Easiest tip ever: “Friendly fire deaths during the 2003 Iraq war have shown just how important it is to ensure that the fire power of our forces on the battlefield is directed at the enemy – and not at our own servicemen and women or at civilians.” — Friendly fire progress ‘too slow’
Or, why my lum pah* are bigger than yours.
Iran says Britain can only resolve the issue of 15 British personnel arrested and taken to Tehran if they admit they were in Iranian waters. Britain says their GPS data shows they were in Iraqi waters. The Brits are extra cheesed that footage of the personnel was broadcast on Iranian teevee. Iranian officials have since offered British officials access to the sailors.
Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan (and very vocal critic of the UK government), says the border between Iranian and Iraqi waters is murky (sorry) at best. And that the border shown in the British evidence was, well, decided by the British government.
So the issue is much more complex than it appears (as if it wasn’t already complex enough). I’d be interested to see what the Iraqi government has to say about where they think the border is. Because surely the border should be a decision made between Iran and Iraq, not Britain. If Britain then turns around to say they have the authority to decide on the border (and I would be FLOORED if they say that), well well.
* Lum pah refers to a man’s testicles.
I sacrificed an hour of sleep last night to watch, with rapt fascination, Question Time (the panel, Have Your Say). I wasn’t exactly surprised to see John Bolton refuse to answer Tony Benn’s charges and SMIRK at him like a demented lemur.
Tony Benn was right to say the UN charter has been all but torn up by unilateral actions by the US and its ‘allies’. The audience member was right to say other members such as China were undermining the power of the UN by looking out for their own interests (as EVERY country clearly is, evidenced by the US in this case as well). Benazir Bhutto was very right to say the decision to go to war and what’s happened is in the PAST, and now what the world has to do now is help Iraq decide on its future.
Since I have no concept of what it’s like to fear for yourself and your family every single day, all I can do is rabbit on about ideas. Perhaps it’s time for the ‘allies’ to alter their role in Iraq, instead of clearing insurgents from villages (which reminds me of trying to remove community cats in Singapore and finding that new ones have moved in soon after) with guns to training villagers in civil defence. You know, fire service, emergency medical help, teacher training, additional training for doctors and nurses, counselling, that sort of thing. If a village collectively decides NO MORE to violence and is given the tools to help themselves, they will be able to help themselves.
From what I can gather, the reason insurgents and their ilk are allowed to hide in the village is (aside from fear) the attitude that the occupying forces are NOT their friends. Shooting innocent people (or your presence apparently causing innocent people to get blown up) wouldn’t really make you many friends. How about doing it one village at a time, motivating other villages to get started on their own civil defence preparedness?
This is not to say that it won’t still be a dangerous and not very nice place to live for a long time to come, but wouldn’t it set Iraqis on the right road? Maybe the individuals feel powerless, but if a village could be protected while they learn these civil defence skills, things could slowly start to improve on a permanent basis.
Eric Joyce was on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, saying the UK was part of the invasion force because Saddam Hussein was a tyrant toward his people.
I’m fairly certain the main reason given for the UK signing up to an invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the non-compliance of Saddam Hussein’s regime with respect to United Nations directives on Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Thanks to the power of the Internets I know my memory isn’t faulty. Thanks to the power of the Internets we know he is just desperately trying to rewrite history to make his party (and himself) look less like utter turds.
It looks like the world could suffer because of the Bush Administration’s tendency to cry wolf. Today, there is scepticism over their claims that they have evidence of Iran messing about in Iraq.
What Iran might be doing in Iraq sounds serious, but the problem is it’s the Bushies who are shouting it. From what I heard on the radio this morning, certain elements in the Bush White House are extremely keen to launch an attack on Iran — with what troops? Aren’t they already having problems with enough troops for Afghanistan and Iraq?
Marine Faces Sentencing in Iraq Killing. It sounds as though Cpl. Trent D. Thomas is actually a decent man, but some mental switch got flipped, and he did something unconscionable. This is the war George Bush and Tony Blair have dragged the entire world into.
RADAR finds that pundits who were wrong about Iraq have done really well in their careers, while those who were right have not. Well, eight of them in total anyway. IMHO, all it boils down to is who sells papers / gets eyeballs. With news that President Bush is to order 20,000 more troops into Iraq (I wonder how many of them have already been killed in action — pardon the joke), I guess we all need different things, even if it’s on the same topic, to get frothy-mouthed over.
He probably never believed it would end this way for him: “He was very, very, very, broken.” — Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq