can anyone say OMG here we go....WW111....this will get out of hand.

Great job still, keep reporting.

uhm...

wow?

that's about all i can muster from that news. i will state again that i believe we are way in over our heads at this point.

wow

What is the scoop on this Hakim? Background? Motivation?
Agree with you, this does not sound promising.
Thank you very much for your efforts - living in the stolidly neutral country of Sweden, this page is a lifeline.

Raed seems to be trying to update, just now: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

Also, here's a poignant political cartoon:
http://www.nypress.com/16/13/comics/Lay.cfm

I'm looking at the CBS live baghdad feed right now. The power is on, looks like visiblity is down though 'cause of rain.

rain. I say rain as I can see, in the road, the reflection of the lights of passing cars.

All day the roads have been sand colored due to the blowing sand. And now I can see reflections in the road. must be rain.

So the Shiites in Iran will try to connect with the Shiites in Iraq, trying to take over Baghdad after we oust Saddam. The Sunni Moslems will see this as a direct attack on them. At the same time, the Turks and the Kurds will be fighting over Northern Iraq. Yep, Rummy was right--everyone will just bow down to the US and we'll be out in three weeks, tops. Sheesh.

The news from Iran is bad. If the Shiites do not want us in Iraq then we have a real problem, as these are the people that we are supposedly going to be greeted by most joyfully. When you add the news from Iraqi Kurdistan, things are not good for the US and the people that we claim to be fighting for.

But, I wonder how much of the guy in the Wash Times was actually from the government in Tehran, who has a big reason to want the US out of the region before we begin to march that way.

I read this as "please leave as soon as possible. After you have overthrown Saddam, of course."

from Geo. Bush Sr. in 1998:
"We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero . . .assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely
entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."

- George Bush Sr, in his 1998 book A World Transformed

One problem-- turned out it was the country that was broken, not the dictator. Still, Bush the First sounds pretty prescient right now.

The opposition is saying "liberate Iraq, don't occupy it." I can live with that...we've done a good job letting the locals take control in Afghanistan...I'm sure we'll do the same in Iraq.

From the comments in the previous Flash.

The problem with using Iraq as a springboard for a stable Iraq is that you have to make sure that you can guarantee that stability.

Sean-Paul.. right now you've got 6 hours of news per page load. You could easily cut that in half.. I only need to see the top page or 2, put the rest in archive.

Or is it possible to load ONLY the most recent stuff, perhaps on a different view? Let us help cut down your bandwidth.

This is from an Agonist-Junkie perspective though.

yup its rain

the forcast for baghdad:

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/IZXX0008_c.html?force_units=1

Too bad they didn't "find it convenient" to leave their houses and overthrow Saddam a few weeks ago. So if they were afraid to topple Saddam, then why are they so brave to fight against the people who will defeat Saddam?

of all the images of destruction and death that i've seen this war cause, i think this image from CNN hits me the hardest:

Elizabeth Heathman, 4, clutches a picture of her father, Sgt. Kelly Heathman, during a rally in Liberal, Kansas. Her father is attached to the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

So a government of longstanding enmity with the US would like us to set up a new Iraqi government and then leave. Gosh. That's not so far from our own plans anyway. Relax my friend, the sky is not falling.

Not sure that this is as dire as it seems...In the end I think both the US and UK know the only way a post-war Iraq is going to work is with the help of the UN.

I don't think the Shiites would be opposed to UN help.

Bush hopefully will realize this, and Iraq will be in Iragi hands withing 2-3 months after the war.

As far as the Iranians are concerned, again, the article is not leaning toward WWIII at all, it seems that the Iranians want to have a relationship with the US, which is why that have remained pretty quiet throughout the conflict (thus far).

The key phrase from the Iranian/Shia/Opposition piece in the Washington Times is:

"Foreign troops must exit Iraq at the earliest,"

"Earliest" is diplo-speak for "sometime in the future - we just want to make sure you dont forget about us"

Regarding Iran:

Students for Democracy

Things may get interesting

In case anyone has the need to translate some Russian text into whatever necessary language (namely English), here is an excellent multilingual translator.

I've used it many times to translate Russian text, and it works 95 percent of the time (5 percent belonging to language barriers and Russians lacking grammar skills).

PROMT-Reverso Online Translator.

Hmm...this guy, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, must have some French blood running through his veins.

Re RSS feeds: I get my info on updates via the RSS feed.

Special Iraq-themed issue of the Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/

Could it be that the propaganda machine, Washington Times being the source, after all, is beginning to set the stage for an eventual campaign against Iran?

i think it's clear, jayson, at this point...they are blowing smoke up the wrong ass.

nope, no rss feed

Basra rebellion 'in its infancy'

I just set up the livejournal Agonist RSS feed today. I wouldn't mind if you did it that way, although I guess it might mess with comments.

Mohammad-Baqer Hakim sounds like the Rev. Al Sharpton of the oppressed people of Iraq.

ooo Chris...thats a good one...after Iraq, a couple of well placed nudges should help topple the ayatollahs...ofcourse thats what we thought about Iraq 5 days agao hehe

I would USS as RSS reader IF you posted each update as a seperate story.

Maybe you could revert to publishing a story every 10 minutes with a number of updates... that may incourage people to not reload your page every few minutes and instead know that there would be an update every 10 - 15 minutes.

I wouldn't get too concerned about this guy -- the Iraqi opposition doesn't speak for all that many people, and I've heard and seen several interviews with 'regular Iraqis' indicating their contempt for those guys.

Consider it on a par with the US Libertarians -- there might be one in a big party you go to, but he does more talking than acting and nobody ultimately pays all that much attention.

Will we ever learn the lesson that war does not bring peace? Violence, aggression, hatred and war will only bring more of the same, and I'm afraid that this will become only too obvious in the coming months. I'm deffinately worried.

Post as single items?:

Single post would be better. What kills MT right now is the HUGE amount of comments going on here (which are not mirrored BTW). The .pl script works overtime updating the comment page and sending 100+ comments every time is tough. With smaller comment pages, I'm sure you would save some bandwidth use.

RSS feeds: Blogs Of War has an RSS feed that provides separate articles for each day. I find your scheme a little more useful, so I guess I'd vote for a three- or four-hour feed with times (like "Flash LV: 0800-1200 GMT 3/24" or something) that lets me quickly see what's new. With properly written aggregators, your load will go *down* because the aggro doesn't have to download articles that have previously been read.

That reminds me, I'll be seeing Al Sharpton this Thursday when he comes to my university for an ego poof. Since he's such a jerk and still doubts the existance of Iraqi weapons of M.D., has anyone any suggestions of what I could ask him in hopes of putting him in his place?

pardon the ignorace, but what the hell is an rss feed?

i would be willing to change over to whatever the hell that is, provided i have the ability to do so, if it would help.

details please??

How about reducing bandwidth by only placing the last two flashes on the front page. Or maybe the last hour's flashes if you make each entry a separate story.

Re: RSS. Yes, I would but you need to put a seperate updatre for each story.

Re: Iraqi Opposition?
No, it sounds like the "opposition" is mostly the Shitesdown south. If we come through and help them in the uprising, we will not have to worry about it.

Re: RSS feeds. I just got a feed reader and I would use it if each item was posted separately. Cutting down on the number of old items would also make sense.

Civil War brought us 150 years of peace and freed millions.

WWII brought 50 years of continuing peace to 20 centuries of Euro-warfare.

War doesnt bring peace, Victory brings peace. Half victories (WWI, Gulf War I) bring more war.

Jayson-

It could be that these are the same Shiites who rose against Saddam during the last Gulf War and were hung out to dry by Papa Bush. The admin theory that they would welcome us with open arms is based in part on the brutal suppression of that revolt by Saddam.

Jayson-

It could be that these are the same Shiites who rose against Saddam during the last Gulf War and were hung out to dry by Papa Bush. The admin theory that they would welcome us with open arms is based in part on the brutal suppression of that revolt by Saddam.

I am patently repelled by your logic, Partisan. It's Orwellian beyond belief...accidentially.

Any word on the CIA email you received? I may have missed this discussion over the past few days but I thought you mentioned receiving some sort of email you were hoping to share.

and if you haven't heard yet, GREAT JOB!

My comments re: RSS feed.

1) The idea is good, but with the individual entries to the blog so short, I worry that too much space will be takeup by headers and footers, reducing information density.

2) I don't have an RSS reader, so it wouldn't help me at all.

3) The comments sections for the flash are general purpose -- making smaller updates would spread these out over more comments and people would miss more comments than they do now.

Partisan:
Why do you take this clown at face value? The Iranian government can observe as well as anyone else the destructive power we have in Iraq- I don't see them picking a serious fight with us.

Does anyone have a link (or a list) of the major Coalition and Iraqi military units now fighting?

I think this information is public enough by now: it's certainly being bandied about, but in a piecemeal fashion. It would be helpful to see it in all in one spot.

Shah8: Perhaps if you dispute Partisan's points with actual facts, as opposed to feelings, it might help.

Peace can exist under a dictator; it can exist under freedom. Which do you think is better?

I agree that 2-3 hours of news would be fine... might also be worth changing "The Agonist" top banner to a lower resolution version....looks to be about 30KB...maybe we can reconfigure to a single square in the upper left corner....happy to send some options if it helps.

BTW...using the RSS feed but still going to the mirrors to get the whole scoop.

what is an RSS feed....

sorry, i am simple

sha8,

Let me soothe your sensibilities.

Since the American Revolution, we have witnessed a type of warfare unkown in the history of mankind: Wars of Liberation. The Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, WWII, and to some extent, the Cold War, were all Wars of Liberation, as is Gulf War II. Wars of Liberation, carried through to the benefit of the defeated (who are the antagonist) breed lasting peace and prospertity to all involved.

Is there any possibility of getting a separate feed for news and comments? This way, as the new items come in, they could scroll the old down the screen. I think part of the problem right now is the need to refresh the page every few minutes, downloading tons of already read material to get to the new stuff. Any ideas?

To reduce bandwidth: get rid of (for now) your top graphics. Go text only. Get rid of all the side bar stuff. Just show the last 2 hours of updates. Maybe you need seperate pages for the warblog and your main home page. Make your warblog just text entries and some contact
information, and links to comments.

Rob

All the RSS-approach will do is exclude 99% of potential readers. A better bandwidth solution would be to shut down the comments-feature here and restart it at some second website.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6190058%255E1702,00.html

Finally, get the ball rolling. Put something on the table instead of "Waiting for Godot".
(Militarily, the US and even the Brits are calling for back-up; that's part and parcel of the idea that we have the best equipped forces and nobody can defeat us.) Like I said earlier,
what if Baghdad is irrelevant? The uprising in Basra could be proving that.

There was a profile of Hakim in the New Yorker, Feb. 10, 2003. I've copied a bit:

Hakim went into exile in Iran in 1980, a year after Saddam hussein became President of Iraq and Khomeini returned triumphantly to Iran as the country's supreme leader...Several of his students founded Al Dawa, a party dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq and opposed to the rising Baath and Communist parties...In 1969, Hakim's father issued a fatwa against membership in the Baath Party. The founder Hakim was imprisoned and tortured for Islamic activity. In the nineteen-eighties after he fled to Iran, he organized a militia made up of other Iraqi exiles and Army deserters and sent them to fight on the side of the iranians in the war against Iraq...Hakim's followers have been waging a low-level war of ambushes, sabotage, and assassinations against Saddam Hussein's regime for twenty years.

Hakim also is the leader of the Badr Brigades, a militia that hopes to overthrow Saddam and establish an Islamic state in Iraq. This latest speech is disturbing. The New Yorker article detailed that Hakim had been in communication with the Administration about a post-war role. Perhaps the Administration decided against supporting Hakim's aspirations.

Partisan - Indeed, it would be very clever for the propagandists to somehow associate Iran w/ Iraq, emotionally, to gain popular support for the eventual campaign against Iran. If they haven't yet thought of it, rest assured they will.

All the RSS-approach will do is exclude 99% of potential readers. A better bandwidth solution would be to shut down the comments-feature here and restart it at some second website.

Statements by the Iran-based Shiite exile group don't mean too much. Also, this statement is consistent with what they have said all along.

Not a big deal, mostly talk from people on the sidelines.

Please post any worthwhile updates on the rumored Basra uprising.

Separating entries would make it tough to follow all the comments. That's the only reservation I see, but it may be significant.

Basra uprising apparently started by:

Majid Khoei, son of legendary Iraqi Ayatollah at head of 3,000-man US-backed Shiite militia is leading Basra unrest to stir up Shiite anti-Saddam uprising

How about reducing bandwidth by only placing the last two flashes on the front page. Or maybe the last hour's flashes if you make each entry a separate story.

I'm not sure you can do that with Movable Type (the content management system Sean Paul uses...). The index page is set up to display posts published in the last n number of days where n > 0...

More on Hakim and the Badr Brigades can be found here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0306/p07s01-woiq.html

The Badr Brigades seem to make the Kurds especially nervous. From the article:

No one in northern Iraq is welcoming Hakim's men with any discernible warmth. "We hate Arabs sent by Iran to come in and learn information about our Kurdistan," says Mahmoud Amin, spokesman for the Kurdistan Social Democratic Party in Darbandikhan, a Kurdish town near the Kani Chinara camp. He says the presence of the soldiers reflects Iran's aim to "occupy" Kurdish areas. "We accept them on the condition they do not betray us."

Again, not good.

Heh...The UN is calling for "talks". By the time they issue a "Joint Declaration" calling for even more "talks", Iraq will be free!

DONATE!

rob is right.

it's your form and the reloading. keep it simple and short bursts. you've got to significantly downscale your graphics on the home page.

you're mixing apples and oranges...have a website...and have a blog...not both.

If we get the WMDs and Saddam out of Iraq, I think other more sane ME govt's will begin to exert their influence over both Iraq and Iran.

In addition, y the time this war is over many Iraqi civilians will have encountered our young people. They are fine ambassadors. Also there are thousands of Iraqi ex-pats around the globe who will be anxious to return, not just those so vocal, seemingly influential folks here in the US, but little people too - They will take home with them a different perspective on who we are (and not just the Bush administration) and how what we have done can jumpstart the rejuvenation of their country. Hopefully, they can be a moderating influence when the infighting begins - Squandering a golden opportunity to start over would be tragic.

And isn't it fine if all they want is our aid and expertise?

I have to think positive. I have grandchildren.

Troops set to enter Basra after Revolt

Thanks for this relentless updating, great to have a summary page lined up since I've been out for the last five hours. And a big shout out to everyone who kept the news coming in the comments late last night.

Thanks for this relentless updating, great to have a summary page lined up since I've been out for the last five hours. And a big shout out to everyone who kept the news coming in the comments late last night.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary is a way to "syndicate" a website so that headlines or changes can be published. With an RSS reader you can "subscribe" to an RSS feed and monitor changes on the related website. See http://www.ourpla.net/cgi-bin/pikie.cgi?RssReaders for a list of readers.

Separate posts for each entry would be good.

yes! please, RSS compatible posts, it would be great

I'm on the RSS/Mirror bandwagon, but i have to agree with Jorn...it'll just cut out a majority of your readership [not 99%, but a good number]...

*wonders how grave the bandwidth issue is*

thinking about taking a break from war news for a while...this blog included.
i get more and more angry every second that this war is allowed to go on. that isn't very healthy concidering i have had pneumonia for the past week.

yeah...a much needed break from reality is due.
perhaps tomorrow i can come back and see that the war is over....high hopes, i know...but stranger things have happened (such as the war being allowed to happen in the first place).

US don't want the shi'ites anywhere near it, US preferred group is the INC, leader Ahmed al-Chalabi, who 'recently told the Washington Post that he favoured the creation of a US-led consortium to develop Iraqi oil fields. “American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil,” he declared.' Chalabi will not, however, be popular with Iraq's neighbours, Jordan, where he has been sentenced to 34 years hard labour for fraud and embezzlement. dontcha just love politics?

Quote from article about Basra uprising:

"Dozens of buildings were ablaze after thousands of people went on the rampage in the sector of the city dominated by the irregular Fedayeen, Greg Swift of the Daily Express reported."

The Civil War and WWII were not wars of liberation. The civil war was fought to preserve the union. Lincoln was willing to allow slavery to continue in order to preserve the peace. WW2 was fought to keep Hitler from taking over the world. In the process we liberated some countries that he over-run but we fought to preserve the liberal democratic system. Same for the Cold War.

Great site! Keep up the good work Sean-Paul!

Looks to me like the Agonist is already going "seriously mainstream":
http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/25/markets/newsaddicts/

(apologies if this was posted already)

Thanks to whomever for the Robert Fisk interview link earlier. Fascinating!

"pardon the ignorace, but what the hell is an rss feed?

i would be willing to change over to whatever the hell that is, provided i have the ability to do so, if it would help.

details please??"

An RSS feed is standard based on XML.

Basically it's a light-weight document which programs and other websites can read easily by referencing specifications about how the document is constructed.

I've built RSS readers/generators for web use, but I've never looked into a program which retrieves RSS feeds from your own PC.

I hear, however, that Trillian has an RSS reader. Trillian is a program that connects to ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC. So if you already use trillian for your instant messaging needs, you might play around with Trillian's options and see if you can get agonist's RSS feed.

And I say accidential because I don't believe you know dick and I believe you are reviewing history in rose-tinted glasses, glasses that form the fundamental basis for how George Winston can believe War is Peace.

We have had wars of liberations for all of our human history. I wonder what Joan of Arc might say, or Saladin, or Spartacus, or Cleopatra, or any number of people who fought for a self-determination. In the vast majority of cases, liberatory wars are usually not the end of it. It feeds to wars of successions. The Civil War is an extension of the complications inherent in the constitution. You say WWII, but you never mention WWI as a war to maintain the independence of the low countries...Led to WWII. Likewise you never mention that once WWII was over, the Chinese Civil War started a few years after, and the Korean War. The peasants of France revolted against the nobility in the French Revolution, which was a class war of independence...and directly lead to The Terror and dictatorship.

Above all, you regard Victory in War as an ultimate benefit, when it is really Mutual Victory in Diplomacy that wins. War has a place in human society. But those that would unsheath the sword had better understand the consequences. You don't.

'Dat enough evidence, shawn?

Under Bush's preemptive strike doctrine, do the North Koreans now have the moral right to attack us? Or does that doctrine only apply to Dubya & Co?

Seems like the news is sort of slow right now. I'd like to throw this idea out for comment because it goes to the heart of what I feel are the two main points of view being expressed here. I blame much of our confusion about our force doctrine on the fact that we never had a public examination and then concenses on what went wrong in Viet Nam. Nixon robbed us of that debate and resolution. The question is why did we lose in Viet Nam? There are two primary schools of thought here. One would have it that it was because the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong tapped into the nationalist sentiments of the people of the country. And once that happened, perhaps even before we became involved, the result was inevitable. No outside force will ever be capable of controling a population that is dedicated to its own self determination. The other camp holds that the reason we didn't win in Vietnam is because we didn't apply the proper amount of force for political considerations.

This is why for some of us, whether or not we have the support of the native population is te issue that determines this conflict's relevance to Vietnam. Not the amount of time it has taken or the casualties involved. Of course that is why some folks get upset by the mention of comparisons to Viet Nam.

Partisan-
I understand that this is being billed as a war for liberation, but it is unclear to me that it fits the same model of, say, WW2. The Iranian Revolution of the seventies was also a war for liberation, very close to this country and for similar reasons, and I'm not sure that one could characterize the result as peace. This seems to me to be the main problem with the 'we are liberating Iraq' model.

Saddam urges troops in Basra to fight

Apparently he hasn't heard of the revolution there

The idea that Iran has a high degree of influence over Iraqi Shi'ites tends to be overblown. Yes, they are of the same religion. They are two separate ethnic groups with two vastly different histories. In most I have read, Shi'ites in Southern Iraq overwhelmingly identify themselves as Iraqi citizens. Remember, Iraqi Shi'ites did fight in the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War.

I wish the Basra citizens luck in ridding themselves of Saddam's influence. British, American, Australian, and other coaltion members' assistance will be the deciding factor. Finally.

INCIRLIK -- CBC Newsworld reports that this US base in Turkey has seen US F16 and UK Tornados landing. Saša Petricic, CBC's reporter on the scene, says that transport planes (plural) unloaded wounded servicemen there.

He also reports that US equipment that was loaded on ships is now being unloaded. Petricic links these recent developments to the fact that the supplemental spending bill introduced today in the US Congress has included aid to Turkey.

The Israelis have some experience with Shi'ite tolerance for extended occupation. It was largely the Shi'ites that gave them the boot on the way out of Lebanon. And you might recall our own experience with the Marine barracks in Beirut...Both the Israeli and the US troops were initially welcomed by the Shi'ite population... one day it's flowers and rice, the next a car bomb

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EA18Ak02.html

We'd be well served to take Hakim at his word. I've been against this thing from its inception, but now that we're in, let's get it over with quick and get out.

I don't know if this has been addressed, but it seems like some people are getting confused.

An RSS reader follows individual posts, so the way Sean-Paul updates right now, it requires reloading the page itself numerous times.

Making the page easier for RSS reader users would just mean that posts would be done individually; it shouldn't exlcude or turn away anyone.

Sean-Paul-

The problem with the RSS reader is the comments, which are part of what keeps me coming to the site. Also, as far as I can tell the comments and the individual Flash pages are not mirrored. If they were I bet it would help.

I see this as tacit approval of what we are doing. I also think there are many positive developments in Iran which may provide further stability to this region in the future.

Best British Quote for March 25

From CNN.com:

British troops also seized a senior Baath Party leader from his offices in Az Zubayr, southwest of Basra -- a move meant to inspire a popular uprising, said Col. Chris Vernon, British military spokesman in Kuwait City. 20 Iraqi militia members were killed in the raid, Vernon said.

"Whap, we're in. Whap, we're out, and 20 of them are gone," Vernon said.

I hope there are many more whaps to come.

Partisan, your view of history is interesting. Not accurate, but interesting.

"Civil War brought us 150 years of peace and freed millions." If you ignore a few wars we've had since 1865.

"WWII brought 50 years of continuing peace to 20 centuries of Euro-warfare." If you edit out Eastern Europe.

"Wars of Liberation, carried through to the benefit of the defeated (who are the antagonist) breed lasting peace and prospertity to all involved." How did the British benefit from the Revolution? The Civil War was to the benefit of the Confederates? (arguably so, but they would not have agreed)
The Kuwaitis were the antagonists in GWI? If GWI bred a lasting peace, why are my friends in Iraq?

How about keeping the lengthy opinionated debates to a minimum?

Agonist gives us the latest and fastest info. So do the Comments.

Voice your opinion here, for sure. But keep it brief. I come to the Comments for added details, explanations, or even newer reports.

Bodine seems to be getting badly smeared on the blogs today - solely because of one-sided accounts of the heroism of John O'Neill and a LOT of Monday morning quarterbacking.

Here's another side to the story from the Sunday Times

On arrival in Aden, O’Neill’s men sweated in the Movenpick, a “five-star” hotel. In their haste, the agents had neglected to bring any money. The nearest cash dispenser was 700 miles away, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. They wired back to New York for funds.

O’Neill, an aggressive but dapper figure, arrived two days later dressed for October in New York. The temperature in Aden was 102F, the humidity 99%. In suit and tie, O’Neill walked down the Movenpick’s dank corridors to the room of Barbara Bodine, America’s ambassador to Yemen.

Bodine, a career diplomat, had been in Yemen for three years. She had served in Kuwait City during the Iraqi occupation and had been co-ordinator for counter-terrorism at the State Department.

O’Neill found her barefoot in a polo shirt and blue jeans. “You’d better get rid of that suit,” she thought to herself. “You’ll die from the heat.”

O’Neill said Bin Laden was behind the bombing of the Cole.

“He’s out to get me,” he added.

“Who?”

“Bin Laden. He wants to kill me,” said O’Neill, exposing the pistol strapped to his ankle.

“He’s after all of us,” said Bodine. “He wants to kill any American. Besides, I have a slightly higher profile here than you.”

O’Neill glared at her and exploded. It was the first of daily confrontations. They argued over the kind of guns his men could carry. He wanted them all to tote sub-machineguns. She said that would scare the hell out of the Yemenis. Eventually they struck a compromise: 24 FBI agents would carry long guns to protect a further 150 agents packing only pistols.

“O’Neill was rude. He was bullying . . . and he raised his voice with everyone,” says Bodine.

The Yemenis had arrested some suspects, but at first would not allow the FBI to have direct access to them. Bodine says O’Neill’s ways hadn’t helped: “I had to act as a cultural interpreter. They have endured first British colonialism, and then the Soviets. These people have only had foreigners telling them what to do. Now O’Neill and his men were coming in, doing essentially the same thing.”

After three weeks, Bodine asked the State Department to have O’Neill recalled. The attorney- general, Janet Reno, was a strong O’Neill supporter but she gave the order and he was back in New York for Thanksgiving.

“If O’Neill hadn’t left, the entire investigation would have collapsed,” Bodine says now.

Friends of O’Neill disagree. “It was bullshit,” said one former senior FBI man. “We needed those f guns in Yemen, and she wouldn’t let him have ’em.”

Porter Goss, chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, says both were right — but O’Neill had a touch of Inspector Clouseau about him: “So we have got a kind of a Pink Panther scenario going.”

ok i have no idea if this was discussed or not, but how the heck does an entire city of 1.5 million people become a valid military target

ok i have no idea if this was discussed or not, but how the heck does an entire city of 1.5 million people become a valid military target

When Saddam's black pajama boys set up shop in a hospital, a mosque, or a school.

shah8,

Good points all, however they underscore my contention. The ealier "wars of liberation" you quoted were not for liberation of the people, but for the elites who controlled the people. Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the rest weren't warring to free their people, they were warring to reassert their ultimate contol (or that of their elites in the case of JoA.

WWI was an unfinished war which bred the conditions for WWII. The "low conties" which did happen to gain liberty from the Austro-Hungarains were not the antagonists of WWII.

Concerning the Korean & Chinese Wars, they were instances of "unfinished" wars, where free peoples fought dictatorial regimes. The countries where victory by the liberators against the dictators was achieved (Japan, etc.)sprouted peace.

As for Mutual Diplomacy, where has diplomacy between free peoples and dictators achieved lasting peace and prosperity for both paries involved?

By the way, no need to get nasty...

MSNBC's Mike Taibbi on the Iraq/Jordan border reporting as many as 5,000 Iraqi nationals living in Jordan, many of them living in Jordan to escape Hussien oppression, have crossed over the border to defend their country against coalition forces.

Let's not act like all of Iraqi people are just thrilled that coalition forces are there.

could people please quit posting the malformed url for dear raed, and instead use the correct one: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/.

thank you.

oh, and partisan, the comment "Since the American Revolution, we have witnessed a type of warfare unkown in the history of mankind: Wars of Liberation." oh get real. there were wars of liberation before then. world history did not begin in 1776. sheesh.

ok i have no idea if this was discussed or not, but how the heck does an entire city of 1.5 million people become a valid military target

When Saddam's black pajama boys set up shop in a hospital, a mosque, or a school.

hmm so bombing a potential 1.5 million people to kill a few tanks and infantry doesn't break the geneva convention but showing pows on tv is?

From the end of the article: "...since Iran, which is the world's only Shiite state, also has..."

Call me nitpicky, but that's not literally true, at least regarding national demographics if not national politics. Iraq (of course) and Yemen both have slight Shi'a majorities, and ex-Soviet Azerbaijan is also (like Iran) overwhelmingly Shi'a. I've also read that some of the tiny Gulf sheikdoms are essentially micro-Iraqs with tiny Sunni elites lording it over Shi'a majorities. Poor bastards. I suppose I'd be pissed too.

Regarding bandwidth, I have no clue what RSS is, but your banner does take several moments to load (and I'm on cable).

argh!

obviously i meant: http://dearraed.blogspot.com/

Stephen: You are in incorrect. The Iraqi shiite exiles living in Iran are hardly "sideline players". The Badr Brigades have deployed militia forces in northern Iraq. Hakim himself has been involved in "terrorist" activities against the Iraqi regime since the mid-1980s. The U.S government has sought their assistance against Saddam in the past. If he intends to undermine U.S. authority in a post-war government, that is a _very_ big deal.

Yes, I would love small entries with full content via RSS. That would be awesome. I would then never visit the web site and use far less bandwidth.

"we've done a good job letting the locals take control in Afghanistan"

Are you refering to the recently shot down US Black Hawk helicopter?

CNN and UPI are reporting a popular uprising against Ba'ath in Basra. Maybe the pronouncement from the shia cleric contained some code language in arabic that didn't translate into english?

"Technical difficulties with Iraqi TV?"

I know what he means. Every time my cellphone gets hit with a 1,000-lb. JDAM, it stops working.

Hutch,
I didn't interpret the British general's statement that way. Perhaps he should have said "valid military objective."

Long ugly war?

Good or bad for George Bush's 2004 re-election campaign?

Seems to be like it will be good for George. In any case, I doubt we will vote George out because doing so might lead some out there to acknowledge that we had elected an idiot psychopath and were admitting we had made a mistake. No way we will do that. Can't show weakness.

Phew,

Littlebro.

The Civil War brought peace between the antagonists (American v American)

The Revolutionary War spawned one of the greatest alliances and friendships known in the modern world.

Eastern European Wars of the last half century have been characterized as liberty vs dictatorship (dictatorships of the state or dictatorships of a majority) and have begun winding down as Liberty has finished the job (re: Kosovo & Bosnia).

Do you truly suggest that the outcome of the Revolutionary War has not been to the ultimate benefit of the British peoples?

Finally, the antagonist referred to in GWI was of course the Iraqi's.

DONATE!

Stratfor: Arab diplomats don't want UNSC vote, which could legitimize Coalition action post-hoc, especially following EU statement

Sean,

My 2 cents worth:

DON'T change the existing user interface if at all possible. We're just getting used to it, and can help new readers as they appear.

Eliminate, reduce, or simplify graphics. A smaller logo, perhaps.

Encourage users to cut down on posting large amounts of text or lengthy quotes. Keep comments concise, and cite URLs instead.

Everyone: post references and URLs!

Let's all cut down on the chatter.

A search function would be nice, but only if it doesn't affect existing speed very much.

Uh, KG, the MSNBC report was that those Iraqis in Jordan were going back to Iraq to fight Saddam, not the coalition

Yes, and the Iraqi opposition is also responsible for assuring us that the Iraqi people would immediately rise up and overthrow Saddam. Maybe, but the "immediately" part is sort of thin right now. These people are deeply self-serving, and I wonder whether anyone in Iraq who survives this war and who has suffered under Hussein will respect the emigres, or view them with deep suspicion? Unless we do leave quickly, which isn't terribly likely, groups like the INC and other exiles will look like puppets.

Captain Bleep: Yeah, that photo was gut-wrenching, horrible, the stuff of real pathetic suffering from an innocent. For me, it's the Iraqi toddler with the burned face and wounded arm, he and his mother howling together. I know that gaze of childish accusation, the one that seems to say, "How could you let this happen to me?" I look at that photo and think, "Okay, Mr. Bush, you need to justify this war to him and his mother, not a pack of docile reporters or some crowd drummed up by Tom Hicks. Explain how scarring him forever is part of the 'War on Terror,' why war is necessary and inspections won't work, exactly how Iraq threatens the United States, what all this has to do with al-Qaida, and what 'collateral damage means.'"

Sorry for being so strident.

"Heh...The UN is calling for "talks". By the time they issue a "Joint Declaration" calling for even more "talks", Iraq will be free!"

It will be interesting to see if the US can break through Iraqi lines faster than France can break through US diplomatic lines (again). If the UN does meet Wednesday the answer seems to be leaning towards the French.

Congrats on all this press coverage and thanks for all the hours of hard work. I hope everyone is contributing to the pizza fund.

Services of American ? company has been goven the contract to prepare and fix Um Qasr Port according to LBC Tv Station

I've got an RSS feed, and I'd find separate posts really helpful. It would ultimately conserve bandwidth consumption, at least from the 'me' portion of your readership, since I could just sit back and let my RSS reader do the refreshing.

British predict carnage in Basra from Iraqi attempts to suppress rebellion

Hutch,
I didn't interpret the British general's statement that way. Perhaps he should have said "valid military objective."

actually didn't hear where it came from, but cnn was going on for a few minutes about how basra is now a valid military target and that will allow the us a lot more options (never specified what that ment, my guess carpet bombing else they would have said imho)

"Under Bush's preemptive strike doctrine, do the North Koreans now have the moral right to attack us?"

Of course. The Korean war was UN sanctioned and did not end -- it's only a ceasefire. American troops have breached the ceasefire on many ocassions over the 50 years (and North Korea too of course). This is precisely the case that Bush and Blair have made over Iraq.

ok i have no idea if this was discussed or not, but how the heck does an entire city of 1.5 million people become a valid military target

It's a legal status and definition, each country may well not have the same definition. I'd assume the UK declared it for two reasons, one is that they are firing into it and two - and the one that they've used - that it makes it easier to get aid in. I'd also wonder who suggested it as there are International Red Cross people in Basra.

Debka:

DEBKAfile’s military sources: Saddam’s Fedayeen around Baghdad armed with super-gun capable of firing chemical, biological and nuclear shells. Al Medina Division known to be armed with chemical weapons.

Saddam’s WMD “red line” for Baghdad is Iron Triangle enclosing Special Republican Guards positions around city – as revealed in earlier reports.

Is this why the Germans didn't want anything to do with this war? Afraid their supergun would be dug up and rumored about?

http://www.feedreader.com/

A good, and free, news feed reader for Windows.

If [Hakim] intends to undermine U.S. authority in a post-war government

Paul, I know you did not mean to say that.. what US authority in a post-war (Iraqi) government?

"Basra rebellion":

I'm really skeptical this isn't psyops as of yet. The stories are all sourced so strangely. We'll see.

ok it seems that the issue of basra being a military target sounds much worse than it might be in reality. i just pictured the us bombing the city to rubble

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=6bb888dba7a67ce7&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1048503767909&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968705899037

"letters to editor" Toronto Star (Canada)

Please pray for all victims. Thank you.

Feedreader's pretty good, but it's definitely no-frills..

Anyone know of a reader that puts the latest posts from all feeds into one window? Feedreader keeps them all seperate, as do most.

I don't think they mean this one:

Federation of American Scientists
Project Babylon Supergun
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/other/supergun.htm

It was destroyed by UN inspectors.

how would one use pgp key

Al-Jazeera Hack attack

how do these politicians get away with having ties, former or current, to companies that they award contracts to, post-war?

and how can anybody turn their head and say "Oh well, that's quite ok as long as we get saddam out".

And do you think the iraqis will welcome these companies with open arms? If i was a Halliburton engineer, i'd be a little afraid to be working on iraqi oil wells.

"Seattle company wins contract to run Iraqi port of Umm Qasr"

That from the link SeanPaul has up top (more on contracts).

This company will run the port for a year, and has a chance to win the contract for up to 2 more years.

This is not "liberation", this is plunder.

Uprising in Basra was confirmed by Centcom. It was also confirmed by an Iraqi opposition group in Iran

NewzCrawler is a decent rss aggregator, Syndirella is free and just as good but will require the .NET framework runtime in place. NetNewsWire is pretty if you're on OSX. Those are my favorite three, after NewzGator (only good if you're in Outlook all the time anyway).

http://www.newzcrawler.com/
http://www.yole.ru/projects/syndirella/
http://www.ranchero.com/
http://www.newsgator.com/

(don't sue me, those are from memory, google awaits you if mem's failed me.)

well, friendly fire deaths at basra. There's your uprising! /sarcasm

Saddam's supergun was in development in the 1980s. Development supposedly ceased. He wanted an artillery piece that could hit Israel from Iraq, IIRC. It's just a long-range artillery piece.

There's an interesting article in Reuters about the Yugoslav-built bunkers in Iraq. They're supposed to be able to withstand atomic blasts. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but these bunkers are said to be in Mosul, Kirkuk, Baghdad, Basra, and Nasiriya--the very cities that Saddam's forces are still clinging to.

This is speculation, but Saddam's forces might be using these bunkers as their headquarters in those cities. The article says they are impossible to destroy, but I doubt that. Maybe we can find them and take them out with bunker busters?

Re: Saudi Peace Plan Rejected.

What I am keenly interested in knowing is whether or not Iraq FM Naji Sabri will be returning to Baghdad.

Consider this IRNA report:

Sabri's safe entry to Damascus proves the weak intelligence of the coalition forces contrary to their claims at the start of the war on Thursday, experts say.

The visit by Sabri shows Baghdad's self-confidence because if Iraqis were not confident that a senior political personality like Sabri would not be able to return to Baghdad, they would have never allowed him to leave Iraq.

Now, consider this from al Bawaba:

Sources in Cairo have told Al Bawaba.com that the arrival of Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to attend the Arab Foreign Ministers' meeting was coordinated with Washington. Sabri, clad in Arab costume, left Baghdad aboard a car on Saturday and got to Syria early Sunday after traveling hundreds kilometers on dangerous and unsafe roads.

Which of these accounts is one to believe? Or is one to believe neither? Allowing for arguements sake that it is true, why would the US insure Sabri's safe travel to Cairo? Anyone want to take a shot at this one?

An aside: What is the best "comments" shareware to use at my blogspot?

any one got the URL for the NY times article this sunday on the administration squashing intel they didnt like and distorting intel for thier own purposes?

thanks in advance. and thanks in general sean-paul

Got this article from Yahoo -

The French demand a large role in the economic development of postwar-Iraq? How did they get in a position to demand something like this? Are they working with any Iraqi opposition groups?

Furthermore, Gilles Munier said that "There will be such hatred toward Americans [in Iraq]." Does the fact that France collaborated with the Saddam regime throughout the 1990's put French companies on a higher moral ground than American businesses?

MSNBC showing footage of Iraqis in Umm Qasr cheering British royal marines

Oops - I forgot to add the web address:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030325/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_france_rebuilding_iraq_2

Good article by Raimondo at antiwar.com

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html

"No matter what one's view of the war, it is not impossible for both sides to come together around a call for a cease-fire. The Bush administration is convinced that the Ba'athist party regime is brittle and ready to break. Why not let it implode with the least amount of civilian casualties by calling a truce, and giving the Iraqis time to think about it? The war, after all, is going disastrously for the U.S., and this might be a good time to pause and let the inevitable occur."

Partisan:
"The Civil War brought peace between the antagonists" Yes. Your original claim was "150 years of peace" This is more realistic.

"The Revolutionary War spawned one of the greatest alliances and friendships known in the modern world." WWI did that. The War of 1812 was not a friendly thing.

"Eastern European Wars of the last half century have been characterized as liberty vs dictatorship..." My only point was that it wasn't "peace."

"Do you truly suggest that the outcome of the Revolutionary War has not been to the ultimate benefit of the British peoples?" Yes. Do you think Britain had colonies because they were bad for the empire? The failure of the Revolution, please note, doesn't necessarily mean a lack of support in the 20th century. Witness Canada and Australia.

raven,

"This company will run the port for a year, and has a chance to win the contract for up to 2 more years.

This is not "liberation", this is plunder."

What are we supposed to do? The fleet, clearly, is tied up at the moment, and has no troops to deal with operating a deep-water (if we even have the capabilities...anyone?). Companies with expertise can do the job better.

The last supergun supposedly capable of lobbing a shell on Israel was about 150 yds long and cut into a hillside for elevation...and I beleive it was the South Africans who helped develop it. Are the Fedayeen keeping this in their back pocket? If it existed, it would be HIGHLY unlikely that the Saddam would turn it over to his street-thug enforcer types. Debkafile gets way out there sometimes.

Foo:
Both of those "confirmations" come from groups that have an interest in propagating rumors of uprising in Basra.

Not saying it ain't so, but I ain't convinced either.

I'm sure that Saddam's forces would love to throw a counterpunch at this moment. It is nighttime, dark, and there is a sandstorm raging. They may have Russian night-vision goggles. OTOH, they might not be able to find our troops. Even if they find our troops, Saddam's forces will probably be annihilated by our superior firepower. The Iraqis might try a chemical attack. With the wind up, however, it's the worst time to attack with gas.

Still, while the sandstorm continues, our troops need to stay vigilant. I'm sure they will.

here is a question, and i am sorta serious.

who has killed mor british troops the iraqis or the us. would like numbers plz

well, max. It seems there are these people in that country. they are called the IRAQIS. and some of them actually know how to run a port, how to clean up and run oil wells, and various other skills necessary to running a country.

There's a difference between saying "Emergency 1-2 month contracts to get the country back on its feet" and saying "we're giving these companies 1 year with the option for more." That implies that these things will never be handed over to the iraqi people. Or if they ever are, it will be through puppet iraqi corporations(new subsidiraries of our own corporations)

Don't know if anyone saw this....

There is now no point in watching American TV. What a joke. Barely a whisper about the major cut from Bush's tax cut! Instead they re-exploit the POWs familys for the general population.

This site is amazing. The embedded journalists who are keeping updates on the web are stirring. The internet is alive, finally.

http://www.pilotonline.com/military/ml0325war.html

By DENNIS O'BRIEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© March 25, 2003
Last updated 2:19 AM Mar. 25

SOUTHERN IRAQ -- For many of the Marines in this outfit, it was one of those profound, sobering moments -- a ``first'' that can never happen again.
Most of the men in Charlie Company of the 2nd Light Armor Reconnaissance battalion had never been in combat before. Many had never seen a man killed.

Monday morning, on the road to Baghdad, all that changed. And for two Iraqi soldiers, it was a ``first'' -- and a ``last.''

In the dark of night, Charlie Company was patrolling farmland near a bridge over the Euphrates River that it had secured the day before.

At about 4 a.m., from his seat inside a light-armor vehicle, Sgt. Herb Phinney spotted something off in the distance. At first, Phinney had trouble believing what he saw.

Since crossing into Iraq three days ago, the company had not seen any uniformed Iraqi soldiers. It had seen many deserters -- dozens had come through check points to give up the fight -- but none was in uniform.

But here in front of him were two Iraqi soldiers -- in uniform and, more importantly, carrying automatic weapons.

With his magnified night-sight, Phinney could see the Iraqis long before they saw him or heard the muffled engine of the LAV. Phinney, the vehicle commander, ordered his driver to creep the eight-wheeled LAV slowly toward the Iraqis.

As the LAV inched along, Phinney could tell when the Iraqis first heard the approaching vehicle. They stopped. They tensed up. They turned slowly toward the LAV, and Phinney waited no longer, opening fire with the LAV's 7.62-mm machine gun.

One Iraqi took it in the throat, and fell dead. The other ran into a field.

Phinney ordered his gunner on the LAV's 25-mm cannon to trap the man between two high-explosive shots -- Boom! to the Iraqi's left, then another quick Boom! to his right.

The Iraqi stopped and turned around. Phinney's next burst from the machine gun went through his chest, killing the Iraqi instantly.

When daylight broke, about 5:30 a.m., men from Phinney's platoon began burying the dead Iraqis. A backhoe dug two parallel trenches, and the Marines quietly laid the dead soldiers in them. The graves were marked with metal posts.

The Marines took only the dead soldiers' weapons, a pair of Russian-made AK weapons. The guns, with the dead soldiers' blood still fresh on them, were passed around among the Marines.

The names of the dead, taken from their Iraqi military identification cards, and the location of the graves were noted. The information will be relayed to the back lines, where such details are recorded for when the war is over.

There were no wisecracks. No boasts. It was morbid business done businesslike.

The Marines did not rejoice, but neither did they show remorse.

``I'm just glad it was them, and not one of us,'' Phinney said.

For the rest of the day, convoys hauling equipment rolled northward over the bridge, heading toward Baghdad.

Up the river a few miles is Nasiriyah, site of a pitched engagement between coalition and Iraqi forces. From here you could see the explosions from that battle.

By nightfall, Charlie Company was on the move again. North.

Is it "Basra" or "Basrah"? Your map says
"Al Basrah" - is that the city?

Why are we not hearing anything more about surrender negotiations?

Ominous.

well, max. It seems there are these people in that country. they are called the IRAQIS. and some of them actually know how to run a port, how to clean up and run oil wells, and various other skills necessary to running a country

from what i read, the iraqi dock people are unwilling to help the coalition forces

Stratfor: Arab diplomats don't want UNSC vote...following EU statement

Stratfor is out to lunch, unless Chirac has done a full 180 on any attempt in the Security Council to give post facto approval for the war.

wow! this is a war, right??? why are people shocked that there are casualties? equipment will be lost, lives will be lost. I hope that the people in the USA have the resolve (i really wanted to say "intestinal fortitude" but my wife said i couldn't) to see this to it's conclusion. if we had done this in '79 in Tehran or '82 Lebanon it would have been better.

SEMPER FI

of course they are unwilling to help invaders, hutch. Why would they want to help invaders? Turn the docks back over to them, without allied prescense, and it becomes business as usual.

Foo:

"Al" is the arabic definite article, "the."

example "Al-lah" -> "the God"

It is often placed before town or place names in order to identify those names as such. You see it in most town names. An Nasiriyah is a form of "Al Nasiriyah"..."The Nasiriyah" if you like. Before some consonents the final "l" is elided into the following consonant.

I'm amazed that people are pointing to the length of time this is taking. It's been 5 days, 5. We bombed them for what, 38 days before moving in last time? We're less than 100 miles from Baghdad. I think this is going very well, I would have expected a month to reach Baghdad with a thousand casualties+. Nobody said before this war that it would be easy. We didn't expect Saddam to send his republican gaurd into southern Iraq from what I've read, but we didn't take then lose Um Qasr, we took it and then small bands of republican gaurds came out of HIDING. We are being amazingly careful at this point with our powerful weapons, much more so than in 91. With even Baghdad not claiming we've killed any civilians in Baghdad you know we're being careful. Also, we haven't lost very many men. Under 100 at this point. Yes it will go up, yes war and death are always terrible. But this war is so far justified. If you're against this war then you should be happy that your views have already won out in the past. We did what you would have wanted in Cambodia, as well as Rwanda. If you are against this war, go revisit the facts around WWII, I'm guessing you'd have been against that war as well.
I hope for a 'quick' victory (a few months or less would be great).
BTW, Keep protesting, it's hilarious to see people commiting acts of violence in the name of peace, reminds me of religion...

yes indeed aaron. Arent you lucky its not your son or daughter with her feet blown off or his head blown in half.
Get real, a$$hole. Have some respect for human life.

re: Iraqi Opposition in Tehran.

Anything that the Shiite Iraqi Opposition in Iran has to say is just an echo of the regime in Tehran. Which is what they said about Afgahnistan.

here's a link for creating an rss feed for the comments... http://www.omarbrunt.com/commrss/commrss.htm

i believe its in dutch but if you know much about customizing your MT install you should be able to figure it out.

you can use MT to create an index page of only the last n posts instead of last n days worth of posts. look in your index template for the tag and change it to but instead of 5 put 2 or however many number of posts you want to list on the main index page.

if you need more info contact me.

Yeah doug, after all, it took what. The japanese to bomb one of our ports, before we'd even get off our lazy asses and stop hitler?

Oh and yeah who gives a damn about 5 days!! Let me know when we've been occupying that country for 2 years, the rest of the arab world has gone nuts, maybe we've invaded iran, or maybe various arab ethnic groups have taken advantage of our invasion to form their own little terrorist/civil war groups.

after we've lost large amounts of people from occupying a country where the people will quickly realize we aren't there to liberate them, but instead to plunder their resources with our "1 to 2 year contracts" to republican companies.

peace normally isn't achieved without a little bloodshed unfortunatly....i would wager more property has been destroyed and lives lost throughout history because good men failed to act than by the actions of good men.

fred,

Point taken; I think several years is a bit excessive, but 1 year I think would be realistic.

diesel: better to die on the side of morality than to die a hate-filled killer.

And if you're a christian, you need to figure out which you are...fast.

hutch:
I hadn't seen your comment...where did you read that?

Yo Fred, back off everyone has an opinion, doesn't mean the guy is an a$$hole.

With reference to the last posting...I read the BBC article and it says nothing about no evidence that there is an uprising...instead it says the Iraqis are denying there is an uprising...big difference.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2886805.stm

Uprising in Basra confirmed.

Boom boom, bang bang, ratatata it sounds like embedded reporters are excited

yes we do fred..........

Aaron, we tried to do it in Beirut and Israel definalty did. As someone who lived through some of that, other than a nuke, nothing more could be done. People will fight for their nation even if they hate a regime. Its a balancing of opression.

Is that the same BBC that reported this uprising in Basra?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2886805.stm

from what i read, the iraqi dock people are unwilling to help the coalition forces

Fine, then hire them to unload the relief ships.

It's amazing how many people find an incentive to work, when you point out they will be paid (yes, they will still accept American dollars) and can then live on more than the subsistence of emergency aid handouts.

However, even if what you say is true on the short-term, you ignore the rest of fred200's comment; coalition forces are not supposed to be around for the next 3 years, if you believe the Oval Office.

"Fine, then hire them to unload the relief ships."

So are the shipping companies plundering as well?

What is this "massive" new battle near Karbala CNN is reporting? "Unknown ground forces?"

Acording to Jazeera, the Iraqi TV is off again

fred200;

i spent my time in uniform and did what was asked of me. i have a 13 yr old son who is being taught what duty and dignity are. if you have to resort to calling me names that is fine, it doesn't change the esscense of my post.

That's such a spin, max. You know it, and i know it. We're talking about humanitarian relief. That's a far cry from "fixing and running the oil wells for 3 years" or "running the sea ports for 3 years".

Besides the fact that a lot of relief supplies will be from international non-profits, not US profit-making corporations.

MSNBC is confirming Basra uprising on its front ticker.

Just out of sheer idle curiosity, what is the lethal radius, and what is the effective blast radius, of a 1000 pound bomb?

If we're getting too emotional here, maybe it's time to take a break and read something else:

Netiquette
Table of Contents
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/

wow the comments seem to be rolling fast, here is what i am replying to at the moment :)

of course they are unwilling to help invaders, hutch. Why would they want to help invaders? Turn the docks back over to them, without allied prescense, and it becomes business as usual.

personally if i was an iraqi and knew the us is palnning to be there for 20 years i wouldn't help them either, probably shoot them when they weren't looking and smile at them while they were looking at me

hutch: I hadn't seen your comment...where did you read that?

not sure which one refering to but here is where i got the latest

well, max. It seems there are these people in that country. they are called the IRAQIS. and some of them actually know how to run a port, how to clean up and run oil wells, and various other skills necessary to running a country.
There's a difference between saying "Emergency 1-2 month contracts to get the country back on its feet" and saying "we're giving these companies 1 year with the option for more." That implies that these things will never be handed over to the iraqi people. Or if they ever are, it will be through puppet iraqi corporations(new subsidiraries of our own corporations)
posted by fred 509pm

BTW, Keep protesting, it's hilarious to see people commiting acts of violence in the name of peace, reminds me of religion...

i am against the war because i see it as the start of an colonization attempt, or the us being the bully. take either i agree with both. however, i must agree arguing for peace by using violence is not going to win people over. i also do not think stopping traffic will will people over either. i understand the feeling of helplessness (word?). i think violence is necissary but not at this point in time, our leaders will have to listen, if not then violence may be necessary

also i haven't gotten an answer to how many british have the iraqis killed versus the number the us has killed. bet its close

Thanks for keeping things going so well, Sean. Congrats for all the coverage. I do think in this age of pervasive media propeganda that blogs and the world press can provide a convincing antidote-- like the samzat papers in former communist regimes, even with small circulation, word eventually gets out.

"5:09 EST BBC reports that there are no reports of a GENERAL uprising in Basra."

Haha...foo is gotta be about 0 for 12 by now..

i was in Beruit also Rima

Turkey Appears to Soften Its Position on Moving Troops Into Northern Iraq

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAXYCZFQDD.html

The bottom line is that someone will be paying Iraqis who want to work, US corporations or non-profits or whoever. Oil companies or dock managers who are concerned with profits are going to jump at the chance to hire local people with skills or muscles instead of having to import stevedores or rig engineers or whoever.
So where's the foul there?

I'm saying let them do that for a year, get things in a rhythm, establish standards, etc., and then yes, it will be time to send them back to the US.

"So are the shipping companies plundering as well?"

Will you ask next if the US is plundering by not hiring Iraqis to do the fighting?

Get real dood. You have a right to hire anyone you want to get the stuff to them, you do not have the right to hire anyone but them to work in-country, unless there is no one in the short-term able or willing to do the work.

Once Omar the Iraqi gets the hint that he will be able to do more than subsist on aid packages if he goes to work on the docks, he will be there; the ability to buy nice things is a powerful motivator when you have no nice things.

http://www.iraqwar.ru/iraq-browse_image.php?galleryId=8&sort_mode=created_desc&desp=0&offset=0&imageId=149

Does anyone know where this map came from? It seems pretty good, but I would like to know the source.

Aaron, I'm wrong for calling you names. But in the same vein, I'm sorry, but you are wrong for minimizing civilian casualties, as many military are prone to do as "necessary collateral damage". As a parent, you should know that there is no way in hell you can tell a parent, iraqi or otherwise, that their child was just "collateral damage for the greater good". I'm sorry, but that doesn't quite help them out.

It's easy for you to say such things, because you and your child are safe in america. But these kids in Iraq do not have the same luxury. Nobody will ever be able to fully explain to a 4 year old why his legs were blown off by america. Noone will ever be able to fully explain to an iraqi parent why their 14 year old son was killed because he was forced to hold an outdated gun at the mighty american forces.

Please notice how these strong marines meekly state "yes, sir" to iraqis who have captured them. This is human nature. It's real easy to talk of "necessary civilian killings" when the gun isn't placed at your head, or the bombs aren't falling next to your house.

Future TV is showing Iraqi's at Iraqi embassy waiting to get passports to go into Iraq and fight. They were carrying Saddam pictures. There is around 110 of them.

I hear that CENTCOM has announced that the Iraqis are shelling their own civilian populace in Basra.

How lucky for us. Any civilians killed will now be Iraq's fault, not ours!

Hmmmm.....

raven, i'm not trying to argue that giving Iraqis jobs is a bad thing. quite the contrary. I'm trying to say that someone has to be there to give them jobs, though, so therefore corporations can't be all that horrible if they'll do it.

Major General Peter Wall on the uprising in Basra:

"We aren't seeing anything, we're just hearing reports that there are people who are appearing on the streets in significant numbers and who are essentially being less compliant with the regime than they are normally."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26710-2003Mar25.html

Aaron, as a civilian?

max, it's not the workers i'm concerned about. No doubt they will eventually be iraqis. But what companies will they work for? Halliburton subsidaries?

An "iraqi" company that's still under the command of a US corporation is still a US corporation, in the same way that a puppet government such as in Afghanistan is still controlled by US military.

So please, quit lying to us yet again administration as well as your sheep here. Please admit what it is. US corporations are putting their subsidiaries into place for the resources of Iraq.

I would prefer to use an RSS, I think, if it were set up so news items were posted individually - or at least separated into more bite-size chunks.

Here's a link to my cautionary post about casualties numbers from Saddam's government.

"A Word of Caution on Civilian Casualties"

Great work Sean-Paul! Keep it up!

Rima;

no, american military.

i have been to isreal as a teenager (so long ago)... summer kibbutz, mothers idea :)

What's the problem with subsidiaries? By that logic, the US is having its interests controlled by German corporations because there are Americans with jobs at a Chrysler plant in Michigan. The world runs on multinationals....

about the blast range of a 1000 pounder i didnt see a lot info but i found this blurd on a site discussing munitions

A 2,000 pounder going off at 100 meters is definately lethal with just incredible blast and heat effects at that range not to mention the frags. Designated safe area for a 2,000 pounder is 4,000 feet.

I would enjoy seeing these comments become part of a message board. There is a lot of intelligent conversation here. It's nice to see that everyone is trying hard to maintain civility and keep stimulated passion in check.

"Does anyone know where this map came from"

From everything I've seen, iraqwar.ru is run by the GRU (Russian military intelligence), or by a group of intel analysts closely associated with the GRU.

This CNN report dated 3/7/03 says that Barbara Bodine will not administer southern Iraq, but the central sector which includes Baghdad:

link

P.S. Sean-Paul — you rock!

It's shocking that the Iraqi's are willing the fight and die for Saddam. If it's years of propaganda and brainwashing, then why the hell did we leave their TV Station running? They think they are dying for the survival of their country still.

Can you believe even the oppressed Shia (40% of their population) are still rooting for their supressor Saddam???

This is totally parabolic.

Aaron,
I do have to say I have some good memories of the marines, helping us carry our car out of a ditch, but as a 10 year old child, I remember shielding my sister's body because if a bullet hit or a bomb fell, I did not want her to be injured. I think its a different view. It sort of shapes the rest of your life and how willing you are to see children and civilians suffer.

MSNBC says US Forcs killed 300-500 Iraqi soldiers near Najaf in battle today, possibly Medina Division

PETER SHRINER,

you still looking for a search function?
Try opening the comments via right mouse click in "new window". Then you have standard search option via Edit menu or ctrl + F

the problem isn't with subsidiaries themselves, max. But the problem is that the US seems hell bent on