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03/17/2004 Archived Entry: "Hotel destroyed in Baghdad explosion"
Hotel destroyed in Baghdad explosion
Apparently a car bomb, which destroyed the Mount Lebanon Hotel.
Tell me again how Iraqis are safer, Mr. Bush.
Replies: 3 people speak up
oops -- desperate! we mean those terrorists must be *desperate* -- isn't that the way it goes?
Scorpio
http://scorpio.typepad.com/eccentricity/
Posted by Scorpio @ 03/17/2004 02:25 PM NY
Aaron Brown is calling these evil-doers "Al Qaeda-like."
I like how the market's gaining, too!
Posted by Vicki @ 03/17/2004 02:45 PM NY
Just ran across an item from the
SydneyMorningHerald which, although clearly written before today's hotel bombing, may be the BEST analysis yet of the situation in the wake of the Spanish elections.
Be warned, the guy is just as rough on some of the more simplistic arguments from "the left," but it's a damn good dose of realism anyway.
...Such claims are simplistic and misleading, as they seek to frame the debate in a ‘black and white’, either/or analysis similar to the belligerent ‘you’re either with us or against us’ rhetoric of the Bush Doctrine which took us to Iraq in the first place.
The current interpretations of the PSOE and Spain’s options have been framed as follows: EITHER 1) remain with the Coalition in Iraq and continue to fight the war on terror, OR 2) withdraw entirely from the war against terror and hand the terrorists a victory.
Ironically such narrow analysis is mirrored in its impracticality by the equally black and white analysis coming from left wing commentators. Their analysis runs that as the war in Iraq was illegal, and opposed by vast proportions of the public we should make an immediate withdrawal. That is EITHER 1) we withdraw from Iraq as we were wrong to go there in the first place OR 2) we stay and remain in violation of International Law, Moral Law and the demands of the public which ultimately will result in a Spanish style defeat for all Governments involved.
By framing this debate in such basic either/or terms, both sides of this divide are failing to understand the fluidity of international politics and succeeding only in crippling our policy options in the cess pit of ‘fit for sound bite’ black and white analysis. Whilst this may benefit their short term political aspirations it will not aid the suffering citizens of Iraq, nor will it make the world safe from the fascism of fundamentalist terror. As banal as the allusion is, de Bono is right. We need to “think outside the square”.
Posted by Xan @ 03/17/2004 03:32 PM NY
