Antiwar.com Blog

Glenn Reynolds demonstrates his grasp of economics (3rd graf) and his concern for American taxpayers.

My latest article on trial of Slobodan Milosevic was just posting as the news came from The Hague that the Inquisition decided to impose lawyers on the former Serbian president.
The decision was immediately hailed by the prosecution and the ICTY partisans, and bitterly protested by Milosevic. Continue reading “Another Hague Travesty”

Chris Albritton went to an Ahmed Chalabi press conference today and this is what Chalabi says:

Chalabi: I was attacked this morning, but I’m fine, thanks.
Question: Can you tell us about the counterfeiting charges against you and the murder rap against your nephew?
Chalabi: Oh, those… (chuckle.) They were reduced to a summons. I went to the judge (al-Malaki) today and all charges have been dropped against us.

Chris is rightly mystified as to when and how the charges were dropped. It also helps explain something I was wondering today. Why was Chalabi going to the National Assembly session today? I seem to remember a bit of a stink about him being dropped from the thing after the counterfeiting charge. What about the Iranian spy business?

Really. No proof. I mean, the Iranian government is a little weird, but do you think they’d hire a guy whose fondness for reality rivals Osama bin Laden’s love of pork chops?

No wonder Richard Perle digs convicted embezzler Ahmed Chalabi so – they’re two perps in a pod:

Press tycoon Conrad M. Black and other top Hollinger International Inc. officials pocketed more than $400 million in company money over seven years and Black’s handpicked board of directors passively approved many of the transactions, a company investigation concluded.

A report by a special board committee singled out director Richard N. Perle, a former Defense Department official, who received $5.4 million in bonuses and compensation. The report said Perle should return the money to the Chicago-based company.

Please note that this is a company investigation, not a politically motivated waste of taxpayer money.

The new report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday, added details of what it called the “corporate kleptocracy” Black and Radler created at Hollinger. It said they treated the company as a “piggybank” and fashion accessory, with Black using the prestige of the newspapers to gain access to the wealthy, powerful and royal.

For example, the report said Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, treated the Hollinger corporate jet as a private shuttle between cities such as Chicago and Toronto and vacation spots. They took frequent trips to Palm Springs and one 33-hour round trip to Bora Bora, which cost the company $530,000, the report said. It also said Black charged the company $90,000 to refurbish a Rolls-Royce, and used $8 million in company money to buy memorabilia of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about whom Black wrote a book.

Could that corporate-statist thief FDR have any better disciple?

I just came across this statistic, reported by the Guardian, source – US military –

The army reported 2,781 deserters in 2003 and 1,470 in the first five months of this year, according to Lieutenant Colonel John Jessup, who collects army desertion data for the Pentagon. This makes up less than 1% of the enlisted soldiers; far lower than the average of 5% during the Vietnam war years, a fact explained largely by the absence of a draft for this war.

That seems pretty high. 1,500 deserters in FIVE months? Why isn’t anyone talking about this? Another way to look at this is that with 7,000 wounded, 4,000 deserters and 1,000 killed, the US military is 12,000 soldiers short of it’s numbers when it invaded Iraq.