Category: World at Large

A Chill Wind Blows.

Rumors grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear…In a bid to stop the spread of SARS, the World Health Organization encourages travelers to stay out of Toronto. (I’m supposed to go there for a wedding in July, and as of right now I’m inclined to take my chances.) Perhaps it’s partly because of the post-Iraq news void, but it’s starting to look like SARS has the potential to be the 1918 influenza epidemic all over again.

A New Enemy.

Toning down on the Syria talk, the Bushies instead decide to invoke their post-Iraq mojo to launch a sneak attack on the economy, vis a vis the now phased-in Dubya Dividend Debacle. It’s not conservative to give out tax handouts to the rich during a time of exploding deficits, y’all. It’s radical.

Meanwhile, in 2004.

Kerry’s got the loot, Lieberman’s spending too much, Edwards is bleeding support (I’m not sure if losing Shrum is a negative), and, even among nine candidates, Florida Senator Bob Graham has come up with a novel position on the Middle East: He’s against the war in Iraq, for a war in Syria. And we’ve got eighteen months to go, folks.

Blast from the Past.

With the war in Iraq wrapping up, former President Clinton derides the failures of Dubya’s amateurish diplomacy. “Our paradigm now seems to be: something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us.” He also takes time to call out the recently-lowered but still-lousy Dubya tax cut. Hopefully, this’ll serve notice to the other Dems (besides Kerry) to get off the fence and release the hounds.

Goodnight Euphrates.

Despite significant warnings from historians and anthropologists, the Pentagon does little to stop Baghdad’s National Museum of Antiquities, a priceless archive on some of the world’s oldest civilizations, from being systematically looted and pillaged. Our response to this tragic event is too little too late – what are we going to do? Have a couple of INTERPOL guys watch for suspicious items on Ebay? I doubt many of the most priceless artifacts travel that well anyway. It just wouldn’t have been that hard to station troops around the museum, particularly given (a) that the Pentagon was briefed beforehand, and (b) US troops were already protecting the (ahem) Oil Ministry. This isn’t the burning of Alexandria’s library, but it might just end up being close. For shame.

Here We Go Again.

Second verse, same as the first. With the war in Iraq coming to a close, Dubya’s hawks start turning up the heat on Syria. “I think that we believe there are chemical weapons in Syria,” Bush said yesterday. Boy, that rationale never gets old, does it? Even with India now latching onto Dubya’s “preemption” to justify possibly bombing Pakistan back into the Stone Age, the Bushies don’t even make an attempt to forge a casus belli more in tune with international diplomatic precedent. Let’s just hope China also doesn’t decide to “preempt” terrorism in Taiwan anytime soon. (Second link via Follow Me Here.) Update: Bush and Blair try to kill the Syria war hype, for now.

Ends and Means.

Well, I must admit, the fall of Saddam’s regime occurred much more quickly than I had ever expected. (Ten bucks says the Iraqi cabal card decks are all over Ebay in six months.) But, as Michael Kinsley notes, our victory doesn’t answer the tough questions about why we got involved in the first place. And while the images of liberation coming out of Baghdad right now are undeniably stirring, my doubts about this conflict – and the amateurish diplomacy that preceded it – remain…and particularly if Gulf War II spills over into Syria or Iran.