Archive for January, 2003
Le Carré on War Buildup
John Le Carré's 1/15/03 article, "The United States of America Has Gone Mad," in the London Times:
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
The [...]
Iraq FAQ
"Frequently Asked Questions about Iraq" (Dilip Hiro at Nationbooks.org, n.d.). Hiro is the author of Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (2003).
Gulf War I Casualties
Demographer Beth Osborne Daponte's estimates of Iraqi deaths during the Gulf War: 118,000 civilians, 40,000 soldiers. (Osborne was fired by the US Commerce Department when she released these numbers in 1992, and official estimates were lower -- but the American Statistical Association backs her numbers.) (BusinessWeek, 2/6/03)
The Mayberry Machiavellis
"Why Are These Men Laughing?" -- Ron Suskind in Esquire, January 2003 (reproduced at ronsuskind.com):
They heard that I was writing about Karl Rove, seeking to contextualize his role as a senior adviser in the Bush White House, and they began calling, some anonymously, some not, saying that they wanted to help and [...]
Antiwar Stalinists
The antiwar Left is a bunch of Stalinists -- Michael Kelly, "Marching with Stalinists," Washington Post, 1/22/03:
The debate is over. The left has hardened itself around the core value of a furious, permanent, reactionary opposition to the devil-state America, which stands as the paramount evil of the world and the paramount threat to [...]
Saddam’s US Arms
Michael Dobbs on the US role arming Iraq during the 1980s (Washington Post, 12/30/02)
Cato Institute on Iraq War
Cato Institute Policy Analysis #464: " Why the United States Should Not Attack Iraq," by Ivan Eland and Bernard Gourley (12/17/02):
There are less costly strategies for dealing with Hussein than conducting a war. Hussein, while he may not act morally, is rational in the sense that economists and political scientists use the term. An examination [...]
Fallows on Iraq War
James Fallows on possible postwar outcomes in Iraq: " The Fifty-First State?" (Atlantic Monthly, November 2002).
Corruption of CIA Iraq Intelligence
"CIA's New Old Iraq File" -- Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post, 10/20/02:
Imagine that Saddam Hussein has been offering terrorist training and other lethal support to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda for years. You can't imagine that? Sign up over there. You can be a Middle East analyst for the Central [...]
Putin Disputes WMD Intelligence Claims
"Putin Demands Proof over Iraqi Weapons" -- Michael White in The Guardian, 10/12/02:
Vladimir Putin yesterday rejected Anglo-American claims that Saddam Hussein already possesses weapons of mass destruction and told Tony Blair that the best way to resolve the conflict of evidence is not war, but the return of UN inspectors to Iraq. [...]
So It Begins
"Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Is Finally Over" -- The Onion, 1/18/01.