Every year I vow to get back in shape via a diet/exercise program, and every year I make imperceptible headway due to the standard things: inconsistent schedule, crazy things happening at work, surprisingly low aerobic benefit from blogging, and…beer.
I really like beer. I don’t like wine or liquor or even high-alcohol ales. I only like beer.
says the headline of today’s online Newsweek article. You know, it may be useful for Iraqis and especially Baathists to hear things like that, but it doesn’t do anything for me. It’s enough for me that he’s been permanently removed from the political landscape so that the Iraqi people can close that chapter of their history.
And if I was walking to my execution, I’m pretty confident that any reporters would see fear on my face. And in my knees. And in the way I was shaking and vomiting. I think anything short of a hysterical breakdown is admirable.
Saddam never showed the least bit of remorse for any of his actions, and was a political force even during his trial. For those reasons I don’t regret his execution. But I feel no need to revel in it.
Nor to mock the dead.
…about their security. They just released the two Iranian operatives against the United States’ wishes.
Two senior Iranian operatives who were detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and were strongly suspected of planning attacks against American military forces and Iraqi targets were expelled to Iran on Friday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The decision to free the men was made by the Iraqi government and has angered U.S. military officials who say the operatives were seeking to foment instability here.
“These are really serious people,” said one U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They were the target of a very focused raid based on intelligence, and it would be hard for one to believe that their activities weren’t endorsed by the Iranian government. It’s a situation that is obviously troubling.”
I don’t believe that troop withdrawal is the right move, but the Dems may have a point in that the Iraqi government needs to take security much, much, more seriously. They’ve been awfully cavalier with outside agitators and internal sects.
The new Bush strategy won’t mean an awful lot as long as the Iraqi government is this uncooperative.
From the Washington Post:
Sen. Carl Levin’s first hearings as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee will question administration officials and outside experts about possible new strategies in Iraq — and not about possible mistakes in conduct of the war so far.
…
The aim, Levin said, is to look forward, not back.“This is a going-forward effort on Iraq,” Levin said. “That will be our main focus.”
Doesn’t sound too bad. The fact that he’s that far behind in getting up to speed on Iraq isn’t all that great, but at least he’s focused on the end game. Maybe. Only two weeks ago we heard this from the Washington Post:
As head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Levin, 72, will be his party’s point man on the Iraq war and on the Democrats’ call to begin withdrawing troops in the coming months.
I don’t like the foregone conclusion that withdrawing troops is the right move. I hope he’s a little more open-minded when he holds his hearings. Otherwise it would appear that he’s just going through the motions.
…and it seems like our liberal friends are, then I suggest we watch closely the reaction of Iraqis to the execution of Saddam Hussein. With the exception of the disenfranchised Baathists, it appears that this was a huge psychic relief for the Iraqi people. It will be interesting to see how reactions are reported over the next few days, to see how universal and enduring this sentiment really is.
This is a great idea:
Iraq’s foreign minister Friday urged Russian oil giant LUKoil to return to Iraq, the foreign ministry in Baghdad said.
Hoshyar Zibari told Russian Ambassador Vladmir Gamov that Iraq was very interested in having Russian oil companies return to aid in Iraq’s reconstruction, the Kuwait News Agency reported.
Get Russia involved in a constructive way, and the Iranian and Syrian games in Iraq will come to a halt. This could work out very well if LUKoil follow through.
…from the Army Corps of Engineers. And hey – it has good news! That stuff is so hard to find. Here’s the intro from the piece, which is saccharine (like most military human interest press releases), but is presumably factually correct:
“In one of Iraq’s most turbulent areas, we’re seeing signs that the situation is changing,” says Navy Commander James Lee.
…
“At one point the local tribal leaders and the population at large fought against us. But as they observed our continuing efforts to improve their communities, they’ve taken noticeable steps switching their alliance from sympathizing with the insurgents to helping us get the security situation under control,” Lee explained.“We’re working on schools, water and sewage treatment plants, hospitals and primary healthcare centers, electrical generation and distribution networks, waterway maintenance, roadways, police and fire stations and the local residents appreciate our efforts.”
It continues in a fashion which will undoubtedly produce a diabetic coma in the unprepared reader. But the message, dressed up as it is, is clear: all is not lost, even in the second most violent province in Iraq.
The FCC has made it illegal to jam wireless phone service, which has led to a black market of jammers as well as development of passive wireless blocking materials, so that churches, theaters, restaurants, and schools can suppress phone signals in their vicinity. I think the case for jamming and blocking is particularly strong for schools, as shown by this case of cheating in the chess world:
An Indian chess player has been banned for 10 years for cheating after he was caught using his mobile phone’s wireless device to win games, chess officials said on Wednesday.
…
Sharma was finally caught at a recent tournament when officials discovered that he had stitched a Bluetooth device in a cloth cap which he always pulled over his ears.He communicated to his accomplices outside the hall, who then used a computer to relay moves to him, Indian chess federation secretary D.V. Sundar said on Wednesday.
Kids are routinely texting their friends during class, degrading an already feeble learning experience. Now new tools for cheating are difficult to detect and in a couple of years will be impossible to detect. It is time to take back local control of the electromagnetic spectrum, and prevent undesired EM frequencies from disturbing our peace and undermining our teachers.
A Deadly Story We Keep Missing reads the headline of a hand-wringing article by Peter J. Woolley, a “professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion research group there.” The article is basically a call to arms to reduce the horrendous death toll due to automobile accidents.
After giving us a list of macabre numerical comparisons where he explains that 44,000 is a big number – a really, really, really big number – he finally gets to the point:
Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending guardrails and medians to every mile of busy highways. Speeding and aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously controlled. Trucks need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And cars need to be built slower and stronger.
And of course the eeeevil and complacent lawmakers and car manufacturers won’t do anything about this urgent problem. But wait – how urgent is it? Has there been a sudden surge in fatalities?
I promised MarkinNJ that I would dig up some good news from Iraq, since he was having a difficult time finding any. So let’s start with casualties among Iraqi civilians. Having heard that Iraq is a disaster by several liberal commenters, I ask you: what do you think the civilian casualty trends are in Iraq?
- Increasing?
- Leveling off near the peak?
- Leveling off at some other level (if so, where)?
- Dropping (if so, how much)?
Answer below the fold:
…like the Top Ten Deadliest Places to Dump, or Compos Mentis’s now-famous Reason #1 to abstain from fast food – your rebellious colon.
Following in that noble tradition, S. Weasel brings us Weasel fails toilet training — AGAIN, a contemplative look at the mysteries of foreign plumbing.
India continues to play coy in order to maximize its return:
India and Russia are planning to hold an unprecedented business summit in February next year to explore ways to boost bilateral trade to $10 billion in coming three years, Indian ambassador Kanwal Sibal has said here.
We, on the other hand, get strung along with vague promises from Russia:
The GWoT, which is really shorthand for the Global War Against Radical Islamic Terrorism and Expansionism, is just one of many important conflicts that define our world today. Here’s a little list of conflicts that *I* think are critical in understanding global politics and specifically our position in the Middle East:
