US missiles target Saddam
US President George W Bush has launched war on Baghdad, vowing to "disarm Iraq and to free its people".

Mr Bush delivered a live television address shortly after explosions rocked the capital at 0534 local time (0234 GMT), signalling the start of the US-led campaign to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

US military sources have told the BBC that five key members of the Iraqi regime, including Saddam Hussein, were targeted in the first attacks.

It is not known whether the targets were hit and what damage might have been caused.
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Into the Darkness
By William Rivers Pitt

An associate of mine, a former political appointee, recently spoke to a Republican friend of his who serves in a senior position in what has become the Office of Homeland Security.  He reports that this official, along with many of his colleagues across the political spectrum within the apparatus of government, are absolutely terrified of George W. Bush.  According to this official, the consensus is that Bush has completely lost touch with reality, and is bringing us to a place where politics will no longer matter.

A London newspaper, the Guardian, has quoted a source close to the administration as saying, "This has been the worst diplomatic debacle of our lifetime."  A senior White House official is also quoted as saying, in a voice reportedly awash with sarcasm, "There's a recognition that this has not been our finest diplomatic hour."

There is no calculating the understatement here.  There was never any diplomacy involved here to begin with.  This has been a disaster, and it is about to get worse by orders of magnitude.
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  thanks to BookNotes

Arrogance of Power
Today, I Weep for my Country...
by US Senator Robert Byrd
Speech delivered on the floor of the US Senate

I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.

But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
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Comment: New US theory of war

In the military world, size does indeed matter.

It is not so much the numbers of troops or tanks that counts. It is the way units and weapons systems are put together to provide what the military call "combat power".

Despite all the adjectives and hyperbole about the scale of the current US and British deployment in the Gulf, the simple fact is that this is rather a small force with which to contemplate a full-scale invasion of a country the size of Iraq
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Bush cites al-Qaeda link to justify Iraq attack

U.S. President George W. Bush sent Congress a formal justification for invading Iraq Wednesday, citing the attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
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  thanks to BookNotes

Even if there is absolutely no link.

A Housekeeping Before The Apocalypse

My own sweeping generalization is thus: the very modern, intelligent, very educated, ivory-tower reviewers of literature are made distinctly uncomfortable by war and combat as themes, and the more in-your-face it is in a book, the more uncomfortable they get. So they try very hard to ignore it. When at all possible, they’d rather just not go there. Because, I think, it IS all a great surprise to them. The side of humanity that survives the stress of looming combat by having mass faux fieldfucks is very foreign to these people, and they don’t want to write about it or frankly even think about it. So they don’t. Until those times, like right now, when they have to because they can’t avoid it. And then they seem surprised at how filthy dirty it all is.

It’s funny to me, and I think it’s the same underlying reason why intelligent, well-educated people have allowed our leaders to take us to this point: because they have no knowledge of how bad war really is.

It really is that bad.
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  thanks to Eschaton

THE MORON MAJORITY
An American Warlord Races to Waterloo
By Ted Rall

Decades of budget cuts in education are finally yielding results, a fact confirmed by CNN's poll of March 16, which shows that an astonishing 51 percent of the public believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

There is no reason to think that. None. True, George W. Bush has asserted the existence of indirect links between low-level Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence officials--a lame lie repeatedly denied by the CIA--but even our professional prevaricator has never gone so far as to accuse Saddam of direct involvement in 9-11. Despite their increasingly tenuous grasp on reality, not even the Bush Administration's most fervent hawks deny that the secular dictator of Iraq is a mortal enemy of the Islamist extremists of Al Qaeda. No mainstream media outlet has ever reported otherwise.

So why do these pinheads think such a thing?
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  thanks to follow me here...

Where is Raed ?

there is still nothing happening im baghdad we can only hear distant expolsions and there still is no all clear siren. someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been overtaken by US broadcast, that didn't happen the 3 state broadcasters still operate.
:: salam 6:40 AM

air raid sirens in baghdad but the only sounds you can here are the anti-aircraft machine guns. will go now.
:: salam 5:46 AM

"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
Samuel P. Huntington
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