Over the weekend the Administration scrambled to convince everyone that they had never said the war would go quickly or be a cakewalk, even though Dick Cheney had said on national television, “I think it’ll go relatively quickly,” and Kenneth Adelman of the Pentagon Advisory Board told the Washington Post, “I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.”

Pentagon Advisory Board kingpin and captain of industry Richard Perle (who had earlier contributed such nuggets of wisdom as: “support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder,” and “it will be quicker and easier than many people think. [Saddam] is far weaker than many people realize.”) apparently still has not received the memo; just yesterday he told the CBC, “I think it will be a quick war.”

I wrote Snopes, the best of the urban legend sites, about the story on Cheney's daughter, and they researched the issue. The story is false.

So how come so many people around the Arab world don't believe us when we say we mean them no harm? Maybe it's the mixed messages. Like when the President talks about what a peace-loving people we are while everyone watches cruise missiles annihilate buildings in Baghdad on CNN and al-Jazeera.

Or when the President has said over and over again that the purpose of Operation Iraqi Freedom™ is to liberate Iraq and help them establish whatever system of government they want, and then Colin Powell tells Congress, "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future." Whoops. That comment might fuel some completely unwarranted suspicions.

Since the beginning of the War On Terrorism™, the Administration has emphasized time and again that America has no quarrel with Islam. It cannot help their case that the Rev. Franklin Graham’s Southern Baptist Convention is massing food and humanitarian supplies in Jordan for distribution in Iraq. Graham, the son of Billy Graham, famously called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion." Some crazy Middle Eastern conspiracy theorists might point to the fact that Graham led the prayer at Bush's inauguration, and that Bush continually speaks of asking God for guidance, to conclude that Bush and Graham share similar worldviews.

And while we insist that America does not seek to exploit Iraq for economic gain, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is trying to pass a law that will force the US Agency for International Development to rebuild the Iraqi mobile telephone network on the CDMA standard. The existing Iraqi mobile phone network -- or the one that existed until we blew it up -- employed the incompatible GSM standard, as indeed does that of every other country in the Middle East and almost every other country on earth. But California-based Qualcomm does not make GSM equipment, making the standard unacceptable to Rep. Issa. Qualcomm invented the CDMA standard though, making that a very palatable choice. Some nuts in the Arab world might conclude that Rep. Issa and his colleagues may have had inappropriate motivations when they gave Bush the green light to invade.

But don't worry. The truth will win out, and the triumphant parades will start any minute now.

It seems the English al-Jazeera site I referenced earlier was hacked by a self-proclaimed "patriot" who replaced the site's content with an American flag and the words "Let Freedom Ring." As long as it is not freedom of the press or freedom of speech, apparently.

There is a story making the rounds of the Arabic press today that Dick Cheney's daughter is in Amman and is planning to cross the border into Iraq and volunteer to be a human shield. The story alleges that Cheney is making a visit to Jordan to try to talk her out of it. Presumably the reference is to Mary Cheney, the vice-president's openly lesbian daughter.

I have not been able to find the story in the Western press nor on any of the urban legend sites. Presumably it will make it onto one or the other in the coming days.

We have not seen any joyous parades welcoming liberating coalition forces yet, and judging by this article in the Guardian, maybe we should not expect them any time soon. The article describes civilian casualties in Nasariyya and the effect this has had on the population. It also describes clashes between the marines and Iraqi civilians.

"We don't want Saddam, but we don't want them [the Americans] to stay afterwards," says one Iraqi quoted in the article, echoing what other travelers to Iraq have been saying all along. "Like they entered into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar and didn't leave, they will do here. They are fighting Islam. They're entering under the pretext of targeting Ba'ath, but they won't leave." I had expected to hear this sentiment, but not for six months at least.

But the American marines are sympathetic to the plight of the Iraqis:

"I've been all the way through this desert from Basra to here and I ain't seen one shopping mall or fast food restaurant," [Sergeant Michael Sprague of White Sulphur Springs, WV] said. "These people got nothing. Even in a little town like ours of twenty five hundred people you got a McDonald's at one end and a Hardee's at the other."

Administration officials and the President himself worked themselves into a froth this weekend over al-Jazeera’s insistence on showing film of what a war actually looks like, rather than carefully selected and bloodless bomb camera footage. Donald Rumsfeld went so far as to imply that American networks that rebroadcast the al-Jazeera footage might face war crimes charges.

You may support the war or you may be against it, but please do not allow yourself to pretend that it is a bloodless affair in which only the bad guys are killed, maimed, or terrorized.

Al-Jazeera has long talked of offering content in English to a non-Arab audience, and they are now offering translations of some of their reporting online. The site is somewhat slow, is updated only sporadically, and includes only a small portion of the material available to their Arabic-speaking audience. Nevertheless, whatever your political stripe, I cannot urge you strongly enough to have a look at it.

The website claims to offer “objective and balanced news coverage and analysis.” It will be immediately apparent to Western readers that this is not the case. That being said, read the site, and then watch CNN, putting yourself in the perspective of, say, a Palestinian, or a Syrian.

When the US attacked Afghanistan, I was working in Jordan. I had access to a number of news channels, including CNN International and BBC World. The contrast between the two was striking. The BBC’s newscast often opened with footage of houses destroyed by stray bombs, grieving families, and angry villagers. CNN never mentioned such things, but did linger on signs of the Taliban’s oppressive rule, and the general celebration once it was over.

The two channels seemed to show two different countries. One was a place where innocents suffered at the hands of the US military. The other was a place where citizens yearned to be freed from oppression. The country you think represents Afghanistan depends on which television channel you watched. No doubt neither country is the real Afghanistan.

Some people believe CNN presents things the way they do because they are a willing tool of the US government. I do not believe this to be the case. I think they give their viewers what they think their viewers want to see. American viewers want to see how humane Americans are even as they bravely go into battle with unshaven and unambiguous bad guys. Americans want to be moved by the courage of their soldiers and by the virtues of their value system. CNN gives them what they want. And of course, CNN’s reporters are American, too.

It is the same with al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera is the first truly independent Arab television media outlet, but they still need to be relevant to their audience. They both shape and reflect opinion in the Arab world, and that makes them incredibly important.

This war is being prosecuted for the stated purpose of making America more secure. Take a minute to look at the war through an Arab lens, and think about how safe it makes you.

And never again ask, “why do they hate us?”

The White House has released an updated list of coalition partners in "Operation Iraqi Freedom," and far be it from the Far-Flung Ryan-Silva Media Empire to not acknowledge that the list has grown substantially. The new members of the coalition are:

• Costa Rica
  
• Dominican Republic
  
• Honduras
  
• Iceland
  
• Kuwait
  
• Marshall Islands, population less than 75,000
  
• Micronesia, population about 160,000
  
• Mongolia
  
• Palau, population less than 20,000
  
• Panama
  
• Portugal, whose President nevertheless called the war "illegitimate" without a second UN resolution
  
• Rwanda
  
• Singapore
  
• Solomon Islands, population less than 500,000
  
• Uganda
  

In truth, these are probably not new members of the coalition, but are among those unwilling to be named earlier.

The Administration notes that the "number [of partners] is still growing, and it is no accident that many member nations of the Coalition recently escaped from the boot of a tyrant or have felt the scourge of terrorism." It is also no accident that they include the most piss-poor countries on the face of the earth, many of whom, like Micronesia, rely on foreign aid for their very existence.

For months, the President has been saying that America would have the backing of a large number of allies in its war against Iraq. Yesterday the White House released a list of 30 coalition partners, which is actually a pretty impressive number, until you look at the list. The Administration says there are even more, but that we will have to take their word for it because these others asked not to be identified. The Coalition Of The Unwilling To Be Named. A ringing endorsement.

So should Saddam Hussein tremble in the knowledge that Bulgarian legions are arrayed against him; that Lithuanian armor and Eritrean helicopter gunships have him in their sights; that phalanxes from Albania and Uzbekistan will soon march on Basra and Tikrit? No, he need not worry, because these countries will not be providing any troops or equipment. The extent of their contribution is unclear. Will El Salvador be granting overflight rights? Will Estonia donate surplus fire extinguishers to be mounted in the turrets of attacking Abrams tanks to be used in the event of an electrical fire? Will Eritrea be providing little cheese and cracker snacks for the marines, while the Macedonians ship over thermoses of hot tea? The White House isn't saying.

For the past several weeks we have been treated to the diatribe of angry conservatives, outraged that Cameroon, with its vote on the Security Council, has a voice in world affairs, and that mighty America might be forced to stoop to the level of listening to it. Now, after stuffing our fingers in our ears and singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" at the top of our lungs in order to avoid having to hear the opinion of such minnows as China and Russia, we trot Latvia in front of the international community as our evidence that "a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world."

The complete list of the Axis of Good, which was on the State Department website but was apparently pulled when they realized how embarassing it was:

• Afghanistan, whose government’s control does not even extend to all of Kabul
  
• Albania, probably the only country ever to be destabilized by the equivalent of Amway
  
• Australia
  
• Azerbaijan, because it’s sure to raise oil prices
  
• Bulgaria
  
• Colombia, which is in favor of anything that widens the scope of the War on Terrorism
  
• the Czech Republic
  
• Denmark
  
• El Salvador, glad to see us messing with another hemisphere
  
• Eritrea, which figures it doesn't have anything to lose
  
• Estonia
  
• Ethiopia
  
• Georgia
  
• Hungary
  
• Italy, even though 81% of Italians oppose the move
  
• Japan, but not until the war is over
  
• South Korea, who are hoping our troops will run over other countries’ schoolchildren for a change
  
• Latvia
  
• Lithuania
  
• Macedonia
  
• the Netherlands
  
• Nicaragua, once again instrumental in a Republican president's Road Runner cartoon of a Middle East policy
  
• the Philippines
  
• Poland, even though 73% of Poles oppose the move
  
• Romania
  
• Slovakia
  
• Spain, even though 81% of Spaniards oppose the move
  
• Turkey, actually a member of the Coalition Of The Billing
  
• the United Kingdom
  
• Uzbekistan
  

Poll after poll, common sense, and late-night talk show hosts all agree on one thing: the color-coded threat indicator used by the Department of Homeland Security to warn of terrorist risk is confusing and serves only to increase undirected anxiety. But this is an Administration that doesn't make policy based on focus groups. According to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security is considering adding another level to the existing five. They are running out of colors, so they are thinking this one will be added within the orange level. Maybe a burnt sienna?

A summit meeting has just been announced, to be attended by George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It will be held in the Azores, presumably so that Bush can avoid actually having to go to mainland Europe and risk catching Euro-cooties.

Ari Fleischer characterized the talks as "an effort to pursue every last bit of diplomacy." If things get really desperate, the Bush Administration may even go to the lengths of talking to people who don't already agree with them.

Oh dear lord.

Florida Representative Ginny Brown-Waite (do click on the link; the picture is worth a thousand words) has introduced a bill -- her second -- proposing that the US pay to have the remains of slain WWII GIs brought back from France to the United States, because as you are no doubt aware, we don't like the French anymore. According to CNN:

Brown-Waite, a freshman Republican, said she decided to sponsor the bill after she was approached by a constituent who said he wanted to bring home his father, who was killed in World War II and buried in France.

No doubt this man's father and thousands of his slain colleagues, who died in terror in the chaos of Normandy, would want their remains picked up and moved after 50 years in order to express pique at France's suggestion that perhaps we ought to think carefully before starting a war that few are convinced is necessary.

The American Legion is looking at the legislation, but their spokesman noted that "a lot of people may not want to repatriate their fallen loved ones, separating them from their comrades, to make a statement about the French government."

The University of Maryland has released a new survey measuring public opinion in Arab countries with respect to the US. The results, while not very surprising, are pretty striking, for example, in the view of 97% of Saudis, 87% of Moroccans, 81% of Lebanese, 74% of Egyptians and 78% of Jordanians, war in Iraq will bring more terrorism. It is worth a look.

I read a couple of paragraphs in Charles Tripp’s A History of Iraq tonight that hint at some of the complexity of politics in Iraq’s Kurdish north, and which may give a foretaste of what the US is getting into.

A little background: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) are Kurdish groups with a long history of animosity toward one another.

In December 1994, the PUK forces seized Arbil and the administration of the region ground to a halt. Attempts by interested outside parties, particularly the United States, to bring the two sides together seemed to have little effect and by the end of 1995 the death toll of the sporadic fighting between the two sides had reached into the thousands. Despite the economic and human cost of the conflict, neither the KDP nor the PUK seemed able to reconcile their differences, seizing instead upon every point at dispute to drive home their case, backed up by force of arms. In these circumstances, it was inevitable that the parties should look beyond the Kurdish region for allies to help them. Initially, the KDP looked to Turkey, providing assistance for several massive and prolonged incursions by Turkish troops during these years as the Turkish armed forces tried to destroy units of the PKK (the radical Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey). Meanwhile, the PUK cultivated Iran, despite earlier misgivings, as the power best placed to lend them immediate support.

Nor had either party neglected to keep a channel open to Baghdad. This served the KDP well when, in the summer of 1996, Iranian forces entered the territories of the PUK allegedly in pursuit of units of the KDP-I (the Kurdish autonomy movement in Iran). Accusing the PUK of enlisting Iranian military support, the KDP turned to Baghdad and asked for military assistance from the Iraqi government. Within a short space of time, 30,000 Iraqi had entered the Kurdish region, helping the KDP to capture Arbil from the PUK and taking the opportunity to hunt down opponents of the Iraqi regime who had taken refuge there.

So to recap, that’s the KDP fighting the PKK in order to curry favor with the Turks. The PUK, frightened by the KDP’s links to Turkey, then turn to Iran, who enter PUK territories to chase down members of the KDP-I, leading the KDP (not allied with the KDP-I, by the way) to ask Baghdad to come and invade.

This kind of thing won't last, of course, because when we invade, they will all unite in their love of American values. Just like when we went into Lebanon in 1982 and Somalia in 1993.

The Times of London is running a story on a speech that George H.W. Bush (Bush the Elder) gave at Tufts University recently. In it, he seems to be critical of the unilateralism of his son's foreign policy. This is extraordinary, since the Bushes have made a point of emphasizing that Bush the Elder does not interfere with the presidency of Bush the Younger. Both the Times and the Washington Post interpret it as a deliberate message to Bush the Younger.

An entry a few days ago referred to documents that the US had provided to the IAEA about Iraq's nuclear weapons program and which turned out to be fake. According to the Washington Post, the FBI is now investigating the matter, although they are not really sure they have jurisdiction. The working theory is that a third country that has an interest in promoting a US war in Iraq faked the documents and provided them to the US as genuine. The only two such countries I can think of with such an interest are Iran and Israel.

When the story first broke, I speculated as to whether the US intelligence agencies were so sloppy as to get taken in by the forgeries or knew they were fake and provided them anyway. It seems it was the latter; the article says the CIA had questions about the accuracy of the documents and so did not deem them credible enough to include in its own file on the Iraqi nuclear program.

Demonstrating once again the foreign policy sophistication of the Republican-held House of Representatives, the House cafeteria has renamed its french fries and french toast "freedom fries" and "freedom toast." The French, who take great pride in their fries and toast, are no doubt deeply wounded by this clever barb.

Meanwhile, Rep. Barney Frank asks, "If China vetoes [the war resolution], what are we going to call Chinese checkers?"

Anyone for a heaping plate of General Franks's Chicken?

CNN.com is running kind of an odd story about how the cable news networks are underreporting the weakness of the case about links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. It’s true, of course, but couldn’t they just start reporting properly instead of writing about how they aren’t?

From Selling an Iraq-al Qaeda connection:

While some members of al Qaeda could be operating out of Iraq, intelligence and investigative sources said there is evidence the group also operates out of Iran and Pakistan. And while there is evidence Iraqi officials might have helped al Qaeda years ago, the same case could be made for Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi officials.
…
In a February CNN-Time poll, 76 percent of those surveyed felt Saddam provides assistance to al Qaeda. Another poll released in February asked, "Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?" Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made and for which there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very or somewhat likely.

And there are more stories in the press today of the, “oh, crap, we aren’t really going to do this, are we?” variety. The Washington Post says that the Army is getting jittery about what it is being asked to do.

The U.S. Army is bracing both for war in Iraq and a postwar occupation that could tie up two to three Army divisions in an open-ended mission that would strain the all-volunteer force and put soldiers in the midst of warring ethnic and religious factions, Army officers and other senior defense officials say.

While the officers believe a decade of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans and now Afghanistan makes the Army uniquely qualified for the job, they fear that bringing democracy and stability to Iraq may be an impossible task.

That’s funny: I would have brought up Somalia and Afghanistan as examples of them not being very good at it.

The Post also reports that Islamic scholars at al-Azhar University, generally considered to be the center of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, have called for jihad against the West if an attack on Iraq proceeds. That’s OK, the Shi’i will like us, right?

In another sign that the Wolfowitz plan for winning over the Arab world is making inroads, the new hit tune sweeping the Arab world is Shaaban Abdel-Rahim’s “the Attack on Iraq,” featuring such lyrics as, “Iraq, too, after Afghanistan? Nobody knows tomorrow, whose turn will come next." The Shaaban’s last big hit was equally subtle: I can attest that “I Hate Israel” was massively popular in Egypt and Jordan.

Over the weekend it emerged that the documents the US presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as evidence of continuing Iraqi efforts to obtain fissionable material were forged. Nobody is accusing the US of having forged them; the theory is that some intelligence source sold bogus documents to the US. But the weapons inspectors, who the US is accusing of being unsophisticated, caught the “relatively crude errors” in the documents with little difficulty.

This indicates one of two things, both of them unpalatable. Either the current policy is being made based on intelligence that is highly suspect – after all, if the intelligence services were taken in by these forgeries, other intelligence must also be open to serious question – or the US knew the documents were forged and handed them over to the inspectors anyway, hoping they would not notice.

In the meantime, there was yet another story in the press this weekend indicating that Iran’s nuclear program is “very advanced.” Iran, of course, also has much stronger ties to terrorist groups than Iraq ever dreamed of. And unlike the groups Iraq supports, these are not Palestinian groups fighting Israel, but Islamist groups. Ever heard of Hezbollah? You will.

Time’s cover story this week is Life After Saddam, which succinctly summarizes some of the likely pitfalls of the current policy:

The toughest challenge would be how and when to cede political control back to the Iraqis. There are no good blueprints for transforming an authoritarian regime into a democratic one. But Iraq has special disadvantages. Many experts on Iraq, both in the Arab world and the West, fear that the U.S. is glossing over the realities of imposing democracy on a country that is deeply tribal, vengeful and embittered. The vacuum left by a collapse of Saddam's iron-fisted order could ignite power struggles and vendetta killings that could trigger long-term civil strife or even the breakup of the country.
…
Across the region, Arabs simply don't buy it. They don't trust Bush, and they're deeply skeptical of American attempts to impose democracy by force. Even if things could change for the better, says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, "one would have to be truly naive to believe that the current U.S. Administration will invest serious efforts in promoting good governance in the region." Among Arabs, the vision of a postwar Middle East is filled with dread. Many are convinced that a war would breed regional instability and spark a fresh burst of anti-American rage. Terrorist ranks would find fresh recruits to spread violence across the region. Fundamentalist forces could provoke crackdowns that stifle any political opening. Or if regimes allowed a tenuous democracy, well-organized fundamentalists could come to power. "The consequences of war," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal tells TIME, "are going to be tragic."

The Lebanaization of Iraq has started already -- fun! According to the Washington Post (Iran-Backed Militia Seen Moving Into Iraqi Kurdish Zone), the Badr brigade, an Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia, is moving into Iraq so as not to miss any of the coming war, or its aftermath.

Estimates of the Badr Brigade's overall strength range from 5,000 to 30,000, but Kurdish officials say that only several hundred have arrived at this little town 40 miles south of Sulaymaniyah and 11 miles west of the Iranian border. The brigade's overall leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said in an interview last month at his Tehran headquarters that most of the militia is already living in Iraq, ready to retrieve hidden weapons and spring into action at a moment's notice.
…
Unlike Turkey, which is preparing to send tens of thousands of troops into northern Iraq in the event of war to guarantee its interests, Iran has made no move to involve itself directly. But it has hosted the Badr Brigade since 1983 and made clear that it, too, has interests in Iraq.

"If anyone is seen dabbling, the Iranians will dabble, too," said a foreign diplomat in Tehran.
…
Hakim also termed "dangerous" a U.S. plan to install an American general as governor of Iraq while a transitional government is put in place.

We haven't had Iran-backed Shi'i groups rubbing shoulders with American troops since Beirut in 1982. Don't you think Bush is taking this whole wanting-to-be-Reagan thing kind of far?

On the bright side, this presages a wonderful opportunity for a new generation of Americans to familiarize itself with the word “Ayatollah.”

In these trying times, I try to keep up with the news, and I check CNN.com frequently. As such, I’d like to bring your attention to a few items that may have escaped your notice.

There are those who accuse CNN of accepting anything it is fed and regurgitating it for the public, leaving a foul-smelling pile of undigested propaganda coated with a thin, glistening film of legitimacy. An outrageous allegation, as witnessed by the following:

“Though no official records are kept of such finds, a spokeswoman for Frito-Lay said she doesn't recall such a big Chee-to ever making it through the rigorous quality control process since the company began making them 55 years ago. A rare thing indeed because snackers devour billions of Chee-tos every year. More than 3 million bags are made daily, making the tasty treat almost synonymous with America."

Doesn't sound like a press release to me.

Another item you may have missed:

Bush’s Muslim Propaganda Chief Quits

I should point out that this is the actual headline, not some kind of political statement on my part. It's sloppy syntax; neither the propaganda chief nor her propaganda was Muslim.

After September 11, many in America asked, “why do they hate us?” There was a brief flurry of genuine interest in this question, and then the nation realized there was a Friends rerun on, and lost interest. The State Department, though, took action before turning their attention to the antics of Ross, Rachel and the gang. They hired Charlotte Beers, the ad executive who made Uncle Ben’s rice famous, to put together a campaign for the Muslim world to explain to them what we all know: America is swell.

Some rather lengthy TV spots were produced, but none of the state-run TV networks in the Arab world was willing to show them. Those ads which did make it to the Arab public failed to make an impression. Ms. Beers was made to resign.

As a US official quoted in the article remarks, “She didn't do anything that worked.” Incompetent bitch.

I hear some left-wing wackos in the State Department are working on a theory that the credibility of the campaign may have been undermined by the presence of 250,000 US troops poised to invade Iraq. Crazy liberals.

I think very highly of what I think. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I choose to think that you will, too. And that is the essence of blogging.

“Blog” is short for “weblog.” According to Wikipedia as of today:

“Weblogs are often-updated sites that point to articles elsewhere on the web, often with comments, and to on-site articles. A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know.”

This is a very charitable description. Most blogs are egotistical paeans to their author, with little of value or interest to anyone other than the author and perhaps the author's dog.

Hard to believe I didn’t get into this earlier.