political beliefs, or because some government we're friendly with doesn't like them. Just another episode that makes you proud to be an American, isn't it? As Tom Tomorrow said about this: Is this the America you want to live in? Maybe you don't care, because you figure you're a good, Read more about the story here.
False generalizations "The estimable Calpundit says 'My sense from reading the anti-war left is that they don't really take the danger of terrorism and unstable states seriously.' Not to be too cranky about it, but 'terrorism and unstable states' blew up a big chunk of my home town. Watching the ashes and personal debris of several thousand of your fellow citizens rain down on your neighborhood is not something you readily forget." So begins an excellent post by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, in which he has something of interest to say to all of those who think that everyone who is opposed to the way is some sort of pacifist who doesn't really understand that the world is a dangerous place. Read the whole thing here, and be sure to read the comments too.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Liar, liar "So it seems that Turkey wasn't really haggling about the price, it just wouldn't accept payment by check or credit card. In return for support of an Iraq invasion, Turkey wanted — and got — immediate aid, cash on the barrelhead, rather than mere assurances about future help. You'd almost think President Bush had a credibility problem. And he does." Paul Krugman has an excellent column in today's New York Times about the fact that many people around the world simply don't believe what Bush says anymore. You'd think that a life in politics would have taught the man when he could get away with lying and when he couldn't, but apparently he thinks that everyone else in the world is as stupid as he is. Read the whole column here [registration required].
Monday, February 24, 2003
Trouble among the allies It seems that as the time for war approaches, some of our Iraqi allies (meaning the opposition groups outside Iraq and the Kurds inside Iraq) have started to become wary about what the future holds. Apparently they don't trust us not to screw them over the way we did at the end of the last Gulf War. First, there's this BBC article about the opposition groups: "As the United States continues its efforts to seek a second UN resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq, the prospect of divisions between Washington and Iraqi opposition groups has emerged. A prominent Iraqi opposition group in exile has rejected any attempt to impose any form of foreign administration over Iraq, not even a transitional one, in a post-Saddam era." All of this talk about a U.S. military governor for Iraq doesn't sit too well with those groups which represent what passes for an opposition-in-exile, who were for some reason under the impression that after any war they'd be involved in a new democratic government. Now they're beginning to realize that the future may hold something very different. Then there's this article about the Kurds: "In the most blunt warning yet, senior officials of the two big Kurdish factions - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - have warned that if Turkish troops cross the border for any reason there will be trouble. The KDP and PUK have run affairs in an enclave in the north of Iraq since 1991. The KDP's peshmerga guerrillas control the border regions seen as a possible route for Turkish forces. KDP spokesman Hoshyar Zebari said: 'We will oppose any Turkish military intervention. This is our decision. 'Nobody should [think] we are bluffing on this issue. This is a very serious matter. Any intervention, under whatever pretext, will lead to clashes.'" The Kurds are upset because apparently any deal between the U.S. and Turkey to allow the basing of a U.S. invasion force in their country will include allowing the Turks to basically invade and hold northern Iraq. Given the way the Turks have treated the Kurds in the past, it's easy to understand why the Kurds aren't at all happy with this idea.
Boondocks on Homeland Security Aaron McGruder has had an excellent series of strips over the past week or so, which dealt with the recent attempts by the U.S. government to thoroughly scare everyone with the terrorist boogieman (and Saddam Hussein). Read them here, here, here, and here.
This is how we treat Canadians here "A Toronto woman coming home from India says she was pulled aside at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, accused of using a fake Canadian passport, denied consular assistance and threatened with jail. In tears and desperate, Berna Cruz says she told U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) officers she didn't want to go to jail. She told them she had to get home to her two children and was expected to be at work the next day at a branch of a major Toronto bank where she works as a loan officer. Instead of jailing her on Jan. 27, an INS officer cut the front page of Cruz's passport and filled each page with 'expedited removal' stamps, rendering it useless. She was photographed, fingerprinted, barred from re-entering the U.S. for five years and immediately 'removed.' Not to Toronto, but to India, where she had just spent several weeks visiting her parents. It took four days, and help from Canadian officials in Dubai and a Kuwaiti Airlines pilot, to get her back home." Sounds almost unbelievable, doesn't it? Now, normal procedure is apparently to send someone like this (meaning someone the INS believes has false papers) back to their departure point, but in this case not only were they wrong about her passport not being valid, but they only needed to give her one phone call so she could contact the nearest Canadian embassy and everything would have gone much more smoothly. Read the rest of the article here. Ms. Cruz actually ended up being fairly lucky when compared to Maher Arar, another Canadian citizen who was deported, this time to Syria. He's still there, and in prison, as he avoided compulsory military service back in Syria before moving to Canada when he was a teenager.
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