at last! some good news from Iraq!

"The Zarqawi psy-op programme is the most successful information campaign to date."

stay the course

Violent Baghdad deaths top 6,000.

The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show.

The number has risen every month, to 1,400 in May. The majority are believed to be victims of sectarian killings.

Still, good thing that the US has trained and armed so many Iraqi police - I'm sure it would be worse without them?

No Escaping Iraq Violence

Clad in camouflage uniforms, the gunmen came peeling through the thick morning heat in police trucks. They stopped at a downtown strip of travel companies where Iraqis gather each morning to board buses bound for the safer lands of Syria and Jordan.

The gunmen leaped to the ground, witnesses said, and they worked fast. They seized more than 50 bystanders, pulling men away from their families and hauling drivers from behind the wheels of the buses. They handcuffed the men, blindfolded them and stuffed them into the backs of the trucks like human loot. They covered some of their captives with sheets.

Witnesses said the kidnappers were outfitted in the uniforms and vehicles used by some of the special forces of the Iraqi police, overseen by the long-troubled Interior Ministry. Police units under the ministry have been accused of working as Shiite death squads on a campaign to eliminate Sunni Arab men. Police have also been accused of kidnapping civilians for ransom.

The straight-laced objectivity of the reporters talking about "kidnappers outfitted in police uniforms" is admirable in some respects, but how many stories about "men with hoses outfitted in firefighter's uniforms" would you have to read before doing away with the pretense?

Still, good thing that the US still has a presence of over 130,000 troops - I'm sure it would be worse without them?

Field commanders tell Pentagon Iraq war 'is lost':

Military commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month.

Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is "just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control Americans soldiers pushed beyond the breaking point both physically and mentally.

The wife of a staff sergeant with Kilo Company, the Marine Unit charged with killing civilians at Haditha, tells Newsweek magazine that the unit was a hotbed of drug abuse, alcoholism and violence.

"There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."

Optimism abounds.

trials & tribulations

On Wednesday morning I tried to brush my teeth. Usually I don't find this too challenging. But on this special day, I spectacularly fumbled the toothbrush before it could get to my mouth, and sent it spiralling across the room and straight into the toilet bowl. Blip!

Until I get this sorted out, graduate past having a cork on my fork again, stop getting a furrow in my brow when I realise I've written 'latpot' on a sticky note when I meant laptop, deliver a few Key Deliverables, and buy some travel insurance, it may be a little quiet here over the next few weeks.

listen here

What do Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Baretto, Tito Fuente, Ben Harper, the wonderful Billie Holliday-like Bajka, Jazztronik, Carmen McRae, Thea the barmaid, and some dirty old hip-hop from the Visioneers have in common? They're all featured in a new podcast over at textureDJs, of course. Go put it in your ears!

decisions, decisions

You might want to go read George Packer's excellent article in the New Yorker that gives you the nuts and bolts of why the US has failed to get to grips with stabilizing Iraq, despite having people on the ground with the skills and passion to do so.

You could also listen to this week's ABC Background Briefing documenting the decay of democratic accountability in Australia's vital quarantine regulations in favour of adherence to WTO and FTA free-trade strictures.

That, or skip straight to listening to a few apologetic speeches by George Bush that just happen to have come from the brains and pencils of seven year olds. I love the one about lowering the prices of kids in orphanages. (But not in a creepy way.)

Whatever you want out there in the internets, you expect them all to come through the internet pipe the same. It's only repressive regimes that might want to block your access to particular content, or stop you having the full spectrum of choice of whatever search engine you want to use, right?

Not quite. What if your ISP has a financial interest in degrading your access to one site or service in preference to another? This trend is arguably the beginning of the end of the internet. So the thought for the day today is 'net neutrality'.

praise be. so long as 'be' is for bunny

Well I hope you've enjoyed Easter, wherever you're reading around the world. Here in England life hasn't been so rosy lately. There's the bird flu on our borders, the ongoing and ever present threat of terror attacks that make our pants damp even as we play frisbee in the occasional April sunshine, and now this. With the Anglican Communion in dissarray at the country's spiritual borders, the pagan god of Easter - whose body is ritually consumed by the faithful on Sunday morn - has appeared to his followers:

A "monster" rabbit has apparently been rampaging through vegetable patches in a small village in northern England, ripping up leeks, munching turnips and infuriating local gardeners.

In an uncanny resemblance to the plot of the hit animated film "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit," angry horticulturists in Felton, near Newcastle, have now mounted an armed guard to protect their prized cabbages and parsnips.

"They call it the monster. It's very big -- it's nearly the size of a dog," said Joan Smith, whose son Jeff owns one of the plots under attack.

"It's eating everything, all the vegetables," she told Reuters. "They are trying to shoot it. They go along hoping to catch it but I think it's too crafty."

Seriously what right-minded child wouldn't believe in a god like this? Believe in me and not only shall ye partake of my delicious body of chocolate, but I'll see to it that you don't have to eat your vegies either.

US considering providing nukes to Iran

The other day I said:

I'm afraid that no matter which way we cut it, short of full scale invasion and permanent occupation of Iran, there is no way to physically prevent the eeevil Mullahs from developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal within the next 5-7 years.

Now you all just pay no attention to me - I failed to think as boldly and laterally as the White House is at the moment. Seymour Hersh has the details:

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

[...] The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

Go read the whole article. While it's possible to construe this news as a deliberate leak, as brinksmanship and sabre-rattling to indicate to the Iranians just how serious the Bush administration is about making them back down, on past form I think it's better to assume that Bush is quite prepared to do exactly what he is preparing to do - attack Iran with nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy their nuclear weapons programme.

Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.

And then, we are in the abyss.

Update: Watch Hersh on CNN discussing the article. The nuance comes across a little more -- that the standard procedure in military planning is to put every option, absolutely everything including nukes on the table up front, and then walk backwards from that, documenting the decision to do so. Except the White House wouldn't:

Hersh: ...And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the joint chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president's office, said, no, let's keep it in the plan. They refuse to take it out. And what I'm writing here is that if this isn't removed -- and I say this very seriously. I've been around this town for 40 years -- some senior officers are prepared to resign. They're that upset about the fact that this plan is kept in. Again, let me make the point, you're giving a range of options early in the planning. To be sure of getting rid of it, you give that option.

Update II: Tim Dunlop has the scoop on US planning to invade Australia.

this is how the magic happens

Just in case any ravers have the wrong tickets, Pearl Jam forbid the sale of glowsticks at their shows. For Pavarotti, there must be no flowers, not one, anywhere backstage. And especially not in the mandatory golf cart.

INXS require two masseurs, a table-tennis table, and a bottle of beaujolias. Frank Sinatra needed everything edible from lifesavers to chicken soup and dijon mustard and a serious bar list, while Jerry Springer expects neither alcohol nor pork, just pina-colada scented fog juice.

50 Cent's catering order includes a box of "Rough Riders" condoms - try not to think about that too hard - but that's put in it's place by James Brown's requirement for a full 186 inches of stretch.

All this and many more in The Smoking Gun's Backstage Pass archive. Now go procrastinate!

"Bush was right"

Bush was right,
Cheney was right,
Condi was right,
You were right,
The right was right!

Watch out Bono, you've got some competition - soon these guys will be travelling the world, standing up for the enfranchised, sponsoring troubled CEOs, and campaigning against the existence of dastardly minimum wage laws, labour standards and environmental protections. Can you imagine how popular the Baghdad leg (and arm and leg and arm and torso and head, if you can find them all) of the album tour will be!

do androids dream of electric terrorists?

When you're having dreams that Osama Bin Laden is now a nice polite young man with a tidier Ahmadinejad-style beard attending a Cambridge college, and comes to stay in your house and discuss his unrequited affection for Condoleeza Rice, after which you get out and plug in some guitars and jam together in the lounge room, singing "Bin Laden is staying at my house, my house"; when this is followed by a dream that you have to go down to a local Oxford cafe to provide some aid and comfort to Donald Rumsfeld who's upset because the President won't speak to him anymore, except in cabinet meetings, and even then he's snippy; maybe it's time to cut down on the news consumption just a little.

That, or the echinacea.

next, please

Tragically, I'm afraid that no matter which way we cut it, short of full scale invasion and permanent occupation of Iran, there is no way to physically prevent the eeevil Mullahs from developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal within the next 5-7 years. It is within US, Russian and European power however to initiate a region-wide strategic de-escalation, which must begin with China and India, with the goal of engendering a virtuous cycle of non-armament, non-proliferation and safeguards on enrichment, if not actual disarmament in the short term.

I know that President Bush and Secretary Rice can do this, and will dedicate their every effort to this end for the closing three years of the Bush presidency. The stakes are too high for further scaremongering or distraction.

Ha ha ha! Just kidding!

Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

Cicero, which will appear on newsstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons "because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme".

The magazine also said satellite images prove that Saudi Arabia has set up in al-Sulaiyil, South of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles.

According to some western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

the money or the gun?

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this ad in the sidebar of a conservative blog:

With yet another successful election, time may be running out to buy the New Iraqi Dinar before it hits the open market. It's now unbelievably affordable. The same amount that was once equal to over $82,000 can now be purchased for around $45. But, what happens when the oil really starts to flow?

Yes that's right - the Iraq currency has fallen to less than 0.05% of it's previous value. Which can mean only one thing, right? There's never been a better time to buy! Not only will you be getting in at the bottom of the market, but your savvy speculation is also demonstrating your confidence in the ability of the free Iraqi people to triumph over terror and build a prosperous market democracy in the heart of the middle east!

... Or at least that's what the advertisment from the scammers at Bet On Iraq would like you suckers to believe. XE.com has more.

market testing

An Australian, a Canadian, an Italian and an Israeli are sitting in a bar.

The Australian notices that the back page of the magazine in front of him is the print version of the latest Australian tourism campaign. It’s got an expansive beach, the less-expansive beach babe Lara Tingle smiling into the camera, and “where the bloody hell are you?” fonted across the page.

So fellas, says the Australian, what do you make of this?

The Canadian, the Italian and the Israeli consider the image.

They consider it a little more.

“Well,” says the Italian, “that’s an attractive woman alright. And the beach, it looks nice. But you know, it’s not like there are no hot women and beaches in France, Greece, Spain, the whole Mediterranean. Brazil too. I say… so what?”

“It’s not really particularly distinctive,” says the Canadian.

“What about the tagline? We worked really hard on that tagline, you know.”

“I don’t get it,” says the Israeli.

“To be honest, it’s a little coarse,” says the Canadian.

$180 million well spent. I go buy the next round.

the immovable object and the irresistible force

Bubbleboy:

President Bush said Tuesday that U.S. troops will be in Iraq after his presidency ends in 2009. "I'm optimistic we'll succeed" in Iraq," he insisted. "If not, I'd pull our troops out."

Colonel Larry Wilkinson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell:

I'm hearing from lieutenants, captains, majors, generals, many in uniform, many of whom were my students in years passed when I taught at the nation's war colleges. I'm hearing from the civilians who were foreign service officers, civil service and so forth in our embassy in Baghdad and I can tell you that the morale in the uniformed military is being impacted and I can also tell you that our ground forces are stretched to the point where you hear talk about withdrawal from Iraq. Within 24 months, we're going to have to withdraw from Iraq, whether the situation there, politically, economically and so forth, is adequate or not because we've stretched our ground forces to the point of breaking.

You know what pisses me off? That this failure of purpose, failure of coherence, failure of application called Iraq has surely poisoned the well for US (and probably UK) humanitarian intervention for at least a decade. Darfur? DR Congo? Who? Where?