Morning Report: April 21, 2005

UN Oil-for-Food officials resign. According to news reports: 'Two senior investigators in the probe of corruption in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program have resigned because they believed a report that cleared Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion operation was too soft on the secretary-general, a panel member confirmed Wednesday.' Roger L. Simon writes: 'The level of prevarication surrounding the recent resignation of investigators Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan from the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme is so great that even a blogger in farwaway Los Angeles can see that committee members responding to the resignations are lying through their teeth. Here's an excerpt from CNN's coverage of the breaking story by Richard Roth: Another member of the Volcker panel, Richard Goldstone, discounted a media report that Parton and Duncan resigned to protest conclusions the panel reached about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Goldstone told CNN that was not his understanding, and that Parton and Duncan had already been set to leave after having completed their work. He said their departure would not affect the investigation. Well, I am sorry Mr. Goldstone but I am actually amazed you would put your name publicly to such nonsense (next time I would advise speaking, as did your female cohort from the committee, on "condition of anonymity" or some such). Why am I so sure this is nonsense? Because I have known personally about Parton's disaffection from the committee for over a month ... ' Read Roger's piece at the link; the CNN story is here. Roger Simon has provided extensive - and exclusive - coverage of the Oil-for-Food scandal on his homepage. (AP via Fox, Roger L. Simon, CNN)

Debka roundup. Latest headlines from Debka: 'Civilian Russian-built Mi-8 helicopter shot down by ground fire near Tarmiya north of Baghdad killing all 9 aboard. ... Several Israeli soldiers injured, one seriously, in Palestinian bomb explosion against Israeli patrol outside Gaza Strip near Kfar Aza. ... Israel’s security chiefs recommend three-week delay in start of Gaza Strip and N. Gaza Strip pull-back to August 15. ... In Passover radio interview, Sharon pledged again no more Israeli withdrawals after Gaza and N. West Bank. Settlement blocs must remain part of and contiguous to Israel and each other. Washington never accepted settlement policy common to all Israeli governments from 1967, he added. The peace process will go forward, he stressed, only after Palestinians meet commitments to disarm and dismantle terrorist groups, enforce complete calm and reforms. Sharon will raise Russian anti-air missile sale to Syria with Putin when he visits next week. He does not accept deal final or not detrimental to Israel.' (Debka)

Mohammed: Iraqi people's success is Tehran regime's failure. Mohammed at Iraq the Model writes: 'The role of Tehran in creating the sectarian conflict in Iraq has became more than obvious after the failure of all the attempts to provoke a conflict between the Sunni and the She'at. The astounding successes of Iraq in democracy and writing the constitution and building a free community is causing a panic the neighborhood. We mentioned earlier that the Mada'en crisis is a fake and we pointed out that intrinsic and extrinsic parties had taken a stance to invest this story. ...' Full post at the link. (ITM)

Iran: Unrest spreads after Khouzestan riots. Report from Free Iran: 'Violent clashes continued, yesterday and this evening, in several southern Iranian cities, such as, Ahwaz, Khoramshahr, Mahshar. This wave of unprecedented unrest which has started from Ahwaz, since last Friday, has spread to other cities of the oil rich Khoozestan province, such as, Dezful and Masjed Soleiman. Sporadic demonstrations are still taking place despite the heavy security presence and injunctions to end the riots. Slogans against the Islamic regime and its leadership are the main motto of these actions. New reports are stating about the increase of number of deaths among the demonstrators but also security forces. Two militiamen were killed in an armed attack against a security post yesterday evening in Ahwaz. Houses of some of the regime officials or their relatives have been set ablaze ... ' (SMCCDI via Free Iran)

Dreams Into Lightning Celebrates One Year

Dreams Into Lightning is a year old today. It's been an amazing year. I love blogging and I have no intention of quitting, so I am now looking forward and making some plans for this blog's second year.

What won't change. Don't worry about updating your browser favorites: I have no plans to leave Blogger. There are some very good blog hosting services out there, but I'm a creature of habit, and I confess that (like Wretchard) I've developed a certain sentimental attachment to BlogSpot. On a more pragmatic level, I'm accustomed to its features and its limitations. Finally, having suffered (along with thousands of other bloggers) through Blogger's growing pains and service outages, I think we're finally out of the woods. The Blogger status page indicates that they've been working pretty hard on upgrading their capabilities, and I've noticed a spectacular improvement over the past few weeks. I'm banking on the trend continuing, and sticking with Blogger/BlogSpot.

Style and content of Dreams Into Lightning will evolve, but I don't expect any radical departures. My politics and values haven't changed; as many of you know, I am a pro-Bush liberal with interests in politics, culture, science, the arts, religion, feminism, and gay rights. The events of recent years, and blogging in particular, have brought me into contact with many fine conservative thinkers and activists, and I've gained a great deal of respect and appreciation for conservative thought. So I don't mind saying that - to whatever extent these labels mean anything anymore - I have a "conservative" side too. Whatever that means.

A little about me. As I've said, I am liberal, feminist, pro-gay-rights, and pro-Bush. I am passionate about the battle for freedom, human rights, and democracy in the Middle East; this is enormously important, both for moral reasons and because our own survival depends on it. (As I've argued previously, I believe that the term "neo-conservatism" is basically a fancy name for "enlightened self-interest" - which is not a bad thing at all.) As a veteran of the 1990-1991 war (Desert Shield / Desert Storm) I have a particular connection to Iraq. I am a moderately religious Jew and a strong supporter of Israel; this does not mean, of course, that I agree with everything the Israeli government does. I've always supported the Palestinians' right to self-determination; I agree with President Bush - the first American President to explicitly call for a Palestinian state - that this is not incompatible with a safe and secure Israel. (This vision will not be possible, though, until the fascist regimes trying to undermine it are removed.)

Clearly there will be some areas where I don't agree with the President; but I think he is right about the things that matter most. I also think he's a man of principle. This doesn't mean I think he's perfect - I believe that he acts from a combination of idealism and self-interest, like you and me and most people in the world. Is he a "fundamentalist"? Well, I've become very cautious about throwing that word around; more and more it seems like a scare word used by the liberal establishment. Personally, I believe in a G-d who cares about our well-being and our conduct as human beings, and who wants us to live with dignity and to treat each other with compassion and respect. If the President, or anyone else, believes in the same G-d, then we have something in common, whatever our particular doctrinal differences may be.

I enjoy writing and I was raised in a home where books and writing were a way of life. Blogging allows me a creative outlet for my writing, and in the coming year I hope to be posting more creative material. (Outside of the blog, I'm planning to spend more time at creative writing, with an eye to getting published in print one day.) Incidentally, this is also one reason I haven't chosen to pursue "photoblogging" here. I think you can say a lot with pictures, and (for instance) Iraq the Model has given us some extraordinary images we would never have been able to see otherwise. But for me, it's about the written word; so while I can't rule out the possibillity that I might post an image some time, Dreams Into Lightning will remain first and foremost a wordblog.

As I mentioned a few days ago, a little structure may be in order. I'm working out a tentative posting plan where I can focus on a particular topic each day of the week, while retaining enough flexibility to deal with the vagaries of world events and my own life. Watch for an updated version of the projected posting schedule.

Thanks for visiting, and come back often.

Morning Report: April 20, 2005

Cardinal Ratzinger becomes Pope Benedict XVI. The College of Cardinals elected the former Cardinal Ratzinger as the new Pope, succeeding the late John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI spoke at the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. The Belmont Club cites the Catholic Encyclopedia for information on the new Pope's predecessor in name, Benedict XV, who was born in 1854 and held the papacy from 1914 to his death in 1922. Of Benedict XVI, Wretchard writes: 'Ratzinger comes at a time when his own native Western Europe is gripped with a crisis similar in some respects to that which divided Eastern Europe in John Paul's day. Like John Paul, he arrives at the Papacy in the midst of a global war: what the Cold War was to John Paul the War on Terror must be to Benedict XVI. He is an unknown quantity, without extensive pastoral experience; a philosopher Pope: the Pope of the Memes. And it is in this last where Benedict's historical significance may lie. He is the first Pope of the Internet Age and stands uncertain, as we all are, on its brink.' Other responses come from Jana Novak (the daughter of Michael Novak and no relation to Jane); David Klinghoffer; seminarian Dennis Schenkel (via Dawn Eden); Andrew Sullivan, who's not happy; Mamamontezz, who hopes for bark and bite; and finally, Winds of Change with an excellent selection of links and an interesting analogy. (various)

More than 60 bodies found in Iraq. The bodies of more than 60 people have been found in the Tigris River and identified, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani announced. News reports indicate that the victims were hostages seized in Madain (Mada'en) earlier this month. Morning Report notes that contradictory accounts of the hostage crisis continue. Another 19 Iraqis were found murdered execution-style at a sports stadium in Haditha. Debka reports: 'First report: Iraqi president Talabani reports 50 hostages’ bodies found in Tigris River south of Baghdad. He claimed to know who they were and who captured them but gave no further information. Shiite officials identify them as belonging to hostages taken in town of Madean by Sunni insurgents. Unconfirmed report of 19 bodies shot dead found in soccer stadium in Haditha northwest of Baghdad.' (Fox via Command Post; Debka)

Musharraf says no to inspections. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said today that he would never allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit Pakistan's nuclear sites, Stratfor (subscription service) reports. The IAEA had wanted to compare Pakistani environmental samples with traces of enriched uranium found in Iran. (Stratfor)

Belmont Club on intellegence rivalries. Today's entry at Belmont Club assesses US interagency rivalries (particularly Defense Department vs. CIA) in intelligence operations, especially the critical area of human intelligence. Dreams Into Lightning has previously posted on the State Department's longstanding rivalry with Defense, in State vs. Defense (May 2004). (Belmont Club)

Ledeen: The revolution continues. 'Blessed be we, who live in exciting times. Not only are we participating in a global struggle against tyranny, but, if we look carefully enough, we can see the collapse of the conventional wisdom about the relationship between tyrannical rulers and their subjects. We're in the midst of a great paradigm shift, which, as any decent Hegelian will tell you, involves both a transformation of the world and of the way we understand it. In such rare times, both pundits and policymakers need to constantly challenge their own assumptions about the way the world works, because those assumptions age, along with the world they once described.' Michael Ledeen goes on to cite recent developments in China, Iran, and North Korea, which, he argues, portend a "dramatic tipping point" for the regimes in those countries. Read the article at the link, and watch for discussion on the Free Iran forum. (NRO, Free Iran)

A Moment of Silence

In honor of the first anniversary of Dreams Into Lightning, Blogger will observe 20 minutes of downtime on Thursday, April 21.

Quote of the Day

Today's words of wisdom come from Eric the Unread, who has just joined our blogroll. (Hat tip: Discarded Lies.)

Last week the Today Programme had some interviews with disaffected Labour voters. Many reiterated the commmon mantras about trust, creeping privatisation, and the Iraq War. I suspect that many of these disaffected Labour voters were not very happy when the Tories were in power for 18 years.

However, one got the feeling, that they would be happy to see Labour lose the election, in order to enjoy that feeling again. Some even imagine that they would be able to titrate the effect of the election, in order to leave Blair in power with a reduced majority - in order to "teach him a lesson". There is, I suppose, a rather comforting thought about being in opposition to something, which is rather spoilt by your party actually being in power.

So true. Go visit the homepage of this anti-fascist, pro-Blair, Labour liberal. Check out his August archives, too, for some surprising background about Geddy Lee, frontman of the Canadian prog band Rush.

Morning Report: April 19, 2005

Analysis of Mada'en "crisis". The Fadhil brothers weigh in on the apparently fabricated hostage crisis in Mada'en, Iraq, in which a number of Shi'ite hostages were allegedly captured and threatened by Sunni insurgents. Mohammed at Iraq the Model writes: 'The American government denied the story but a She'at figure stressed that the American government is intervening to stop certain She'at parties from controlling the security systems for reasons he considered unconvincing. That's why the crisis was fabricated in Mada'en and that's why it got mentioned by prominent Assembly members and the PM and other senior politicians even before they had certain news about the situation. I think the motive was to put pressure on America and other members form the Iraqia list and the Kurdish alliance by submitting a new security formula that rescues the Shea't from an imminent genocide on the hands of the extremist Sunnis so they demand a greater active control over the security systems to confront the challenges threatening the She'at leaders and people. It's true that She'at were threatened many times and sustained many atrocities but so did the other segments of the people here and faking such crisis is not in the interest of the country; especially after we've seen many signs of unity among all Iraqis against terrorism. Someone comes now and ruins this by faking sectarian troubles ignoring everything about the higher national interest and the critical nature of the moment. ...' Ali at Free Iraqi notes that Muqtada al-Sadr and certain ex-Ba'athist elements were quick to contradict the Iraqi government's (erroneous) early reports - a risk to their own credibility they would have been unlikely to take unless they had inside information on the manufactured "crisis". Ali concludes that 'it must be done by those who want a civil war to occur; Iranians, Syrians and their agents in Iraq, the Sadrists and the "Association of Sunni scholars". The confident tone in which the latter two parties denied the incident supports such conclusion ...' Read the full articles at the links. (ITM, Free Iraqi)

More Mass Graves Found in Iraq

More evidence of mass murder under the Ba'ath Party regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq came to light as a number of mass graves were discovered near the southern Iraqi cities of Samawa and Nasiriya. Many of the victims were Kurds.

The New York Times reports:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 - Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.

The graves, discovered over the past three months, have not yet been dug up because of the risks posed by the continuing insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's interim human rights minister. But initial excavations have substantiated the accounts of witnesses to a number of massacres. If the estimated body counts prove correct, the new graves would be among the largest in the grim tally of mass killings that have gradually come to light since the fall of Mr. Hussein's government two years ago. At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.

Forensic evidence from some graves will feature prominently in the trials of Mr. Hussein and the leaders of his government. The trials are to start this spring.

One of the graves, near Basra, in the south, appears to contain about 5,000 bodies of Iraqi soldiers who joined a failed uprising against Mr. Hussein's government after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Another, near Samawa, is believed to contain the bodies of 2,000 members of the Kurdish clad led by Massoud Barzani.

As many as 8,000 men and boys from the clan disappeared in 1983 ...

Read the article at the link.

Morning Report: April 18, 2005

SMCCDI needs your help. The Iranian activist organization "Student Movement Coordination Committee
for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI) is facing a budget shortfall which has forced them to take their website offline. 'The SMCCDI website gets 45,000 to 65,000 visits each day with [peaks] of 183,000 hits on key dates such as July 9th (anniversary of Students' Uprising of 1999). SMCCDI also sends its Reports, Statements and Urgent Calls to Action via its well developed mailing lists (peyk@daneshjoo.org or list@daneshjoo.org) with several thousands of subscribers.' Visit this post at Regime Change Iran to find out what you can do. (SMCCDI via RCI)

Scandal threatens Canada's ruling Liberal Party. Newsmax reports that Canadian public outrage over a scandal involving Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal Party may result in a gain for the Conservative party. 'Martin reiterated that he had nothing to do with the ethics fiasco, in which Liberal Party members are accused of having taken kickbacks from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the rebellious French-speaking province of Quebec. ... The scandal, based on a secret program that dates back to the 1990s and the Liberal Party leadership of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, erupted anew last Thursday when a judge probing the alleged misuse of public funds lifted a publication ban on testimony by a Montreal ad executive. The executive, Jean Brault, who faces fraud charges stemming from the now-defunct program, told the federal inquiry that senior Liberals forced him to secretly divert more than $818,000 to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts. During his six days of testimony, Brault spoke of hushed-up payments to Liberals in restaurants, money being given to a brother of Chretien, and reluctant contributions strong-armed out of employees.' While the domestic dispute does not directly affect Canada's foreign policy, a poster at Free Iran wonders whether this will translate into a more aggressive policy toward the Iranian regime, which is known to have been responsible for the brutal killing of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi. (Newsmax, Free Iran)

SMCCDI Needs Your Help

The Iranian activist group SMCCDI has been working tirelessly for the freedom of the Iranian people. But they need your help. At this time, their site is offline. (Thanks to Stefania for the heads-up.)

SMCCDI needs your donations - right now - to continue its work. You can make a PayPal donation to their e-mail. Regime Change Iran has the details:

SMCCDI (Urgent Action Call):

Dear Iranian Compatriots, Dear World's Freedom Lovers,

We need desperately your valuable help in order to continue
to exist and respond to our duties and moral obligations.

In the last twenty-six years, whether in Iran or abroad,
all of our lives have been affected negatively by the
Islamic regime and its desire to destroy Iran and Iranians
alike. We have witnessed the inhumane ideas of this regime,
and we cease to be horrified at the lengths this barbaric
theocracy has reached in its ability to terrorize Iranians
as well as the international community. Most of us Iranians
have dealt with the reality that the international
community did nothing to stop the holocaust of our people
and our country at the hands of this tyrannical regime. We
know the freedom of Iran and the end of the regime of
terrorists in our country lies in our own hands.

In a surprising twist of fate, for the first time in
twenty-six years, the President of the United States
directly spoke to Iranians during his State of the Union
Address in February of 2005. For the first time, the leader
of the most powerful country in the world has proclaimed
support for Iranians committed to returning freedom and
democracy to Iran by ending the Islamic terrorist regime.
If pro-democracy endeavors are not supported during this
short window of opportunity, Iranians may never see freedom
in Iran again.

With this in mind, the Islamic regime has actively been
working in Iran and abroad to make sure freedom fighters do
not have the chance to use this window of opportunity.
After President Bush's proclamation of support for Iranian
freedom fighters, the Islamic regime has embarked on a
campaign to separate any unified forces of opposition who
seek freedom and democracy for Iran.


One such group, "Student Movement Coordination Committee
for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI), has always been on the
forefront of the opposition movement against the regime of
terror. This opposition group has been a key figure in
aiding the freedom fighters in Iran with the aim of
establishing a secular political structure elected by the
majority of Iranians and returning human rights to Iran.
By way of its web site, SMCCDI has been a major source of
political inspiration for many young Iranians striving for
modernism and democracy. ...

Read the full article at the link. And please send whatever you can, via PayPal, to the following e-mail address: SMCCDI@DANESHJOO.ORG. I've already made my contribution this morning.

And Don't You Forget It

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has some choice words for the peace movement:

Not in your name, though, and you're fooling yourselves if you think that we're ever going to let you run away from that. We'll be there to remind you, every last step of the way.

A country was liberated from the claws of a sadistic dictator and his psychotic sons - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

That country recently held democratic elections and now have, for the first time, a government that they themselves have chosen - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

The psychopath responsible for at least the 300,000 victims mentioned in the above has been brought to justice and will murder no more - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

The Kurds will no longer have to fear seeing helicopter gunships spreading poison gas over their villages, as a matter of fact one of their own was just elected President - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

Iraqi schoolgirls will no longer have to fear being picked up, abducted, raped and fed to dogs by Uday and Qusay - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

Plastic shredders in Iraq will no longer be used for anything other than shredding plastic - BUT IT WAS NOT IN YOUR NAME.

And we could go on, as we shall if any of those terror-supporting "peace" freaks ever presume to claw their way to the foothills of the moral high ground.

NOT IN YOUR NAME!

Now That's Class

"A tendency toward vanity, self-absorption and callousness"? You don't say?

I was on assignment in Nicaragua, far from my base in Washington DC. I watched the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on a flickering TV. And then I called my wife back home. She was tearful and distraught. Our kids had been rushed out of school in an emergency drill. It felt, she said, like war had broken out.

"God this is awful," I said with feeling. "I know," she replied, "there may be thousands dead".

"I don't mean that", I snapped. "I'm talking about me. I'm missing the biggest story of my life."

- BBC foreign correspondent Stephen Sackur in his farewell broadcast, via Wizbang. (In all fairness, he does admit to this "shameful sentiment.")

Terri Schiavo resources ... and a few final comments.

I'm posting a list of links that have helped me to better understand the Terri Schiavo case. I do not have the time, space, or energy to post a full-length analysis of the case as I see it; and I don't expect to post regularly on it after today. (I will post, however, if something new comes up. So if you're tired of reading about it, don't get your hopes up.)

If you have a constructive, intelligent point to add, whether you agree or disagree with me, you are welcome to do so. If you wish to post a link, please provide some context. Certain readers have taken a page from the Iraqi blog trolls and started pasting "here-look-at-this" links in my comments section. Don't waste your time and mine. If you want to advertise your inability to form your own arguments (or even your own sentences), that's your business. But don't fancy that you have the one bit of information that's suddenly going to change my mind, especially if you're too lazy to explain why you think it's credible and why I (or anyone else) should give a damn.

No two people think alike, and you and I may not assign the same level of credibility to this or that piece of information. You may find one argument more persuasive, and another less so, than I do. That's human nature. It's called having a conversation, and it's what blogging is all about. Please keep this in mind when commenting.

I've come to believe that the Terri Schiavo case represents questions we should all be concerned about: What is the value of human life? Does our society do enough to safeguard the lives of the sick, the elderly, and the vulnerable? Who decides when a life is worth saving? I don't expect that there will be any easy or conclusive answers to these questions, which is why I will continue to address them regularly in this blog in the future.

And now for the Terri links:

Blogs for Terri - Homebase for activists. Now carrying updates on other endangered lives, like Mae Magouirk and Clara Martinez.

Liberals for Terri - "But I'm not gonna go along with a bunch of right-wingers!!!" Oh, please. Haven't we heard that before? After you read the intro, go to their current posts.

In Love With Death - Peggy Noonan's column about the pro-death people. If the link has expired, you can find it here.

Deroy Murdock: Not Just the God Squad and Deroy Murdock: Schiavo's Struggle.

CNS News: "Some Kind of Trauma" - New York forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden on Terri's injuries (2003)

Straight Up With Sherri - Sherri Reese was a tireless activist in this case. Her February and March archives have lots of information.

Kesher Talk - Judith Weiss has been on the Terri case too; this recent post on The Right to Eat connects to the others.

The Redhunter - Tom is a regular reader and commenter here. He wants to know: Are human beings Disposable When Broken?

Keep watching this entry for updates and additions.