Teh good.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Military mind games

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the new war received little attention, although it was reported in the opening hours. The US military seems to have taken over the main Iraqi state radio frequency as the first strikes happened. “This is the day we have been waiting for,” an announcer said in Arabic.

The 21st-century US military clearly has a sophisticated ability to manipulate the media. This is information warfare and “reflexive control” — influencing the enemy’s thoughts to make him do what you want.

ArabNews: The Strategy Was Rewritten

] This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel
] Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried
] to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in the Gaza
] Strip. In a remarkable series of emails to her family,
] she explained why she was risking her life.

Prepare to be angry and sad.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rachel's war

] 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

] The U.S. government has obtained potentially valuable new
] information on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons
] programs in recent days from scientists and intelligence
] agents confronted outside Iraq with threats that failure
] to cooperate could mean unpleasant consequences when
] Baghdad falls, according to two U.S. officials with
] direct knowledge of the effort.
]
] In a top-secret adjunct to an openly reported diplomatic
] initiative, U.S. and allied intelligence services
] summoned scores of Iraqi operatives in foreign capitals
] to present a stark choice. They were told "they could
] either 'turn,' " said one official, using an expression
] for switching sides, or be expelled back to Iraq "to
] enjoy your very short stay in Baghdad."

U.S. Reaps New Data On Weapons (washingtonpost.com)

] "This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers)," said
] author and intelligence expert James Bamford. "There is a
] predominant belief in the intelligence community that an
] invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will
] prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of
] embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there
] have been so many lies out of the administration -- by
] the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and
] (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq."

United Press International: Top White House anti-terror boss resigns

] Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and so
]
] forth -- cannot simply be

[IP] Stratfor Weekly: Beyond the Iraq Campaign

]The chief reason why dollars are more than pieces of green paper
]is that countries all over the world need them for purchases,
]principally of oil. This requires them in addition to maintain
]dollar reserves to protect their own currency; and these
]reserves, when invested, help maintain the current high levels of
]the US securities markets.

]...the need to dominate oil from Iraq is also deeply intertwined
]with the defense of the dollar. Its current strength is supported
]by OPEC's requirement (secured by a secret agreement between the
]US and Saudi Arabia) that all OPEC oil sales be denominated in
]dollars. This requirement is currently threatened by the desire
]of some OPEC countries to allow OPEC oil sales to be paid in
]euros.

Interesting... long but good. I just wish I knew enough about
macroeconomics to critique his essay.

Bush's Deep Reasons for War on Iraq: Oil, Petrodollars, and the OPEC Euro question

A fairly detailed description of strategy that will be unleashed in about 3 days.

Okay Saddam, here's the plan...

] Six months after President Bush first appeared before the
] United Nations and urged a confrontation with Iraq, the
] United States appears to have lost diplomatic ground, not
] gained it, leaving it in a precarious international
] position as it prepares to launch a war.

U.S. Missteps Led to Failed Diplomacy (washingtonpost.com)