A Running Diary of Thought

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One way that the war on/with/against Iraq is helping the fight against terrorism....

posted at 11:59 PM |

 

Random Links

1. Think the Iraqi museum lost 170,000 artifacts? Think the oil ministry was protected while the others were looted? Guess again... (Busted!)

2. NYT circ is down considerably.

3. More than you ever wanted to know about the inside baseball between the WP and NYT about Jayson Blair. (via Instapundit) Though, not more than the skeptic would care to know...

4. READ ME: The most important blog on the web is back. So, the only real question now is how much will he get paid to turn his blog into a memoir and get published?

5. Here's an excellent idea on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Too bad it's not at all realistic......

6. Awards. the skeptic will deliver more specific props another time...

posted at 9:26 PM |

 

Bush & African Intervention

TNR's Notebook (3/24/2003):

During the 2000 campaign, candidate Bush, fresh from his foreign policy tutorials with Rice, repeatedly stated that, had he been president in 1994, he would not have intervened in Rwanda--except under U.N. auspices!
...
He elaborated in a February 2000 interview with Jim Lehrer: "[W]hile Africa may be important, it doesn't fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them. Now, that doesn't mean that we couldn't have rallied folks such as the United Nations to go help keep warring parties apart in Rwanda." (skeptic's emphasis)

the skeptic highlights this since it touches on his earlier post about whether Bush would act to stop a genocide.

Of course, as the security environment has changed since 9/11, Bush's perspective on Africa has changed as well. Has his overwhelming humanitarian rhetoric virtually committed him to act in the face of another genocide? Maybe, maybe not...

posted at 2:47 PM |

 
Hersh Watch, Day 55: Shafer trashes Hersh. Now, Hersh has been right on in some ways. Follow the watch:

posted at 8:08 PM |

 
Mitchell Daniels: "a teetotaler riding shotgun in a car driven by a drunk." His downfall? Hmm...

posted at 7:18 PM |

 
The best essay the skeptic has seen about globalization. the skeptic began excerpting it, but the portions were so large that he felt guilty doing so. Here's the link. Read it.


posted at 7:06 PM |

 

Keep Looking; Not that the skeptic Cares

Interesting:

Saddam Hussein appears to have shut down or destroyed large parts of his unconventional weapons programmes before the war in Iraq, a senior Bush administration official who has been closely involved in the quest to purge Iraq of weapons of mass destruction said this week.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he would be "amazed if we found weapons-grade plutonium or uranium" and it was unlikely large volumes of biological or chemical material would be discovered. He suggested that the sanctions and UN inspections probably prompted Mr Hussein to dispose of much of his stockpile.
...
However, the senior administration official insisted the US never expected to find a huge arsenal. He said the US was more concerned by Mr Hussein's team of 1,000 scientists, whom he termed "nuclear mujahadeen". These scientists, he argued, could have restarted Iraq's weapons programme once the crisis passed. A primary concern was dual-use "factories and breweries" which could be converted into weapons plants but were allowed under UN sanctions.

"He kept them together in the expectation that one day the sanctions would disappear and the inspections would disappear and he would fire up that nuclear capability," the official said.

How important is it now to find NBC programs? Especially with a new government forming in Iraq? the skeptic is starting to think it's not that big of a deal anymore....

posted at 7:50 PM |

 

Sometimes it takes a Nixon to go to China

And sometimes, it takes a Bush to green the environment: "'Mitch Daniels,' one liberal enviro says, 'is why God invented conservative Republicans.'"

As Saletan puts it, "Are the Bushies motivated by genuine concern for the environment? Or are they just trying to save some money? Who cares?" Let's hope this continues...

Update: Not for long...

posted at 6:42 PM |

 

Bad Blair

kausfiles has an interesting look (The Blair crash) at affirmative action in journalism, spurred by the recent Jayson Blair catastrophe.

Embarrasing Blair quotes: "You need to rely on and trust the people you work with." and "We, as journalists, give the police a voice and reveal details and information that most people might never hear otherwise," Blair says. (skeptic's emphasis)

Note: Until 2001, the NYT intern program "was aimed at members of minority groups who, because of race or ethnicity, had been historically excluded from opportunities in America’s newspaper industry." Now anyone can apply, but the program "remains as an integral part of The Times' enduring commitment to recruit and hire as diverse and as highly qualified a staff as possible."

posted at 2:14 PM |

 

Let Them Get Nukes?

An interesting suggestion from TNR's etc.:

At this point, wouldn't the far better strategy be to announce that we have no intention whatsoever of attacking the North, but that we will assume that any nuclear attack on the United States (or an American target abroad) originated with North Korean nuclear material and retaliate accordingly? That would have the benefit of reassuring the North of our generally peaceful intentions, which might ease along a negotiated end to the country's nuclear program. But it would have a chilling effect on North Korean nuclear weapons sales, since the country could never be sure that the material it sold wouldn't end up being used against Americans, which could trigger a massive nuclear-retaliatory response. (skeptic's emphasis)

Quick question (Marmot, help me out here), isn't this essentially where the dialogue currently stands? By fingering N.K. as part of the axis of evil, shouldn't all of this already be in place? Slate steps in and sees the latest moves as a good bargaining ploy, but bad long-term policy.

posted at 1:56 PM |

 

War on Terror, Politics of Peace

AfP follows the latest with the War on Terror: Africa (a.k.a. the war hardly noted in American media). Here's the gist: U.S. deployment in the Horn has led to catures of Al Qaeda operatives and promotes security.

Even Nato might head over to African trouble spots. As AfP quotes:

Nato Supreme Commander General James Jones, an American four-star general, suggested in barely noticed remarks that the United States plans to boost its troop presence in Africa, where there are "large ungoverned areas... that are clearly the new routes of narco-trafficking, terrorists' training and hotbeds of instability."
...
But if the organization does have a future, said General Jones, expect Africa to be of greater importance to both Nato and the United States. "The carrier battle groups of the future and the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six months in the Med[iterranean Sea] but I'll bet they'll spend half the time going down the West Coast of Africa."

This news is even more interesting since West Africa is essentially France's backyard. Remembering the protests against France in the Cote d'Ivoire, one can't help but speculate as to whether the U.S. will come to hold considerable sway--especially if they are able to stabilize such an unstable area.

It would seem that this would be a great area for NATO, the U.S. has its interests threated, so do the French (unless the French thrive on the lawlessness there--a very real possibility). But will hubris keep the two from cooperating? West Africa certainly will be an interesting case study for the extent to which the U.S. and France continue their battle for hegemony.

P.S.This last point brings up an otherwise decent Krugman column that blasts the U.S. for vetoing a move to send peacekeepers to Cote d'Ivoire, charging that it was done only to spite the French.

This, unsurprisingly, simplifies reality. PK, the skeptic is sure, seized onto this after the WP reported on it just days before. While the WP does suggest that the incident "has raised concern" that the refusal to approve the mission was done to "exact revenge," PK takes it as writ. First, let's go to the Bushies' defense:

U.S. officials said their decision was motivated by concerns for costs, a quarter of which would have to be shouldered by the United States, not revenge. They said the task could be achieved with a much smaller contingent of about 40 U.N. officials. And they asked the U.N. peacekeeping department to present a less ambitious proposal for the mission.
...
David M. Malone, an expert on the United Nations at the International Peace Academy, said France has been pressing for greater U.N. involvement in Ivory Coast to ease its own withdrawal from the country. "I think the French from the outset of the crisis were hoping the U.N. could play a role similar to that which unfolded in the Central African Republic in the late 1990s, where a French-led coalition of the willing retreated under cover of a small U.N. peacekeeping mission," Malone said.

He said the Bush administration is "making it clear that it will not support a U.N. peacekeeping operation which could elegantly cover a French military retreat from Ivory Coast, where large numbers of paratroopers are pinned down."

This is not unrealistic. After all, similar motivations kept the UN out of Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.

The more the skeptic reads about the Rwandan genocide, the less convinced he is that the international community would actually move to stop the next one....

P.P.S. It would be nice to see a piece done on current UN peacekeeping in Africa. Where are the troops, and how successful are they at ensuring peace?

posted at 1:47 PM |