Archive for February, 2003
RANIA KASHI’S EMAIL
At his speech in Glasgow on Saturday, Tony Blair quoted from an email by 19-year-old Rania Kashi, whose family fled from Saddam’s Iraq and who now studies at Cambridge University.
The response has been predictably malicious - the Sunday Mirror said that giving a voice to someone whose family were forced to flee Iraq was a [...]
Posted: February 17th, 2003 under Misc.
NO SELL OUT!
Kanan Makiya, an adviser to Iraq’s main opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, says America now appears to have dumped its commitment to bring Western-style democracy to Iraq. Instead, under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states, Washington is preparing to leave Iraq under the control of President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Read [...]
Posted: February 16th, 2003 under Misc.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SOCIALIST INTERNATIONALISM?
Over a million people marched in Rome today against “the war”.
They obviously hadn’t taken any notice of one of the Prime Minister of the free Kurdish zone of Iraq when he was in the Italian capital last month.
Speaking to the council of the Socialist International he said: “We hear much about Muslim solidarity and the [...]
Posted: February 15th, 2003 under Misc.
THE VOICES THE ANTI-WAR LEFT IGNORE
The live webchat is not usually a medium to produce much in the way of clarity or serious discussion but the Guardian Chat with Nick Cohen and Jonathan Freedland at least offered a look at the current thinking of one of Cohen, one of the left’s favourite columnists - who has been strangely quiet [...]
Posted: February 15th, 2003 under Misc.
PERSPECTIVE
Up to a million people are expected to be on the streets of London today making their objections to the possible use of force to disarm the Iraqi regime and overthrow Saddam Hussein - it is likely to end up being the largest demonstration in British history.
The ultra-left nature of the Stop the War coalition’s [...]
Posted: February 15th, 2003 under Misc.
LET THEM EAT CAMEMBERT
Apologies for the unannounced absence from blogging over the past few days - workload has been heavy and also the rather bizarre turn in international relations has left my head spinning somewhat - my only escape has been to eat lots and lots of Camembert cheese while watching the hilarious Fox News on the satellite [...]
Posted: February 15th, 2003 under Misc.
‘NEW EUROPE’
Jonathan Steele’s article in the Guardian about the enthusiasm of the likes of Hungary and the Czech Republic for a US-led war on Iraq has caused something of a storm in some areas of Blogland.
Steele (no relation!) argues that the new democracies of central and eastern Europe are basically following past form of acquesience to [...]
Posted: February 10th, 2003 under Misc.
STOP THE WAR
I watched the whole 70 minutes of the Colin Powell briefing to the UN and while there was a lot of old stuff brought up again there was also some important key new evidence brought forward that clearly shows the Iraqis are not complying with the weapons inspectors - they are hiding stuff and lying.
Powell [...]
Posted: February 5th, 2003 under Misc.
BENN’S SADDAM INTERVIEW
The full text of former Labour MP Tony Benn’s interview, or conversation would be more accurate, with Saddam Hussein can be found here. It is apparently Saddam’s first tv interview with a westerner in 12 years.
I can imagine the criticism Benn is about to receive in the British press and it will give me no [...]
Posted: February 5th, 2003 under Misc.
A NUCLEAR LIBERATION?
But hold on a minute. Just when I start to get comfortable with the idea of supporting military action to liberate Iraq I come across two items of disturbing news.
First that the nuclear option is being considered by the US to deal with chemical weapons hidden underground. I’m no scientist and call me a scare-monger [...]
Posted: February 4th, 2003 under Misc.