Friday, October 31, 2003
[posted by jaed at 5:44 PM]Hanson sums things up
This week's NRO column from Victor Davis Hanson reviews the latest manifestations of anti-Semitism, and summarizes the situation with admirable pithiness:
These are weird, weird times, and before we win this messy war against Islamic fascism and its sponsors, count on things to get even uglier.Yeah.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
[posted by jaed at 6:48 PM]UN [in]security planning
Via Random Jottings, this report on UN security problems in Iraq - which may have made the bombing of the building more likely and more damaging:
The panel said the organization had failed to assess thoroughly security in Iraq or respond to warnings, including intelligence reports that said the headquarters could be a target of an attack.This is the sort of thing that tempts me to wax sarcastic about people who say we should turn Iraq over to the UN. This, plus the fact that after the bombing the UN turned tail and ran (and what consequences would that have had if they were running the country?), plus the larger and more important question of why anyone would suggest throwing Iraq to the wolves at this point... I am in danger of ranting.
United Nations officials, the panel said, also dismissed offers of protection from the United States coalition in Baghdad.
[...]
"The security awareness," the report said, "did not match the hostile environment."
(I must track down the original report and see whether it discusses the UN's incomprehensible practice of hiring Baathists as security guards. These people used to work for Saddam's Information Ministry, and therefore worked as minders with the UN, so they knew these people from the Baath days... but surely someone realized that hiring from this group might not be the brightest idea they'd ever had?)
Saturday, October 18, 2003
[posted by jaed at 11:48 AM]Historical note:
Instapundit today points out this evaluation of the occupation, given in a confidential talk by John Foster Dulles in December 1945. As with the 1946 Life article by John Dos Passos, it provides some fascinating insights into parallels and differences from Iraq at a similar chronological stage.
But apart from its general merit as a historical document, I noticed this bit (emphasis mine):
It is difficult to say what is going on, but in general the Russians are acting little better than thugs. They have wiped out all the liquid assets. No food cards are issued to Germans, who are forced to travel on foot into the Russian zone, often more dead than alive. An iron curtain has descended over the fate of these people and very likely conditions are truly terrible. The promises at Yalta to the contrary, probably 8 to 10 million people are being enslaved.The "iron curtain" phrase has generally been attributed to Churchill, in a speech the following year. Did Dulles originate it? Or was it in general circulation this early?
It's trivial next to the overall import of what the document is talking about, of course, but it caught my eye.
