Today is the day when
massive war protests are scheduled to appear throughout the U.S. Are you going? Are you completely against them? Was the one near you bigger/smaller than expected? And remember, MetaFilter is fun, but like the war or hate it,
this is your last chance to register to make your opinion
really count if you haven't already. The election is officially 30 days away. The war.... we'll get back to you on that.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Oct 6, 2002 -
65 comments
The eXile's Gary Brecher, as offensive and amusing as usual, pondering the future of war:
"The only enjoyable wars will be the mismatches, when the machine armies are unleashed on the savages. We've seen some of them lately: the NATO air forces working out on Serbia, the US and British planes playing with the Iraqis like a couple of kittens with a half-dead mouse. They're the wars people will enjoy, because the targets are so easy, so undefended, that there are lots of good gun-camera shots. But these wars have a little weakness: they never solve the problem."
posted by GriffX
on Oct 3, 2002 -
16 comments
A story of village life A witty analogy for the current world situation.
Here is another one. If anyone has a good justification for war I would like to hear it, come on convince me!
posted by cohiba
on Oct 1, 2002 -
23 comments
'The guy who tried to kill my dad.' Setting aside partisan bickering, this description of Saddam Hussein by George W. Bush today sent my mind reeling. Is this in reference to something published in the past that is just escaping my mind? The
Reuters version of the story adds that it is reference to "an Iraqi plot to kill former President George Bush after the 1991 Gulf War." Anyone have a link to that older story?
posted by bclark
on Sep 27, 2002 -
36 comments
War as a Way of Life The latest Reggio/Glass collaboration - Naqoyqatsi - is coming out Oct. 18. From the looks of the trailer, this could be the coolest of
the trilogy. Of course, who could forget the scene from Koyaanisqatsi where Reggio jumps from scene of Twinkies rushing through production line to fast-forward scene of daily-grinders moving up escalators in subway station - priceless. Just more 70's grad-student dope-smoking backdrop -- or essential media for our age?
posted by minnesotaj
on Sep 26, 2002 -
15 comments
Gore: Saddam must go Al Gore has told Iraqi opposition politicians that the United States remains committed to the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. "There can be no peace for the Middle East so long as Saddam is in a position to brutalise his people and threaten his neighbours" - Al Gore [more inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood
on Sep 24, 2002 -
47 comments
This may not make as effective a sales pitch as "weapons of mass destruction," but with two oil men in office, it can't be ignored as a possible ulterior motive to war in Iraq. Am I a cynic or should we be asking if this "preemptive" war is really about what they are saying it's about?
posted by karlcleveland
on Sep 23, 2002 -
7 comments
PeaceTrees Vietnam. Reversing the Legacy of War. "A group of American volunteers, including Vietnam War veterans, helped Vietnamese victims of the war move Thursday into a newly built
'peace village' on the site of a former U.S. Marine base. The 100 families who will live in the village lost relatives or limbs in explosions of bombs, shells or other ordnance left over from the war. PeaceTrees Vietnam, the Washington State-based nonprofit group which sponsored the $385,000 project, says it spent months digging out 339 pieces of ordnance both American and North Vietnamese to make the 100-acre site safe."
Beautiful project and story....but one can't help wonder how many years will pass before we reverse the legacies of today's (and tomorrow's) wars.
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Sep 20, 2002 -
39 comments
When was the last time we bombed Iraq? 1991? 1992? How about
4 days ago. And again six days before that to name just a few.
The US Bombing Watch page keeps detailed tabs on all bombing attacks by allied forces since March 9, 2000, but the bombing has continued since the end of the Gulf War [via
rc3.org].
posted by mathowie
on Sep 19, 2002 -
81 comments
This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me. Iraqi writer, an exiled dissident and victim of Hussein's regime speaks against war and sanctions: "
You are "either with us or against us", they say. As an Iraqi that means choosing between war and the dictator. To be on the side of the oppressed does not mean we are unaware of the complexity of the situation. To campaign for the lifting of sanctions, for an end to the paralysing bombardment and daily threat of war is to stand by the Iraqi people; it is that policy which will help them to change the oppressive regime. Any change should be initiated from within Iraq, not imposed by Bush or Blair."
posted by talos
on Sep 18, 2002 -
11 comments
War Could Unshackle Oil in Iraq ..
All five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. Okay, everybody say it with me now...
It's about the OIL!
posted by bas67
on Sep 14, 2002 -
38 comments
Why Aren't U.S. Journalists Reporting From Iraq? "This notion that the Iraqi leader is in cahoots with Osama will be easy to feed the American people. To the American people, one bad Arab is the same as the next, and Osama equals Saddam. People who wonder about the Bush war-urgency only need to think about this: there’s a blind spot that needs to be exploited now, before too many journalists get the idea to go inside Iraq and find out what’s really happening. As long as the Condi Rices, Dick Cheneys and other hawks are talking to journalists with no experience inside Iraq, they won’t get a raised eyebrow about this notion that the secular dictator is in bed with the
jihadis -- even though [reports indicate]....the CIA has found no link between the Iraqi dictator and Al Qaeda."
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Sep 13, 2002 -
55 comments
Shaving for Uncle Sam. Stories like this just heat my blood. I swear that some people cannot see past their stars at what is really going on. Is this becoming a Gentleman's War? Next thing you know Special Forces won't be able to carry bullets in their guns.
posted by Stretch
on Sep 13, 2002 -
27 comments
The Ultimatum has been delivered to the UN... This conflict, simmering for over ten years is about to erupt. "In strict accordance with international law," unilatteral military action is imminent unless demands are met. Animosity has been mounting steadily for months, and Russia is ready to invade Georgia. "No one can deny today, and for ourselves we are certain, that Georgian territory is sheltering both those who are implicated in the attacks on the United States and a direct operative involved in the attacks on housing units in Russia," Mr. Putin said on Russian television, echoing the logic U.S. President George W. Bush has used to rally international support for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. The United States said it would not support Mr. Putin if he carried out his threat to attack Chechen rebel bases in Georgia, and slammed him for suggesting he might. "The United States strongly supports Georgia's territorial integrity and would oppose any unilateral military action by Russia inside Georgia," a U.S. State Department spokesman said. This all seems rather hypocritical, business as usual new world order politics: Is the price of getting UN Security Council approval on Iraq going to be public and secret deals, and is this really about the Chechens, or about breakaway republics and Caspian Sea oil? And what about China? Will we rubberstamp their ambitions re: Taiwan, Spratley Islands, Mongolia? And finally, why Georgia? I know they put up a two-bit Olympics and never caught that one terrorist bomber, but really, Georgia?
posted by Mack Twain
on Sep 13, 2002 -
25 comments
A Blast from the Past. In 1998, George Bush, Sr. explains why Saddam was not removed in the Gulf War: "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
posted by owillis
on Sep 12, 2002 -
19 comments
An Anti-War Movement of One. by Philip Gold, senior national security analyst for Seattle's conservative
Discovery Institute.
"...of late, I've taken to constituting myself as an anti-war movement of one--a man of impeccable conservative credentials and long experience in the national-security field, a grumpy old Marine, who has grown infuriated with and appalled by both the conservative embrace of disaster and the enormity of the smallness of what passes for the anti-war movement today."
posted by Ty Webb
on Sep 12, 2002 -
15 comments
You Call That Evidence? Op-Ed from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about the so-called evidence for the administration's claim that Iraq is "moving very near a nuclear weapon capability." Too bad something that at least seems to be approaching the truth will have nothing to do with whether we go to war or not.
posted by elgoose
on Sep 11, 2002 -
51 comments
Surprise! The Pentagon's internal problems are worse than we thought... And in other news, we still find ourselves fit to order the rest of the world around.
That the Pentagon's internal management is a shambles is an
understatement. Frank Spinney's testimony in June of this year demonstrates not only the complete failure of the Pentagon to manage itself, but also how the political system acts as a dangerous reinforcement, and vice versa. More important for the soldiers in the field, he also demonstrates how/why some of the tools being used are wholly inadequate and inappropriate.
On a related note, does anyone else find it strange that our military planners feel a $350 billion/year budget is not sufficient to handle two "medieval countries" (Afghanistan/Iraq) simultaneously? Makes me glad we never had to take on the Soviets full bore...
posted by tgrundke
on Sep 10, 2002 -
10 comments
U.S. Stops Iraq-Al Qaeda Talk From the Washington Post. Beyond the superficial significance of administration back-tracking, in regards to intelligence there seems to be two key aspects to this story: 1) The article talks about how the CIA was unable to "validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials," implying that Bush/Cheney/etc. have been making baseless assumptions about Iraq in their pro-war arguments, and 2) it brings into question whether we know anything at all about Iraq, anyway. What if the same can be said of Hussein's nuclear plans?
posted by risenc
on Sep 10, 2002 -
27 comments
Post-Saddam Iraq? Not Our Problem. "President Bush Monday told world leaders it will be the responsibility of the whole international community, rather than the United States, to determine what kind of regime should replace Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if his government is toppled by U.S. military action, European diplomats told United Press International." How's your shining beacon of democracy doing today?
posted by owillis
on Sep 9, 2002 -
45 comments
Looks like it's already started, American and British aircraft make an unusually large strike against Iraqi air defences near the jordainian border. Is this the precurser to Bush and Blairs looming Gulf war?
posted by JonnyX
on Sep 6, 2002 -
62 comments
What happened in the final days of the Gulf War? "The Battle of Rumaila was closely reviewed at the war's end by an analyst for the C.I.A., who confirmed that the Iraqi losses were great. The toll included at least a hundred tanks from the Hammurabi division. "It's like eating an artichoke," one colonel had said of combat.... 'Once you start, you can't stop.' One of the destroyed vehicles was a bus, which had been hit by a rocket. The precise number of its occupants who were injured or killed is not known, but they included civilians and children. One of the first Americans at the scene was Lieutenant Charles W. Gameros, Jr., a Scout platoon leader, who called in a Medevac team for the victims. At the time, he was "frustrated" by what he saw as needless deaths, Gameros recalled in an interview. 'Now I look at it sadly,' he said. Unresisting Iraqis had been slain all morning, but the deaths of the children troubled many soldiers."
What's happening in "the final days" of the war in Afghanistan? What will be happening in the upcoming war in Iraq?
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Sep 5, 2002 -
100 comments
Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11 "CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." Rumsfeld: "Go massive ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
posted by owillis
on Sep 5, 2002 -
61 comments
U.S. faces bigger issues than hitting Iraq. A former Japanese diplomat--now chairman of the English-Speaking Union of Japan-- offers a quintessentially Japanese view regarding the manifest folly of a US attack on Iraq. (From The Japan Times). Mr. Hanabusa underscores the formidable difficulty of the victor's creating anything but a puppet "regime change." Since Japan has had some recent experience in this regard, his words merit contemplation by those who favor an immediate attack and damn the foreseeable consequences thereof.
posted by rdone
on Sep 3, 2002 -
26 comments
Target Iraq - Global Security.org - One stop war / anti-war portal. Military options, pros and cons of attack, anti-war sites, government, diplomatic, NGO links, military policy, breaking news, military targets, Iraq weather.
posted by sheauga
on Aug 26, 2002 -
7 comments
Is Preemption a Nuclear Schlieffen Plan? The greatest and most difficult task facing a statesman in international affairs is reconciling the natural tension between the constructive nature of a nation's grand strategy with the destructive character of its military strategy. The emerging doctrine of preemption should be examined in the context of this challenge.
With this in mind, the author
continues with a "Dr. Strangelove" type warning. Are our leaders "doing themselves in" (and us with them) in the current 'war' on terrorism?
posted by tgrundke
on Aug 21, 2002 -
12 comments
A wargame carried out by the US military was rigged to ensure the success of the American side against unspecified Middle East opponents, according to the retired General commanding the Middle East forces. Most amusingly, he managed to sink most of the American navy, and the game had to be stopped so the ships could be "refloated". I have to wonder, does this wargame indicate that America could be biting off more than it can chew, if it decides to invade Iraq by itself, or was this $200million down the drain?
posted by salmacis
on Aug 21, 2002 -
45 comments
Iraq's Aziz Says U.S. Attack Would Fail This is a news story? What is the Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz supposed to say? "W. has been right all along, Saddam is a tyrant. We need to get him out. Even Saddam agrees he has gone to far." or "Now that you mention it, our military is a mess, the stuff we have bought is junk and your tanks will rip it to shreds."
posted by Coop
on Aug 20, 2002 -
14 comments
Iraq: In all but name, the war's on How do you tell a war has begun? This is not the 17th or 18th century. There are no highfalutin' declarations. Troops don't line up in eyesight of each other. There are no drum rolls and bugle calls, no calls of "Chaaa...rge!". When did the Vietnam War begin? When, for that matter, World War I? When mobilizations were ordered setting in motion irreversible chains of events or at the time of the formal declarations of war?
posted by bas67
on Aug 18, 2002 -
24 comments
Does invading Iraq require more than declaring Saddam Hussein "evil"? The New York Times reports public opposition from people not easily labeled Brie-sucking scared-of-war libyerals -- people like Henry "Bombs Away" Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. Meanwhile, hawks argue that
not attacking after all Bush's rhetoric would "produce such a collapse of confidence in the president that it would set back the war on terrorism."
[registration required]
posted by sacre_bleu
on Aug 15, 2002 -
62 comments
