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4-27-03. It has been an
interesting week. Coalition forces are policing up members of Saddam’s regime faster than New York cops arresting hookers during one of Giuliani’s vice crackdowns. Hundreds of thousands of documents, that will take years to adequately analyze, are being seized. What is already clear is that Saddam did have direct ties to Al Quaida, that he did have an active program to produce chemical and biological weapons, and that the French were actively aiding him. All this was denied by those opposing any action against Saddam. Dozens of Hollywood geniuses claimed to have irrefutable proof that none of this was happening. Where did they get this information? How did they get better intelligence than the CIA, the DIA, and the NSA? The answer, it seems, is that they were being briefed by Naomi Campbell, who now reveals that she has been gathering and disseminating intelligence throughout this period. What a pity she didn’t share her secrets with our armed forces.
It has also been
revealed that George Galloway, Labour MP from Glasgow, and vociferous British anti-war spokesman, has been on Saddam’s payroll for years. Sources in the British intelligence services, and some in this country, say that he is only the tip of the iceberg and that the documents we are recovering in Iraq will show that many British and French politicians, as well as some reporters, were bought by Saddam. So far our FBI has not shown any interest in investigating possible ties between Saddam and US politicians. One cannot help but harbor the suspicion that if such ties are found they will be hushed up.
So what can we
expect for Iraq now that Saddam is gone? The UN is claiming that any new government established without its help will lack legitimacy, an astonishing statement from an organization that has so conclusively demonstrated its own lack of legitimacy. Potential Iraqi leaders are not so easily fooled, stating that they want the UN to play no part in the new Iraq, as they consider it to have been a de facto ally of Saddam. Kofi Anan, never at a loss for arrogance, tells us that we must include the UN to ensure the human rights of Iraqis are protected. This, after twenty-five years of ignoring human rights abuses in that nation. What Mr. Anan is really interested in is continuing his control of the Oil-For-Food program, a program that he ran, while France kept the books. We already know that billions were diverted to Saddam’s pockets. How much did Anan and Chirac take to look the other way?
As for the French,
it was predicted here that they would jump on the bandwagon just in time to offer token participation in the war and thus lay claim to a part of the spoils. That was dead wrong; we underestimated French arrogance. Mr. Chirac, after opposing our action, and even, it appears, actively aiding our enemy in a time of war, now has reversed himself on sanctions and is agreeing with the US that they should be lifted. Rather than ask how we were able to convince him of the correctness of our position, we should ask what he hopes to gain by this astonishingly cynical decision. Covering up of his complicity in the manufacture of WMD and the fleecing of the Oil-For-Food program? A guarantee of cheap oil? Or a major role in the rebuilding of the country?
For the first time
in twenty-five years, Iraq’s Shiite population was able to make the pilgrimage to Karbala. While there, they mixed prayer and self-flagellation with calls for the US to leave Iraq immediately. It seems odd that the one ethnic group that benefited most from Saddam’s removal should be so ungrateful and so anxious to have us leave before there is any political stability. The answer lies with Iran, who, terrified of a democracy in the region, has been sending agents into Iraq to stir up support for a fundamentalist Shiite government mirroring its own. It appears that the fundamentalist Shiites do not want freedom for Iraq; they just want their turn at being the oppressors rather than the oppressed. We have stated that we will not tolerate a theocracy in Iraq. That sounds good, but once we set up a democracy how will we stop the Shiite majority from voting one in? A constitution? The country has no tradition of respect for constitutional law, and religious fanatics only recognize religious law. This is a problem we will have to deal with for some years to come.
Meanwhile there appears to be the beginning of civil order in the country. Looting has
stopped and public services are starting to come back on line. We
endured a great deal of criticism from the press for failing to protect Iraq’s art treasures, so it was heartwarming to see that the first people arrested for trying to smuggle stolen Iraqi art into the US were reporters.
And while we’re on
the subject of crooks and hypocrites, we can report that Winnie Mandela, the Hillary Clinton of South Africa, convicted kidnapper and accessory to murder, and Member of Parliament, has just been sentenced to five years for theft and fraud for a series of insurance scams and false bank loans.
Surparmurat Niyazov,
the president of Turkmenistan, where the life expectancy is sixty for men and sixty-five for women, has just issued an edict that prolongs adolescence until age twenty-five and postpones old age until eighty-five. It is anticipated that next week he will alter the tides in the Caspian Sea.
Here at home the
Justice Department announced that it has opened a criminal investigation into illegal donations made by an Arkansas law firm to the Presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards. Sen. Edwards had no comment. No doubt he will confer with the Clintons before making a statement, as their expertise in this field is unparalleled.
President Bush, flushed with the success of trashing the First Amendment by signing the
Campaign Finance Reform Act, has turned his attention to the Second Amendment. He has announced that he is in favor of renewing the ban on “assault rifles” and magazines, due to run out next
year. He seems unable to grasp the probable effect this will have on his political future. Were it not for the support of gun owners and the NRA, he would have little to do these days but to clear brush on his Texas ranch. Apparently his advisors think that gun owners will never vote for an anti-gun Democrat, the only kind likely to be nominated. In this they are right, but that is not the same as voting for Bush, as he will learn if he signs an extension of this law.
This week’s Clooney Tunes Award goes to Howard Dean, also a Presidential candidate and a harsh
critic of the war. Mr. Dean has refused to retract any of his pre-war statements and even said that he doubts that Iraqis are any better off now than under Saddam. “There are parts of Baghdad,” said Dean, ”that don’t have any electricity.” At least when Saddam was in power there was good lighting for the execution squads and power to run the shredders.
PTB
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