Antiwar.com Blog

Not since “Dewey Defeats Truman” adorned the front page of the Chicago Tribune has a headline-writer gotten it more wrong:

“N. Korea appears to back down on threat“ 

That Associated Press story, posted hours before the North Koreans announced a successful nuclear test, detailed newly-elevated Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s trip to China, and noted his success in getting Beijing to issue a strong joint statement condemning North Korea’s stated intention of testing a nuke.

This unusual Sino-Japanese rapprochement might have been a primary cause of the North Koreans’ decision to go ahead with the test, rather than evidence Kim Jong-il was about to back down. By way of further explanation, here’s a snippet from an article in Dong-a Ilbo detailing recent developments in the DPRK:

“North Korea’s stance is clearly revealed in Kim’s message to a meeting of heads of North Korea’s overseas diplomatic missions held in Pyongyang from July 18 to 22 that said, ‘We should solve difficult problems on our own as the whole world is our enemy.’“Kim didn’t attend the meeting but is said to have criticized China and Russia for supporting the adoption of resolution and Korea for freezing additional aid of fertilizer and food as ‘not reliable.'”

The Bush administration has long campaigned to totally isolate North Korea, and now it can be fairly said to have succeeded. The question now is: how many more such “successes” can we afford?  

 

Tuesday, October 10, 2006, at 9pm Eastern, government TV’s Frontline – after all the bogus arrests on terrorism charges across this country over the last few years – will be taking on the question of whether al-Qaeda actually has people here in America at all.

Frontline‘s splash page says they’ll be looking at that poor Hamid Hayat kid out of Lodi, California, who was entrapped by a snitch and convicted of “Un-Americanism.” If they do the story justice at all it will generate outrage in .001 percent of the U.S. population for at least an hour.

It is clear from their ad on the front page of RawStory who the real enemies of freedom are.

If the state does a comparably competent job with Americans turned over to the military under the new Destroy American Liberty Forever by Suspending Habeas Corpus Act (DALFSHCA) as they have done with those lucky enough to get trials, I guess I’ll be seein’ ya’ll at Guantanamo Bay.

Update: Watch the whole thing here.

(comment at Stress)

National Review (October 9, 2006, p. 4) is upset with Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the lead Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Not only has he said that the Iraq War he voted for was badly planned and badly fought, and that the Bush administration lied its way into it, he also uttered the unmentionable and unthinkable: “The world would be better off today if the United States had never invaded Iraq — even if it means Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq.”

Well, I can think of some people that would be better off:

• Between 43,799 and 48,639 Iraqi civilians
• 20,468 wounded American soldiers
• 2,737 dead American soldiers

All figures are from the Antiwar.com Casualties in Iraq page.

Senator John Warner (R-Virginia), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, fresh from a trip to Iraq, on the war:

“I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take? And I wouldn’t take off the table any option at this time.”

If Senator Warner is now saying that he won’t rule out withdrawal — even as, nationwide, Republican congressional candidates are saying “stay the course” — this is a huge crack in the dike of Republican intransigence. No doubt the Senator is getting his share of antiwar flack from his constituents, many of whom plan on switching parties to vote for Jim Webb, antiwar Republican-turn-Democrat, for Senate against pro-war incumbent George “Macaca” Allen.

 

A friend alerted me to this terrific site showing political maps in the Middle East. There’s current info re Iraq, for instance, but also a wonderfully informative historical series of middle east maps that shows ALL the various imperial powers who’ve left their heavy boot prints in the region over the millennia. Take a look – the series really makes tangible just how stepped on over and over the region has been.

On Sept. 28, the Cooper Union in NYC hosted a debate on the power of the Israel lobby in America. Panelists: John Mearsheimer, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi, and Dennis Ross. A video recording of the debate in 11 segments can be found here.