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Saturday, April 19, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:34 AM:
Here they come, your French news headlines:Le Monde: American presence in Iraq criticized - by the surrounding thugocracies. We at the TurkeyBlog are devastated by their lack of confidence in us.
Le Figaro: Retirement: The Government's 38 Measures. They're public now, so the people can even make an informed block-by-block calculation as to what neighborhoods they would like to inhabit.
Libération: "The Americans are a lesser evil."
Ouest-France: It will be necessary to work harder and save better says French mucky-muck
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posted by gbarto at 2:20 AM:
Iraqi Finance Minister Captured in BaghdadAnd a scientist possibly connected to VX has turned himself in. If we keep at it, even if Saddam's just on the lam, he won't have any strings left to pull and we will be as good as rid of him.
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Friday, April 18, 2003
posted by gbarto at 10:53 AM:
Saddam's Possible Last StandAbu Dhabi TV says video shows Iraqi leader in Baghdad crowd on April 9
There's the link for the video story. Though, as I note below, it's irrelevant at this point.
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posted by gbarto at 10:49 AM:
Pleasures of the moment: For Christmas, I received two audio books which I've just been getting to, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. I've subsequently found - on a Barnes and Noble bargain rack, Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Both are acquired tastes, perhaps, but the late Adams and the ever-living (much to multiple Ayatollah's chagrin) Rushdie are two of the brighter spots in contemporary British fiction. The Rushdie book is every bit as absurd as most of his other works, but comes together much better than the Satanic Verses, though I'm not sure it quite compares to Midnight's Children. But in this performance of The Ground Beneath Her Feet, the actor (Cazenove?) does a superb job in spinning the tale of a photojournalist and the female rock star with whom he - and everyone else - is obsessed. Another novel where East meets West, the commentary is hip, the story delightfully awful. Click the link to buy or look for it at Barnes and Noble in the discount racks.While the plug continues, I'll put in a special pitch for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. While Douglas Adams is best known for the wild and crazy Hitchiker series, it is these two books that see his postmodern outlook become most ridiculously serious and seriously ridiculous, here that he turns from what Douglas Adams can dream up to what we, the human race, already have. Dirk Gently is a masterpiece, revealing a dimension to the poetry of Coleridge that even doctoral candidates have probably never heard in seminar - a loss to their profession. The Long Dark Teatime gives a riff on quantum physics that is quarky, even by that profession's standards. With electric monks, horses in bathrooms and improbable Norse gods stalking this earth, the two books offer a carnival of bizarre ideas that come together for fun and fascinating stories.
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posted by gbarto at 10:21 AM:
The AOL headlines say Saddam is showing on a video on Abu Dhabi television that is one week old.I'd say our work is well accomplished. Alive or dead, if it takes Saddam a week to get something on the air, he's defunct, finished, over and gone. All that remains is to determine whether we need to size a coffin or a prison uniform. A week ago, if the French had given him a nice villa on the Riviera provided he called off the fighting and agreed never to cast his grimy shadow over Iraq, I would have said fine. But, well, once you're totally defeated their are no points for conceding. Given that Pres. Bush is probably of a much less open mind on these matters than I, the chance for asylum passed much longer ago. In any case, run the video, Abu Dhabi TV. TV ratings are the only place Saddam makes a difference anymore.
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posted by gbarto at 3:05 AM:
Very interesting Dick Morris column on the downfall of old media - as out of touch as old Europe - on account of their war coverage. (via Cicero)* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:52 AM:
Long Den Beste piece on CNN and the media's trustworthiness.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:39 AM:
So... Rummy thinks we won't find weapons without Irai help (link), the war's winding down (link) and Bechtel's got the contract to start rebuilding Iraq (link). But we know what you're really thinking... You're wondering what, if anything, the French have to say! So here are your French headlines, the top stories on the internet sites for four leading newspapers.Le Monde: Rights of man "negotiated" at UN.
After having given up on condemning Russian repression in Chechnya and the authoritarian regime of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Wednesday, April 16, the Human Rights Commission proved itself forgiving toward Cuba and Fidel Castro's regime, Thursday, April 17. But it found two new targets: White Russia and North Korea, which don't have active supporters among the 53 members of the Commission.In other words, even Le Monde knows that a lot of what the UN does is a pure and simple sham.
Le Figaro: Union Anger Rises Over Retirement Issue.
Libé: Europe wishes to make peace with Bush. Gee, a week ago it sounded like they were ready to burn him in effigy at the just completed Athens summit.
Ouest-France: Retirement: the unions say no - to the latest series of reforms proposed.
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Thursday, April 17, 2003
posted by gbarto at 4:05 AM:
Here's an excellent post by Den Beste that has greater detail on the facts surrounding France's (and the world's) position in Iraqi reconstruction. My short note is with the headline from Libération.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:47 AM:
Speaking of France (see below), here come your French news headlines:Le Monde: Iraqi Oil Divides UN. Front and center, Bush's call for an end to sanctions and the difficulty getting the UNSC to work together on anything. Further down:
[W]hile the deployment of American troops on the ground gives the US control in fact which would allow them to fashion the future of Iraq according to their design, it appears highly unlikely that the UNSC would accept relinquishing this key [the right to control oil distribution under "Food for Oil"], one of the few at its disposal for influencing the course of events.No mention, ahem, of France's economic interest in whether or not its exclusive deal with Saddam will be honored in this story.
Le Figaro: Pneumopathy [i.e. SARS]: The World Mobilizes to Conquer the Virus.
Libération: The "Peace Camp" wants to get together in the aftermath. And check out this subhead: "With respect to reconstruction, France and Germany will handle the US carefully from now on." The verb is "ménager" and here are summaries of your Larousse translations: 1) to be sparing with [money], 2) to treat or handle carefully, 3) to spare [one's pride, sensibilities, feelings; i.e. to humor one] and 4) to organize, manage. Looking at my Petit Robert, the definitions run from accomodation to outright indulgence. It's interesting that they picked this verb, as it makes the US a thing to be handled by Europe and carries the implication that we are a problem or we pose difficulties that must be dealt with. Absent is the idea of partnership; all but completely gone missing is the notion that the US must be approached as being in a superior position in fact. Libé, of course, is not France. But it captures a certain French attitude.
As a specialist in Hugo, I have to do a little reading, a little history, etc. One thing that strikes is the conviction of some Frenchmen (Hugo among them) that it was vital that France have a healthy democratic society or the world would have none to look to. In Paris, L'Avenir he dreamed of a democratic society where everybody had access to property, to freedom and to influence over their governance. He presumably failed to notice that a continent away they were busily working at it and were well ahead of the French, who had taken breaks for two monarchies, two empires and a military dictatorship in the middle of their great democracy experiment. Why they took these detours which held them back on their quest to be the exemplary nation eludes us, as their superior nature should surely have helped them to do otherwise, but France is, nonetheless, the exemplary nation only in its own mind and these views of self-superiority, which have already kept it from having a say in the war risk taking away its say in the peace to follow. The exemplary nation is, for good or ill, confronted with a nation that has the resolve, the force and the funds to make up for its lack of innate superiority, and the French are going to have to learn this.
Ouest-France: A Europe, 25 strong, born yesterday in Athens. About the enlargement of the EU, of course.
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posted by gbarto at 3:07 AM:
I think I linked to this - or something like it - a little earlier. No matter, it's still great to see in print:Oil Cutoff Likely to Hamper Syria's Economy, Government
Will Paris be next?
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posted by gbarto at 3:06 AM:
Bush Wants Iraq Sanctions LiftedPresident also signs war spending bill
But France and others probably don't want this, as it will remove economic questions from the purview of the UN and deny them a forum in which to try to get their hand on the wealth of cheap oil that whose theft from the Iraqi people they had negotiated with the previous regime.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:11 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Europe Celebrates Its Enlargement. They're getting ready to informally add 10 countries (the formalities get wrapped up next year) and there's a minisummit in Greece tomorrow/today for the occasion.
Le Figaro: Coalition Faces After War Problems. Notably, figuring out how the new government's going to work. Plans are in place for opposition leaders to work out who will take the reins.
Libé: The US Captures Palestinian Chief Abu Abbas in Iraq. Palestinian chief? Well, yes, the taking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer were effected by the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front.
Ouest-France: Double Meeting At Athens - for the EU and for incoming members.
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posted by gbarto at 1:44 AM:
Glad to see this bastard caught. I remember that time, remember Leon Klinghoffer's awful death. Christian charity prevents me from wishing that he be treated as he would treat a prominent Westerner in his captivity, but, well, I'll have no hard feelings if they make the prick squeal a little for all he's done. Here's your headline:Terrorist Abu Abbas Captured
Leader of Palestinian group that killed an American on hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 now in U.S. custody
I like this headline too:
Cutoff of Iraqi Oil Likely to Hurt Syria
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Tuesday, April 15, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:05 AM:
Horrors! Virginia Postrel has found a town without any Starbucks.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:55 AM:
Natalie Solent has some good thoughts on love and the foreign scene.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:17 AM:
HEAVY COMBAT PHASE OVER;POSTWAR PLANNING TO BEGIN
Well, the Iraqi military turned out to be a lot less formidable than the biggest worriers feared (hoped?). However, the strength of Iraq's force was not really relevant except if sufficient to inhibit our ability to act and to exist in the world if we challenged them. Otherwise, the cause is either just or it is not. Realpolitik should not motivate us to unjust causes, merely to pragmatism in the face of the unjust. In the end, that sentiment isn't just idealism; it's the reality of what one faces if one wishes to act effectively for the good of our fellow human beings.
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Monday, April 14, 2003
posted by gbarto at 10:17 AM:
Here's your good news for the day:Fierce Fighting in Tikrit Fizzles Out
U.S. troops in peaceful center of city
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posted by gbarto at 10:15 AM:
Steven Waldman makes the point in Slate that Franklin Graham - son of Billy - probably shouldn't be doing the Lord's work in Iraq, at least not until he's shown that he can put his desire to convert Muslims and help Christianity beat out Islam on the backburner if it risks alienating those he would help and heightening suspicions among the Iraqis as to whether we're liberating them or on a crusade. He's right. And the Bush administration should be leaning of Graham to stay away. But Waldman does have one good way for Graham to make an impact, and if truth be told, I think it's a better way not only to approach things but to make Iraq a better evangelizing ground for Graham five or ten years down the road: a hefty check from Graham's group, Samaritan Purse, to Red Crescent. This would do more to show a genuine committment to helping - and a reason for Islam to listen to Christianity's message - than any amount of offers to help those willing to come to a sermon.Islam, curiously, has often converted people at the point of a sword. Christianity, thankfully, gave that up centuries ago. Giving starving people the impression that food and Christianity go hand in hand would be a symbolic revival of the practice with life dependent upon openness to a different religion. We shouldn't go there.
Update: Cicero totally disagrees.
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posted by gbarto at 5:06 AM:
Saddam's Half Brother NabbedThere's this and much more good news - rescued soldiers, looting slowing, etc. But work remains to be done and the next phase is unclear, though as I note below, we're apparently not going for Syria right away. More tomorrow, should blogger cooperate, now that thehugopages.com are up and running in their newest incarnation.
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posted by gbarto at 5:01 AM:
Here are your French news headlines:Le Monde: Iraq: Entering Tikrit, Stabilizing Baghdad. Tikrit, of course, is the original home area of Saddam.
Le Figaro: The Coalition Close to Total Control in Iraq.
Libé: Syria "is not" the next target. So says British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. But it can't be healthy for Syria that it has to have the rumors swatted down.
Ouest-France: GIs enter Tikrit.
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posted by gbarto at 4:34 AM:
Back at last after much fussing elsewhere on gbarto.com and - sort of - off gbarto.com. The Hugo Pages are now launched under www.thehugopages.com - a redirect to the gbarto.com site, but a chance to have something other than an obviously personal web site on my business cards, etc.* * *
Sunday, April 13, 2003
posted by gbarto at 4:18 AM:
Sunday/Monday - trying again to get Sunday's stuff to post. Here goes.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:10 AM:
The latest from gbarto.com, home of the TurkeyBlog. In case you missed, over on the Languages Page there's a presentation of the first book of the Tao-Te-Ching that will help you "read" through the Chinese on your own.Elsewhere, The Hugo Pages are getting a facelift. Coming in the next few days, a sleeker, more elegant index/table of contents and a better approach to the blogger-generated HTML version of selected poems. And soon, they'll be accessible at thehugopages.com; the domain is being configured as we speak. No need to update the bookmarks; the old address will work too but I wanted something better than gbarto.com/hugo to show off my "scholarship". If the transition goes well, maybe turkeyblog.com will come next.
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posted by gbarto at 3:58 AM:
Good news:Marines Find 5 U.S. POWs in Iraq
(no link yet; it's at FNC)
And more:
IRAQIS SIGNING UP TO HELP WITH REBUILDING EFFORTS
And a surprising development:
Sharon Willing to Give Up Settlements
But Palestinians must change leadership, give up on right of return
Is he serious, or convinced Arafat will blow this newest chance to make the future of the Palestinians about more than killing Jews?
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posted by gbarto at 3:54 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Americans and Iraqis Face to Face over looting, etc, while Europe jockeys for post-war position.
Ouest-France: Iraqis in France: One laughs, one cries. The two watched Baghdad fall on television, but were watching different stories by their perspectives on it all.
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