Archive for March, 2003
Safire’s attack on the French based on questionable data
After reading Safire’s first column, as a former producer with “60 Minutes,” my curiosity was piqued. I looked into his charges, and found they didn’t hold together. Interestingly, another American reporter also dug into the matter, and informed his desk that Safire’s case didn’t stand up.
TomPaine.com
What a surprise - Halliburton gets Army contract without bidding on it…
In case you missed it:
The US army said it gave the main Iraqi oil well firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co., a firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, without any bidding.
Yahoo news.
Why they Fight
One of the missing soldiers is 19 year old Jessica Lynch . She joined the army because there were “few jobs in her hometown.”
POW Joseph Hudson’s mother says he joined army not out of overwhelming patrioticism but hope for a “good future.”
The military has long advertised itself as an easy way out of [...]
Rule of Law
In this NY Review of Books article, Tony Judt trashes a bunch of “foreign policy pundits” who all think that they have some magic formula to describe the new state of the world. His only praise is reserved for a new book by Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, about whom I’ve blogged more than once.
… as [...]
Blogs in Iraq
Here is a good list of blogs in Iraq from Caterina.net:
- Dear Raed , a blog in Baghdad. (thanks Estee)
- Kevin Sites , a CNN correspondent in Iraq (Note: CNN seems to have shut him down…)
- Back to Iraq , and independent reporter in Northern Iraq
- Bloghdad , William Saletan’s blog on Slate
- Iraq Journal [...]
Who is sponsoring those pro-war rallies?
Clear Channel makes no secret of it:
Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation’s largest owner of radio stations (over 1200 stations in all 50 states and DC), sponsored the numerous “patriotic rallies” which were held in various cities around the country. They organized, advertised, provided speakers and entertainment for them, and even handed out numerous American [...]
More Brilliance from Krugman
The Onion describes itself as “America’s finest news source,” and it’s not an idle boast. On Jan. 18, 2001, the satirical weekly bore the headline “Bush: Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over,” followed by this mock quotation: “We must squander our nation’s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the [...]
The truly-up-to-date-online-internet-blog-fix for war watchers
The Washington Post has an article about where to get your truly-up-to-date-online-internet-blog-fix about the the war:
The Internet is brimming with so much Iraq war commentary that a crop of new directories has sprouted to help people sift through it all.
Among them are Warblogging ( www.warblogging.com ) and Warblogs:cc ( www.warblogs.cc ), group efforts to [...]
Powell should resign (or should have - a little late now)
This piece, from a week ago, is a little dated, but still worth reading. It describes several notable resignations, including this one:
Another resignation that made me proud was that of career diplomat John Brady Kiesling from the U.S. Embassy in Athens, which was recently made public.
His resignation letter is worth quoting:
“The policies [...]
Over a thousand protesters arrested in San Francisco… New Yorkers turn out in the rain…
From the BBC:
Police in San Francisco have arrested 1,025 people during violence at an anti-war demonstration.
Protesters blocked streets leading from the city’s Oakland Bay Bridge, while small groups of people clashed with police and threw debris.
Tens of thousands of people joined demonstrations across the US
I was in Times Square, protesting in the [...]
An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
