quoted:
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s the war with Iraq about oil when all is said and done? The anti-war movement seems to think so. I am not so sure.

Unless the peace movement has discovered telepathy, I doubt that it's in any better position to divine the hidden thoughts or secret motivations of George Bush and Tony Blair than I am. Arguing about unstated motives, therefore, is a waste of time - claims cannot be proven or disproven.

Is it so difficult to imagine that both Bush and Blair sincerely believe - rightly or wrongly - that a well-armed Iraq poses an intolerable danger to the civilized world? If access to oil were of concern to them, one might have expected members of their administrations to hint as much. After all, the Thatcher and Bush "senior" administrations were quite open about the role that oil played in justifying the first go-around in Kuwait. Polls in the United States revealed at the time, moreover, that the public responded favourably to the argument. Why the supposed reticence now?

BBC NEWS - Jerry Taylor

San Francisco protesters stage a 'vomit in'
Bay City News
Thursday, March 20, 2003

08:41 PST -- In a unique form of opposition, some protesters at the Federal Building staged a "vomit in,'' by heaving on the sidewalks and plaza areas in the back and front of the building to show that the war in Iraq made them sick, according to a spokesman.

Many of the approximately 300 protesters demonstrating at the building at 450 Golden Gate Ave. attempted to block building entrances.

San Francisco protesters stage a 'vomit in'

quote from msnbc weblog central:

"Ostensibly based in Baghdad, Where is Raed? is written by a person blogging under the pseudonym of Salam Pax, a tech-savvy Iraqi whose mastery of English provides for vivid descriptions, cutting wit, and thoughtful commentary. In the past there has been some discussion of the veracity of the writer’s claims, but those appear to have been resolved, with several bloggers offering testimony to Salam’s authenticity —and frankly, the more you read, the less doubt there seems to be."

Where is Raed ?

The fact that this guy finds these numb-skulls "witty and erudite" shows just how bright you have to be to write for the San Francisco Bay Gaurdian.

=darwin

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Anarchy in the USA
Black Bloc antiwar rioters speak out.

By A.C. Thompson

THE BLACK BLOC has few friends. Cops, obviously, loathe the sable-clad anarchist types who've stomped through downtown San Francisco three times in the past three months, skirmishing with cops, spray painting the San Francisco Chronicle building, shattering windows (Old Navy, Starbucks, and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, among others) and causing at least $50,000 in property damage.

Pacifists and less radical elements of the antiwar movement say the rioters are tarnishing the movement's image and scaring away would-be supporters (see "Resist!," page 22). Stephen Zunes, a left-leaning associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University, trashed the Black Blocers in the Chronicle last week, describing them as "nihilists" and "hoodlums" without a "political agenda."

Zunes's comments are typical. Most people seem to think the Black Bloc rioters are a pack of mindless hooligans. But that analysis is only half correct. Hooligans? Definitely. Mindless? No way. The four young shit-disturbers – three anarchists, one communist – I met at an anonymous and presumably unbugged location March 15 were witty and erudite. And they definitely have a political goal.

sfbg.com | Life During Wartime

quoted:

As we shiver in the shadow of war, waiting to be shocked and awed by the malevolent magnificence of militarism in action, some in the antiwar movement are calling for "direct action." What this amounts to is what happened the other day in downtown San Francisco, when about 200 people marched to the Pacific Stock Exchange, and a few dozen of these sat down on the steps, refusing to move, while their brethren disrupted traffic and tied up the downtown area for hours. Why did they do it? Let Warren Langley, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, and newly converted to antiwar activism, explain it in his own words:

"It's my history and my lifetime. This war seems very wrong for the entire world. I decided I was willing to do whatever it takes to show a strong stand against it."

Me, me, me, it's all about Me! Langley's narcissism is embarrassingly apparent. Like someone standing there with his fly wide-open, happily unaware, he perfectly embodies the unabashed self-absorption of the "direct action" movement. In nominating themselves for sainthood, the direct-actionists are acting out their personal fantasies on the political stage. In their little morality play they are the stars, moral paragons who, by the sheer power of their goodness and bravery, will shut down the war machine.

This Isn't About You, by Justin Raimondo

] As one watches protest marches, antiwar advertising and
] local arts events, one has to wonder whether the left has
] really weighed the moral issues posed by the horrors of
] Saddam's regime -- weighed life by life the repression of
] the 24 million Iraqis who live in a ruthless police
] state, not to mention the thousands or tens of thousands
] who have been imprisoned without trial, tortured, exiled
] or killed. It sometimes seems that the left is so averse
] to war, especially war waged by America, that it is
] prepared to turn a blind eye to even the most ghastly
] realities. Perhaps it is because the left no longer sees
] these realities that its antiwar arguments tend to
] justify continuation of the status quo.
]
] That, too, is a form of paralysis. But it is emblematic
] of an evolution in leftist values that has occurred so
] gradually over a period of decades that the profound
] nature of the shift is often not noticed. Today, the
] political counterculture and the antiwar movement in the
] West often seem to be one and the same. Instead of
] fighting fascists or other genocidal tyrants as it might
] have during the Spanish Civil War or World War II or even
] during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s, the
] modern left fights war; because the United States is the
] world's most significant military agent, and because it
] has so often used military power to support
] anti-democratic governments, the left understandably fights the
]United States. Such opposition to war is reflexive, and too often
]outweighs its outrage on behalf of the oppressed. Its capacity for
]the kind of muscular empathy that leads to action has atrophied,
]leaving only the possibility of reaction, of opposition. The
]antiwar left does not mount massive protests against China,
]Pakistan or Egypt. Millions do not pour into the streets on behalf
]of the student-led democracy movement in Iran. And Saddam Hussein
]and Osama bin Laden are not angrily compared to Hitler -- that
]treatment is more often reserved for George W. Bush.

Salon.com | See no evil

quoted:
===

President Bush has gone to great pains to document the undeniably tyranical nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. Hussein, Bush has declared, is both evil and dangerous. And so war, Bush has said, is both justified and right. But on the question of legality, administration officials have simply asserted that existing Security Council resolutions adopted more than a decade ago authorize the attack. That assertion has gone largely unexamined by politicians and pundits alike. But, with the White House having pulled the plug on its disastrous attempt to secure a final resolution, a growing number of legal experts are now suggesting that the US may be waging a war in violation of international law.

MotherJones.com | Is This War Legal?

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CUYAHOGA FALLS -- A member of Ohio's 5694th National Guard Unit in Mansfield legally changed his name to a Transformers toy.

Optimus Prime is heading out to the Middle East with his guard unit on Wednesday to provide fire protection for airfields under combat.

"On Sunday, we were awarded as the best firefighting unit in the Army National Guard in the entire country," said Prime. "That was a big moment for us."

Prime took his name from the leader of the Autobots Transformers, which were popular toys and a children's cartoon in the 1980s.

He legally changed his name on his 30th birthday and now it's on everything from his driver's licence, to his military ID, to his uniform.

National Guardsman changes his name to a 'Optimus Prime'

] Dutch journalist Peter Tetteroo aims his camera out the
] window of his hotel room in Pyongyang to film a
] policewoman directing traffic. She's in constant motion,
] gesturing to vehicles coming from one direction, then
] pivoting crisply and signaling to vehicles coming from
] another direction.
]
] It all looks perfectly normal, except for one thing:
] There's no traffic. North Korea doesn't have very many
] cars, and none of them happens to be driving by. The
] policewoman's choreography is all a surreal charade.

Washington Post.Com: 'Welcome to North Korea': A Surreal, Sad Game of Charades

] Reaction has been coming in from around the world
] following US President George W Bush's deadline for
] President Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave Iraq
] by 0100GMT on Thursday 20 March or face war.

Quotes from a variety of countries: France, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Canada, China, Russia, Philippines, Iran, the Arab League, Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), New Zealand, and the Vatican. All over the scale, from "we're for it" to "we're against it," to "we're staying out of it and minding our own business".

BBC NEWS : In quotes: Reaction to Bush ultimatum