Antiwar.com Blog

Antiwar.com isn’t even supposed to have a position on Mark Thatcher and his merrie band of overthrowers, since it’s not a US foreign policy issue and it’s not really a war issue. But I have a position on the subject, and it is this: if I had known they were planning on overthrowing that monster in Equatorial Guinea, I would have been cheering them on.

Am I supporting war? Of course not. Am I supporting violating the sovereignty of a country? You bet I am. Dictators have no rights, and human beings have no responsibility to continue on under the thumb of dictators. Teodoro Obiang has ruled since 1979 (since he had the former ruler, his uncle, executed), and lives in lavish luxury, with all dissent crushed, while the population starves and cowers. He siphons tens of millions off the country’s oil profits. He is an absolute dictator and on his state-owned radio station, one of his aides said:

“He can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, and who gives him this strength.”

Go ahead, complain that I’m no different from the people who think the US is liberating Iraq — you’ll be dead wrong. Unlike Iraq, the coup plotters weren’t forcing anyone else to pay for their operations, as the US is. Unlike Iraq, this would be a surgical operation to attack the key points in the country — here I am assuming the presidential palace and key ministries and oil fields — and not anything anyhere near civilian population centers. Unlike Iraq, collateral damage would be nonexistent, because these are businessmen with a budget — not career bureaucrats with a bottomless pit of funding — and collateral damage is expensive.

And of course I don’t think the mercs cared about the Equatoguinean people. I’m not a dingbat — they were in it for profit. But so what? Who cares what the motives are, as long as the result (and the means) are unobjectionable? I can’t know who they were planning on replacing Obiang with, if anyone at all, but you can be damn sure it was someone who would create a more favorable business climate. This would allow Equatoguineans to improve their personal lots — instead of those of the ruling dynasty.

James Bovard points out that Porter Goss Hates America:

“The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists,” CIA director Porter Goss told a congressional committee yesterday. “ Goss warned: “Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists. Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism.”

Bovard: “Goss’s comments are perhaps the most serious theological deviation of the Bush era. Perhaps the CIA director has forgotten that positive thinking and blind allegiance are America’s best hopes in the Global War on Terrorism.”

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.