Antiwar.com Blog

Iraq may be a miserable place to be for most people over there, but at least the drug smugglers like it;

High levels of insurgent violence and porous borders have drawn traffickers to Iraq, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
The board says Jordan has seized large quantities of drugs on the Iraq border.
Authorities in Afghanistan say their drug problem is so severe the country’s existence could be threatened.
Drugs are transported through Iraq and into Jordan, where they are moved onto traditional trafficking routes into Europe.
Apart from heroin and other opium-based drugs, Jordan has seized significant amount of cannabis resin and amphetamine-type pills on its borders.

A U.S. Army reservist accused of attaching wires to a hooded Iraqi prisoner did so in a joke shared with the prisoner, her lawyer said at the start of a court-martial said on Thursday.

Spc. Sabrina Harman, who pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and maltreatment of subordinates, also photographed abuses because she wanted to document what she felt was wrongful behavior, attorney Frank Spinner said.

The former pizza restaurant worker, who joined the Army reserves after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is linked to several of the most notorious Iraqi prisoner abuse photos.

She is accused of posing before a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners and photographing them as they were forced to masturbate. She is also charged with placing wires on an Iraqi detainee dubbed Gilligan by guards and telling him he would be electrocuted if he stepped off a box in a picture seen worldwide.

“This was a joke. Gilligan understood it to be a joke. It was all part of their relationship,” Spinner said. “It was a relationship beyond what the pictures showed.”

This “defense” is almost as stupid as the Cheerleader Defense.

Drudge is running a story about ‘controversy’ supposedly stirred up by Pat Buchanan’s most recent column, concerning World War 2. But reading the story is a disappointment, because it’s just a list of personal smear attacks by various muckety-mucks against Buchanan. Where’s the debate? If we have a controversy, I expect a damned debate too. Alas, Pat’s arguments are filled with such things as ‘historical facts’; the other side has abandoned them in an Orwellian attempt to rewrite history so that, for instance, WW2 was now fought to stop the Holocaust. Allied nations apparently knew in 1939 that there would be mass killing of Jews several years into the future, and acted to stop it. And that results in these comments by Ed Koch; “I believe that no decent human being should ever sit down at the same table with Pat Buchanan and I am shocked that otherwise responsible, respectable citizens share platforms with him on Sunday shows.”
I would prefer it if Koch were to read the column and refute the arguments point by point, but as I said, that’s impossible. Any attempt to do so would result in a self-refutation. So Koch has to stoop to smear tactics and insults, such as if I were to say that Kojak, er I mean Koch is a bald-headed stooge. I will refrain from doing so, however, since I’m above that sort of thing.

A series of interesting posts here on MediaWatch the upshot of which is that Arthur “Good News!” Chrenkoffadmitted that he is paid by the Wall Street Journal for his efforts. Arthur sort of …uh, denied this at first, but finally came clean.

Media Watch: Where we were wrong was in our report of Arthur Chrenkoff’s relationship with OpinionJournal.com. We said that Arthur was not paid and that his blog (Arthur’s own description) was published without editing.

That information came directly from Dr Chrenkoff. I spoke at length to him before this story. Naturally I contacted him after your latest column to clarify why he had given us false information.

Arthur has apologised for misleading us and given me permission to provide this quote from our conversation:

Media Watch: Do they pay you?

Arthur Chrenkoff: They do actually – a pretty insignificant amount – I started doing it for free but they suggested they might pay me a rather a nominal amount. It’s certainly not in line with what is paid for opinion pieces … I do apologise, with hindsight I should have told you the truth. As I said I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t see how it was relevant to the story but having said that I do apologise.

MW: What about editing. Do they edit your pieces?

AC: I told you they didn’t edit it because to my mind editing means to make substantial changes, but they do have a look at it before they publish it.

The false information that Dr Chrenkoff provided was not significant, but we apologise for those small errors. We’ll put a correction on our website.

We stand by our argument that The Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen misrepresented the nature and source of “Good News from Iraq”.

The various back and forth posts are linked on the right sidebar.

Via Tim Dunlop at The Road to Surfdom, who adds a discussion of the difference between journalism and trawling the internet in search of good news, as well as addressing Chrenkoff’s false claim that he does “no commentary.”

Mr Chrenkoff’s comments that he “doesn’t do any commentary” and that he merely tries to “redress the balance” are palpable nonsense. The simple fact of presenting a highly edited selection of media and US government stories on Iraq under the heading of “Good news from Iraq” is itself a form of commentary. The idea that leaving out the “bad news”–part of the reality of what is happening–is merely “redressing the balance” is a joke. His blog is a transparent project of propaganda posing as a site of unbiased information (as he says, “I just save people the effort and present in a convenient form the other side of the story”).

I’m watching Senator George Voinovich lambasting John Bolton, the admnistration’s nominee for U.S. representative to the United Nations: one almost feels sorry for Bolton.

Almost, but not quite.

“A poster child for what a diplomat should not be” is among the least of the zingers Voinovich sent Bolton’s way. “Arrogant,” an “ideologue,” one who “does not listen” to the judgement of his subordinates — he “lords it over” people “even when he has won.”

Wham! Bam! Pow!

What struck me, however, was Voinovich’s exasperation at the pro-Bolton arguments advanced by Condoleezza Rice: she assured him that she would be in constant communication with Bolton, and that he would be under her “supervision” 24/7. But what, Voinovich thought to himself, are we doing sending someone who needs constant supervision to the UN?

Go here for Voinovich’s full statement.

So much for the public relations campaign by the White House which tried to portray the momentum as being in favor of Bolton. “A turning tide for Bolton” my a*s!

The nomination will now go to the Senate floor, where the inability to get it out of committee with a favorable recommendation — even with a solid Republican majority — will weigh heavily against Bolton.

This battle has rightly been characterized as a struggle over the nature and direction of U.S. foreign policy. The combative arrogance embodied by the nominee is a metaphor for the neoconservative mindset — and it is being sunk by a Republican senator who simply cannot stomach it, and who rightly sees that Bolton will fuel anti-Americanism worldwide.

This is a major defeat for the War Party. It shows that not only has their policy failed, but that they are beginning to reap the political consequences of that failure. Bolton was and is part of the cabal that lied us into war — and is bound and determined to get us into another one. His rejection is a great setback for them.

As the Financial Times points out:

“A moderate Republican representing the nation’s smallest state could decide the outcome. Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is under intense pressure from both sides on the Senate foreign relations committee. With the panel split 10-8 in favour of Republicans, just one defection would give the Democrats enough votes to block the nomination from reaching the full floor.”

Now, let’s keep up the pressure. Call your Senator and let them know that a vote for Bolton is a vote for perpetual war — and that you’ll be noting how your represenatives in Congress vote on this vital issue.

The momentum is with us — the Force is with us: let’s keep it going.

Thanks for the memories, chump. Condolences to David Horowitz.