Antiwar.com Blog

Serbian president Boris Tadic visited Kosovo this week, touring besieged Serbian enclaves and opposing the occupied province’s independence. The visit was met with mixed sentiments by the Imperial press, largely depending on the degree of their Albanian favoritism. Unsurprisingly, Albanians themselves met it with open hostility. From Viceroy Jessen-Petersen’s statements, the impression is that UNMIK hoped Tadic would continue to pressure local Serbs to collaborate – which did not turn out to be the case.
The visit merits a more detailed analysis, but for the time being, here is an excerpt from a special communique of the Serbian Orthodox Church regarding Tadic’s visit, dispelling the myth of Albanian “frustration” with “Serb provocations” (such as, oh, existing):

“Kosovo still remains very explosive with high potential for ethnic violence. This violence emanates not so much from social problems of Kosovo Albanians (which exist elsewhere in the Balkans) but rather from the surprising lack of basic tolerance for others who live beside them, share different culture and religion.”

Kevin Carson comes out in favor of torture “under certain limited circumstances.”

I’m afraid Condi isn’t going to like his proposal.

After a year-end holiday slump, Antiwar.com is back on Alexa/Amazon’s Top 50 News Site list.

Combining reach and rank, Antiwar.com ranks #37 among the Top 50 News Sites on the Web. We are just behind Los Angeles Times, CBS News, and the Chicago Tribune, and just ahead of USA Today, Time Magazine, and Newsday.

There’s much speculation going on about the selection of the Prime Minister of the Shiite and Kurdish National Assembly. A couple of items to remember.

Parties have three days after election ballots are released to challenge the results. Al Jazeera reports today that the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission has received six complaints from political groups challenging the results of the January 30th elections.

Even before the results were announced, the commission had received some 359 complaints from inside and outside Iraq; not only from political groups but also from tribal congregations and citizens who weren’t able to vote.

There have been serious allegations of voting irregularities especially around the northern city of Mosul, further complicating the count. Some leading Sunni Arab and Christian politicians have stated that thousands of their supporters were denied the right to vote.

Considering that it took them two weeks to count the ballots in the first place, there’s no telling how long it will take to sort through all the challenges.

Adel al-Lami, an official with the electoral commission said, “We received six complaints until now, but there are other complaints sent by e-mail and we haven’t retrieved them yet.”

That email retrieval is hard work!

Second, the rule about how a Prime Minister is to be chosen:

When the votes are counted, the Iraqi people will have elected a 275-member Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will:

• Serve as Iraq’s national legislature.
• Name a Presidency Council, consisting of a President and two Vice Presidents. (By unanimous agreement, the Presidency Council will appoint a Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, cabinet ministers.)
• Draft Iraq’s new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people for their approval in a national referendum in October 2005. Under the new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government in December 2005.

So, whoever ends up on the “Presidency Council” must be elected by the Assembly. That means there must be an Assembly before there is a PM and although we all know there will be jockeying and horse trading behind the scenes the Assembly still has to vote for three people who will unanimously choose a PM.

At this point, we don’t even know the names of the candidates who were elected and we don’t know how the challenges to the balloting will be settled, so although it might be amusing to speculate on the identity of the Prime Minister candidates, choosing that person is the last step of a very ambiguous and complicated process.

In Backtalk:

Monica Benderman announces the establishment of the Kevin Benderman Defense Committee’s Web site: BendermanDefense.org.

John Mayew suggests that we write to our elected representatives in support of Sibel Edmonds, while T. Tunney says that letter-writing is futile.

Kent Johnson: Bush is the American Robespierre.

Don Bacon, of the Smedley Butler Society, thinks Bush doesn’t care who runs Iraq – it’s all about war-profiteering and controlling the oil. “Scheherazade” agrees that oil is a motivator but suggests that the U.S. has intentionally empowered Iraq’s Shias as a counterweight to the Saudi Wahhabi Sunnis.

Mohamed Shukri defends Islam’s treatment of women.

And more…

Bill Maher sure is popular. I have never gotten so much mail about anything as I got about this. The typical message went along these lines; A) I don’t have a sense of humour, so B) I am unable to appreciate the subtle irony of Maher’s remarks, therefore C) I should shut up, even though D) virtually none of us actually watched the show. Well, it doesn’t work, because I got two messages from people who did watch it, and agree with my interpretation of Maher’s remarks. He was not being ironic or satirical (two of the most common adjectives used in the emails). Far from it, Maher’s remarks were intended as serious commentary and accurately reflect his views.
Further, CNN has made available a transcript of the event, and I can therefore confirm the accuracy of my quotes.

“But Iraq, we attacked because we could. That’s what the historians will write eventually. They’ll write, why Iraq? No weapons. They didn’t attack us on 9/11. We could. We needed to do make a statement to the Arab world and I don’t think it’s the worst idea in the world to make that statement which was, you know what? You attack our country like you did on 9/11, I’m not only going to kick the asses of the people who did it, I’m going to kick your cousins ass too. They had nothing to do with it, that’s just how ticked off we are. There’s something to be said for that method of diplomacy.

But Iran, that’s a different story. That’s a big country. I know a lot of Iranian people. They’re not Iraqis. They’re not backwater people.“

And this exchange which I also reported, concerning North Korea and Africa. At first, Maher sorrowfully rules out the possibility of intervening in North Korea, but then urges Bush to consider it anyway; Continue reading “More on Maher”