***Dave Does the Blog

Worldwide Caution – Public Announcement.

Not that there’s anything specific here that changes anything about our travel plans. But it sure would be nice if these weren’t such interesting times.

Here’s a damning little article from the Asian Times about how Germany has not only supplied much of the materials and machine parts for Iraq’s various WMD programs over the past decade or two, but
it knows very well the nature and extent of Iraq’s WMD programs.

Not that the posturing of Schroeder would ever lead you to think that.

Friedbert Pflueger, foreign policy spokesman of the main opposition Christian Democratic parties and an embittered critic of Schroeder’s and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer’s Iraq policy, last Thursday accused the red-green coalition government of deliberately keeping the German and world public uninformed of BND (German foreign intelligence service) evidence and assessments on the continued existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). “If we trust our [intelligence] services, and I do, then we know that there exist weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” said Pflueger, and referred to a November 13, 2002, BND briefing of members of parliament’s foreign affairs committee in which relevant information was disclosed. As a member of parliament, added Pflueger, he was bound by his secrecy oath not to pass on such information, but challenged Schroeder to make it public forthwith. This was necessary, he said, “so that Herr Schroeder cannot continue to spread the impression that the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a figment of George W Bush’s imagination”

There’s more. Lots more. And a lot of reasons why Schroeder isn’t coming forward with this info.

(via InstaPundit)

I was really tempted to fisk Jill Nelson’s MSNBC screed against war on Iraq. I mean, the thing begs for it, from painting Colin Powell as a governmental yes-man to portraying the UN as a sage council of learned philosophers confronted by an egotistical cowboy tyrant named George W. Bush. Every paragraph, every sentence, is a shotgun spraying of critiques, most of which seem to bear only the most superficial resemblance to reality.

But, in the end, I decided, why bother? I’ve made my own views clear on the subject. Nothing I say is going to sway Ms. Nelson, or those who believe as she does. The basic axioms of her universe (peace and negotiation are always the answer; the UN has the highest moral legitimacy in the world; Bush is a plutocrat who stole the election; you can score points if you throw around words like “tyrant” and “minions” and “cowboy”) are so divergent from my own (peace and negotiation are certainly the first steps you should take, but there are circumstances where force, and threat of force, are the only effective answers; the UN is a useful place to coordinate activities, but its member states are all largely out for their own interests; Bush won the election, so, like this Gore voter, get over it; namecalling as a primary rhetorical device is the refuge of the intellectually bankrupt) that it’s almost no use even trying to argue against what she has to say.

Looking out upon the anti-war folks, post-Powell’s presentation, I see the following strains of thought:

• Yeah, those Iraqis are really yanking our chain and defying inspections, so we should have more inspections, because that will set them straight.
• It’s all a pack of lies, fabrications, and misinterpretations.

• Hey, look over there! It’s North Korea! Let’s go pay attention to them, now!

To all of these, there’s not a lot more to say. If you think more inspections will somehow magically transform Iraq into a compliant nation, willing, even eager, to disarm itself, then you’re living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land. If you think the evidence as presented was fabricated or insufficient, then you really seem to be saying that no evidence could ever be trusted or considered sufficient, so why even bother with inspectors?

As to the North Korea card, I’d feel a lot better about those making that argument if I didn’t get the sense that a lot of them (the Congressional Democrats, for example) weren’t simply trying to avert a war they don’t want to see start by distracting attention to another issue. Not that North Korea isn’t a potential threat, but our options regarding it are pretty limited, practically speaking (if they already have a nuke, military options, or even pushing them around too much economically or diplomatically might bring about horrifying results). Not, of course, that any of the folks who are horrified at the thought of military action against Iraq would at all support military action against North Korea — which means that the North Korea card is just an attempt to distract from a political battle that is being lost.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how, if at all, the rhetorical battlefield here has changed by the time we get back from Britain. But it’s late, and I’m tired, and even if arguing points against Ms. Nelson is like shooting fish in a barrel, if there are too many fish, it’s still an awful lot like work.

Yet another case of folks Stripping for Peace (or, as they are calling their group, “Disrobe to Disarm” or “Take Back the Bush“), similar to the Marin demonstration of a while back, only this time in Australia.

See, these women want to strip down for peace, and show off their vulnerable bodies as a way of projecting the vulnerability of human life in the face of war-mongering etc., etc.

Knight and her Byron sisterhood plan to take their clothes off and pose naked this Saturday in the lush hills around the hamlet of Federal to form giant letters spelling “No War”, inspired by women in the United States and Europe who have undertaken similar stunts recently.
“It’s the only way we will be noticed and heard,” explained Knight from her Byron Shire home yesterday.

But they don’t want to be noticed too much.

“I really want this thing to snowball so that our Prime Minister will finally get to hear what some of the women in this country think,” Knight said. “There are no men allowed. I, like a lot of the other women, are not too keen showing off out tits and fannies in public, and the presence of men there would make it even more difficult.”
The exact location is also being kept secret. Women are being to told to meet at 8.30am at a marshalling point in Federal before being taken to the location where, once they’ve disrobed, a small light plane carrying photographers will fly over taking shots to be distributed to the media.

See our vulnerability. But don’t see too much. Observe how we bare ourselves to get attention. But we don’t want any attention that’s too personal. See how we put our consciences and our bodies on the line for the innocent people of the world. But keep your distance.

Yeah. Impressive.

(via NZPundit)

See? The South Koreans know how to deal with the North. Just send money. But make sure you don’t stop.

A former intelligence officer has revealed that the South Korean leader funneled some 2 trillion won ($1.7 billion) to his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Il, in return for holding the [historic 2000 inter-Korea] summit, and lobbied foreign countries to get the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.
With the cash, North Korea purchased key components for nuclear weapons, 40 Soviet-made MiG jets and a submarine from Kazakhstan, said the former agent known only by his family name, Kim.
The flap came just after government auditors confirmed that the country’s giant business conglomerate Hyundai secretly transferred some $200 million, obtained from a South Korean state-run bank, to North Korea just ahead of the summit in June 2000.
[…] Pyongyang has threatened to scrap inter-Korean reconciliation projects if the South took action over an alleged cash payoff.

(via Misanthropyst)

Big “imperialist” power, seeing regional strife in an area it has “interests” in, intervenes with a large troop deployment. It pressures the head of state to sign a treaty, spurring large protests by the locals, which it promptly ignores. Then it goes to the UN Security Council to get permission to send in even more troops to enforce the deal.

Funny how the UNSC is willing to approve such things when it’s France that’s doing the “invading.”

Actually, here’s an interesting article that argues that the French aren’t the Eurowimpy Surrender-Monkeys that they’re painted to be, but extremely successful Macchiavelians, fighting on turf — battlegrounds or diplomacy — where they can win.

Meanwhile, the peacenik predisposition of the other Continentals is a useful cover for French ambition. Last year Paavo Lipponen, the Finnish Prime Minister, declared that “the EU must not develop into a military superpower but must become a great power that will not take up arms at any occasion in order to defend its own interests.” This sounds insane. But, to France, it has a compelling logic. You can’t beat the Americans on the battlefield, but you can tie them down limb by limb in the UN and other supranational bodies.
In other words, this is the war, this is the real battlefield, not the sands of Mesopotamia. And, on this terrain, Americans always lose. Either they win but get no credit, as in Afghanistan. Or they win a temporary constrained victory to be subverted by subsequent French machinations, as in the last Gulf War. This time round, who knows? But through it all France is admirably upfront in its unilateralism: It reserves the right to treat French Africa as its colonies, Middle Eastern dictators as its clients, the European Union as a Greater France and the UN as a kind of global condom to prevent the spread of Americanization. All this it does shamelessly and relatively effectively. It’s time the rest of the West was so clear-sighted.

Interesting.

(via InstaPundit)