The tour begins....
Aug. 28th, 2003 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipNews
Last night I went to the Dili agricultural show. It was really quite impressive for a country that has next to nothing, for the palm and bamboo huts to built and prize animals, various foodtuffs, arts and craftwork to be put on display from districts all over the country. Just getting to Dili is hard enough for some of these people. There were a couple of thousand people present and a fine theatre performance put on by my friends in "Bibi Bulak" (the Crazy Goats).
In half an hours' time, I'm departing East Timor for Bali. Of course, I'm taking the laptop along so I can finish off a few bits and pieces for work and my thesis. But apart from that I've packed my worldly goods and possessions. I didn't come with much and I'm not leaving with much either. The only substantial addition has been a Balinese wood carved chess set which unfolds from a briefcase (complete with handle) into a beautiful chess table. I can take this thing around the world. I've discovered (and I thank a certain Wendy for this) that I actually want for very little in this world. The past year has proven that I can live quite happily with little more than fine food, a roof and a dodgy Internet connection.
On a less fortunate note, I just received a personal invitation to the Australian Embassy for a function for an Australian federal parliamentary delegation. Heading the delegation is Bill Hefferman. Damn shame that I'll be away for said function. I would have donned a nice frock and annoyed the hell out him all night given the opportunity.
Frivolity
Being Paul Newman I can handle. Biting tyggerjai is something I must apologise for.
Seriousness
Tariq Ali, one the more sensible Troskyites around, states all the commonsense things that the spindoctors avoid.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/25/1061663732767.html
A particularly good quote:
"And one day when the children of dead Iraqis and Americans ask why their parents died? The answer will come:
because the politicians lied.
And of course, for us astronomy buffs, Mars is nearby. One of my favourite planets, I must admit.
Last night I went to the Dili agricultural show. It was really quite impressive for a country that has next to nothing, for the palm and bamboo huts to built and prize animals, various foodtuffs, arts and craftwork to be put on display from districts all over the country. Just getting to Dili is hard enough for some of these people. There were a couple of thousand people present and a fine theatre performance put on by my friends in "Bibi Bulak" (the Crazy Goats).
In half an hours' time, I'm departing East Timor for Bali. Of course, I'm taking the laptop along so I can finish off a few bits and pieces for work and my thesis. But apart from that I've packed my worldly goods and possessions. I didn't come with much and I'm not leaving with much either. The only substantial addition has been a Balinese wood carved chess set which unfolds from a briefcase (complete with handle) into a beautiful chess table. I can take this thing around the world. I've discovered (and I thank a certain Wendy for this) that I actually want for very little in this world. The past year has proven that I can live quite happily with little more than fine food, a roof and a dodgy Internet connection.
On a less fortunate note, I just received a personal invitation to the Australian Embassy for a function for an Australian federal parliamentary delegation. Heading the delegation is Bill Hefferman. Damn shame that I'll be away for said function. I would have donned a nice frock and annoyed the hell out him all night given the opportunity.
Frivolity
Being Paul Newman I can handle. Biting tyggerjai is something I must apologise for.
| My LiveJournal Sitcom |
|---|
| tcpip! (WB, 5:00): tcpip (Paul Newman) bites tyggerjai (Glenn Close). The next day, lefae (Breckin Meyer)'s new friend alienates v3nu5 (Laura Linney). In the next town over, revoltingjam (Gates McFadden) gets a job as secretary to drzero (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Upstairs, pr0zak (Jaime Pressly) and severina_242 (Cuba Gooding Jr.) don't believe in chess. Afterwards, pinque (Mia Sara) and 17catherines (Vivian Hsu) find a lost parakeet at a high school. (Series finale.) |
| What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern) |
Seriousness
Tariq Ali, one the more sensible Troskyites around, states all the commonsense things that the spindoctors avoid.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/25/1061663732767.html
A particularly good quote:
"And one day when the children of dead Iraqis and Americans ask why their parents died? The answer will come:
because the politicians lied.
And of course, for us astronomy buffs, Mars is nearby. One of my favourite planets, I must admit.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
happy trails to you
Date: 2003-08-28 06:30 am (UTC)i'm in VA (Violent Agreement) with you on being quite happily with little more than fine food, a roof and a dodgy Internet connection.
wishing you all the best from prague,
geoff
Re: happy trails to you
Date: 2003-08-28 08:42 am (UTC)Hi Geoff,
Well here I am in beautiful Sanur (Bali) with a very dodgy internet connection, but plenty of fine food.
I like the theme of the book. One life. Three score and ten. Do it (no, not Nike, Jerry Rubin).
There's a similar "science fiction" one by Lisa Goldstein called The Dream Years (you'll excuse me for not posting a url link). It comes with the backcover slogan..
If you live your dreams, you can remake the world
Hope to come to Prague one day and check out your bar!
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 09:26 am (UTC)I enjoyed the Tariq Ali article. I've been waiting for some comment from you about how Sergio Vieira de Mello is viewed in ET. I guess his position there was less ambiguous than in Iraq, but of course he wasn't exactly there to help the country build socialism. In Iraq he was both in charge of the 'humanitarian' agencies like UNICEF and UNDP and carrying out Security Council policies aimed at legitimizing an occupation rather than undoing one.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 01:03 am (UTC)Another thing we have in common - a liking for Mars. Apparently it is my ruling planet if you believe in that stuff.
Happy holidaying
no subject
Date: 2003-08-30 08:25 am (UTC)OK, now in Sinapore. a href="http://www.the-inncrowd.com/">The Inn Crowd, rocks verily. So does Singapore airlines. The food was actually good and they provided half-decent French wine with the meal. Not too sloppy for economy class!
More smart-alec than smart
Date: 2003-09-05 06:09 am (UTC)Guilty of the same exaggeration that he is (overstating) about others. And clearly subject to Albert Langer’s critique – since when is the left in favour of fascism?
Iraq is ‘worse’ in sense of it doesn’t have order imposed by terror. It has terrorism, but not terror. It also has something it didn’t have before – the chance of a decent dispensation evolving. Also, post-dictatorship states are often a law-and-order shambles to some extent.
The term ‘recolonisation’ is hardly appropriate. Nor has it been established that Dubya, Blair or Howard lied. For Iraq to either possess WMDs or have program(s) to develop them were both breaches of the 1991 truce and Security Council resolutions. The programs to develop them have firmly been established. The apparent exaggeration of Iraq’s actual WMD holdings was a mistake made by all the intelligence services, French and Russian included. People also conveniently forget that Saddam gave every impression of having something to hide (which he did, the development programs).
If his depiction of 'establishment' unhappiness is correct, I suspect it is more a clash between Gladestonian confidence (an Iraqi democracy can be built) and Salisburian diffidence (too risky, don't bother).
Moreover, low-level guerrilla wars are almost always lost by the guerrillas. This conflict is a mix of predictable resistance by Sunni elements to the looming end of their domination of Iraq and terror by al-Qaeda, both of whom are desperate to stop any danger of a democratic Iraq.
Re: More smart-alec than smart
Date: 2003-09-05 08:37 am (UTC)since when is the left in favour of fascism?
It isn't. Opposing the invasion does not mean supporting Saddam. It was the peace movement and human rights groups which initially started pointing out what sort of regime Hussein was running. The ruling class at the time thought he was the best kid on the bloc. I have some choice quotes from The Australian circa 1984 on this. Let's see what the conservative press thought of Hussein's facism:
The Australian, Monday 26 March 1984, page 5. The villain was identified not as Iraq (Friend-of-the-Month at the time) but as Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran (Enemy-of-the-Month at the time).
The story claimed that "Iranians said to have been victims of mustard gas attacks in the Gulf war may only have been victims of a factory blast".
These imposters were "allegedly dressed in soldiers uniforms and sent to the West by Ayatollah Khomeini in order to whip up anti-Iraqi sentiment and, possibly, provide justification for a chemical attack by Iran".
The Australian quoted an unnamed "Iranian refugee, living in Paris", who "saw as many as 50 burned workers, still wearing overalls from the national petrol company, arriving at a military hospital in Tehran".
The Australian's prize source, the unnamed "Iranian refugee, living in Paris", claimed that "the Ayatollah ordered the men be dressed in army uniforms and sent abroad for treatment".
2. It published speculations that the evidence of chemical warfare was really "massive defecation flights" of honey-bees. Seriously.
See for example "It's honey-bees not yellow rain", The Australian, 30 March 1984, page 7, in which The Australian quotes "a Harvard University biologist", Professor Matthew Meselson, who "discovered that wild colonies of South-East Asian honey-bees perform massive defecation flights which can cover a swath thousands of square metres in area, with 100 or more spots of yellowish faeces per square metre."
A load of shit, in other words.
Re: More smart-alec than smart
Date: 2003-09-05 08:39 am (UTC)3. It extolled Saddam Hussein's virtues.
See for example "The Gulf War", The Weekend Australian, 31 March 1984, page 8.
The article claims that Saddam Hussein is "a brilliant orator; one diplomat in Baghdad says he speaks Arabic the way de Gaulle spoke French. He also has the politician's touch: Iraqi television endlessly depicts him cuddling babies and making jokes."
The Australian spoke of Saddam's "conspicuous concern for the Shi'ite community by ordering the renovation of shrines in the holy Shi'ite cities of Karbala and Najaf, at a cost of more than $200 million".
In a long hymn of praise to the Ba'ath Party, The Australian noted that it "courted popularity since it came to power in 1968 by enforcing land-reform laws and using Iraq's huge oil wealth (before the war it was the second biggest Arab oil producer) to improve living standards."
"Villages have been electrified, schools built, an adult literacy campaign launched and a free health service established. Unemployment has been abolished by official decree and by creating unproductive jobs. There is little visible poverty."
"Iraqi women are better treated than in many other Arab countries. In the towns, women wander around freely in revealing Western clothes. More women are going to university and getting responsible jobs."
"As in Europe and the United States during World War II, the departure of men for the battlefront has opened up jobs for women."
"For the first two years of the war, the Government continued to pour money into development projects and subsidies on consumer goods".
Other positives that The Australian saw in Saddam Hussein were that "[c]onsumer goods remain[ed] a priority: the Government does not want an uncomfortable, discontented population. It imports large amounts of luxury foods; frozen chickens from Brazil, for instance. The United States has provided $400 million worth of grain which is not yet paid for."
"Food distribution within Iraq is being liberalised: peasants are now allowed to sell their produce privately, rather than through the state distribution system. Last year cucumbers were the only vegetable regularly available in Baghdad. This year, almost all locally grown foods are available."
"The Government makes sure the army is kept happy. Soldiers are getting fat on generous rations. They are well paid, and their families get cheap housing. Military heroes get material rewards like free cars and houses. War widows are given handsome pensions."
4. When The Australian discussed chemical weapons, it did not single out Iraq.
See for example "Bans and revulsion have not stopped use of chemical weapons", The Australian, 18 April 1984.
The article reported that Egypt reportedly used a Soviet-supplied nerve agent in Yemen between 1963 and 1967. There are continuing reports, which the Soviets have denied and some Western scientists questioned, that the Soviets are using mycotoxins in South-East and South-West Asia".
The article did not even mention Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The article did not even mention the word Iraq in the story.
5. It editorialised in the most general terms about the need for an "investigatory body consisting of scientists from the more genuinely non-aligned and neutral nations". Nowadays, of course, it wants nothing to do with "scientists from the more genuinely non-aligned and neutral nations".
See for example, "World must act on chemical warfare"; The Australian, Monday 12 March 1984. An excerpt: "But if there were an international tribunal or investigatory body consisting of scientists from the more genuinely non-aligned and neutral nations, there would be the possibility of confirming or refuting any allegations concerning the use of poisonous gas and other obnoxious methods of warfare. This in itself may not stop the most callous and reckless of governments but it would act as some restraint against a proliferation of chemical warfare."
Re: More smart-alec than smart
Date: 2003-09-05 08:39 am (UTC)Nor has it been established that Dubya, Blair or Howard lied.
The onus of proof is on them to prove that the didn't. They made the assertion. They must prove the proposition. Where's the weapons? Where's the programs? How about that 45 minutes? Or are we going to reduce ourselves to the ultimate sophism:
"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."
Ari Fleischer, on July 9.
The apparent exaggeration of Iraq’s actual WMD holdings was a mistake made by all the intelligence services, French and Russian included.
No. You're going to have to trust me on this, but no. The intelligence services told the respective governments the truth. The respective governments ignored or in the modern parlance "sexed up" the claims. This was not a case of intelligence failure, because the intelligence services told the truth as they had researched it (and they were correct). This is a case of political failure.
And the war, despite Bush's claims to the contrary, continues. And people will continue to die. For oil.