http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1D0BF901-5229-49F2-B500-0E44A90F5E27.htm
Jim Crow is alive and well in Iraq. Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shibli, a Sunni, announced he could not accept his appointment as human rights minister because he was never notified in advance and the appointment was sectarian.
This is the sort of thing that happens when the government is appointed not by the content of their character but their religious or ethnic identity. As a minority, people like Shibli feel that this is patronizing behavior and will not stand up for it. If we tried this sort of thing here in the US, people would take to the streets and protest. But since it is happening to the other side, it does not matter. The only time it will matter is when tons of body bags start showing up at our doorstep.
In other news:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B050C902-A61B-4BC6-9907-EB4AA07D58FB.htm
Kuwait jailed 20 people for recruiting fighters for Iraq. How many more are left uncaught? 200? 2,000? Bush, while under the illusion that he is the Master of the Universe, is actually playing into Bin Laden's hands by allowing him to exploit poor young people who see a lot more glamour and adventure in attacking the Evil Empire than in (yawn) getting a job or going to classes and falling asleep. There is a steady supply of foreign fighters entering Iraq, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/8/93726/93434
The American press is starting to wake up; as this diary points out, Knight-Ridder has picked up the Memogate story. CNN reported on it as well. However:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/08/iraq.main/
CNN continues to cheerlead the war, bragging about how we have captured 85 people in the last two days. At that rate, we will have all the terrorists in Iraq rounded up in 6.4 years.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/7/203513/2265
Meanwhile, Time and Newsweek cheerlead the war by regurgitating the old news (debunked) about the Al-Qaeda Number 3 being caught. And they presume to lecture US about news?? This is like the 50th "top suspect" we have caught since the war began. This is as stupid as if ESPN were to take 25 games and hype each game as a match-up between top-10 teams.
http://basie.blogspot.com/2005/05/bill-oreillys-ratings-plummet.html
And what these cheerleaders don't realize is that war cheerleading is becoming increasingly bad for business. Bill O'Reilly has lost over a third of his viewers over the last year.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CF47014E-D2BF-4C24-8702-F5C8A8EAA7A6.htm
Gunned down: Zoba Yassin, a Transport Ministry official. This brings me back to Shibli, the man who refused to accept his cabinet post. I suggest there's even more to this than racism. The Iraqi insurgency considers anyone who works for the government to be a traitor; therefore, they are fair game for assassination. Could Shibli have refused to accept for fear of his life, especially given the fact that he's Sunni?
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http://alterx.blogspot.com/2005/05/nothings-changed.html
Even high-ranking American officers have admitted that our military readiness has been compromised by the Iraq War.
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http://swerveleft.blogspot.com/2005/05/mission-accomplished.html
On a lighter note, one of the best "Mission Accomplished" pictures of Bush I have seen.
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http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-ostrich.html
An excellent biography of the current occupant of the State Department.
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http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2005/05/kingdom-of-heaven-and-of-plunder.html
This is one of the people we have to win over if we are to promote Democracy in the Middle East. This is NOT how to do it.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/husseini05062005.html
Freedom is indeed on the march in the Middle East. But not the way Bush would have liked. In this article, a Syrian writer argues that the best solution is to let the Syrians solve their own problems. He argues this despite the fact that the Syrian regime is much more corrupt than the US administration. Bribery is open; the article talks about how one man had his passport stamped over and over again, as the workers were holding out for a bribe. One Syrian was blunt about the government: "We don't have a government; we have a mafia."
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http://kurtnimmo.com/blog/index.php?p=656
Kurt Nimmo argues that the "Al-Qaeda number 3" was framed for a plot to assassinate the Palestinian leader. Musharraf is like Jabba the Hut: There are numerous assassination plots going on at any one time against them.
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http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/001820.html
Attytood suggests that the US confused Abu Faraj al-Libbi with Anas al-Liby, a man wanted in the 1998 embassy bombings.
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http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/
For those of you who love catblogging, this 13-year-old Iraqi girl is still trying to live a normal life despite all the bombings and hatred.
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http://basie.blogspot.com/2005/05/pharmaceuticals-weasel-out-of-paying.html
By the way, who pays for this mess? Not the big companies. Meet their CEO's:
http://www.mikesilverman.com/2003_07_27_log_archive.html
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