Slashdot Mirror
Updates on War in Iraq
New Developments on the war in Iraq:
Oil Fields ablaze in southern Iraq.
Turkey opens airspace to U.S..
US Forces 3rd Infantry Fire Heavy Artillery at Southern Iraq.
The schedule has been accelerated due to infrastructure destruction.
CT: Explosions and heavy anti aircraft fire heard in Baghdad.
We'll continue to update as new information warrants.
As a US citizen having spent the last 12 months outside the US, I can personally vouch for the fact that public opinion for the US has spiraled downwards recently. While I can see some justification for a conflict in Iraq, at what cost will it come?
Have you seen my stapler?
BBC has the only free live feed I can find.
They have great coverage (of what can be covered anyway).
- OrbNobz
And the rockets red glare...the bombs bursting in air...
This turned out to be misinformation. They weren't Scuds.
iirc cnn has an irc server (irc.cnn.com)? that has a bot spouting their closed caption feed.
Not exactly a great feed [or unbiased!], but a good way to keep in touch of what's going on.
Actually, I think you misunderstand me. I do NOT in any way approve of the US invading North Korea. The costs would simply be far too high, even if the DPRK did not possess nuclear weapons (which it might). Even now, there are North Korean artillery in place which can fire 50,000 rounds an hour into downtown Seoul. A military conflict there would be disasterous.
What I am advocating is that we step up negotiations with North Korea, which China, South Korea, and Japan are all trying to persuade us to do. If our senate would have ratified the 1994 treaty, which would have given North Korea a couple of nuclear power plants jointly run by the US and Japan, this nuclear standoff could likely have been averted. In the meantime, North Korea's goals are still basically diplomatic: the regime there wants normalization of relations with the US, a non-agression treaty, and a return of fuel and power aid.
Additionally, I would like to note that China's government does have mixed feelings about North Korea. On the one hand, China has always enjoyed having another communist state as a "buffer" in the region. On the other hand, North Korea has become an albatross about China's neck. Without assistance from the Chinese government, North Korea would essentially collapse, both politically and economically, and the cost to China of maintaining that regime keeps getting higher. Additionally, China has (albiet slowly) been making economic and political reforms aimed at democratizing Chinese society and promoting more private industry. North Korea is not making similar efforts, which has caused the two countries to be farther apart politically than ever before. If anything, China is interested in being a partner with the US in resolving the Korean crises. The PRC, like the US, realizes it is in noone's interested to have a nuclear Korean peninsula.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
As for using SCUD missiles doesn't positively give evidence of using banned munitions
The SCUD itself is banned. His missiles are limited (by UN mandate) to have a range of no more than 150km.
There are a scary number of parallels between Saddam Hussein of today, and Hitler of the 1930s.
Uhm-hm. I came across this text from Thom Hartmann which you may find interesting. The closing pieces about federally empowered corporations are especially interesting, and may ring a bell with the Slashdot crowd.
When Democracy Failed: The warnings of history
18 Mar 2003
The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms