Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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10:19 PM
Speaking of Gazette articles, Norman Webster gets it right about Saddam and why he's got to go:

"He is the most dangerous creature God ever created," an Iraqi woman living in exile shivered to an interviewer recently. For decades, Saddam has brutalized rivals, friends, mentors, Iran, Kuwait, Israel, the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, the poison-gas victims of Halabja, millions of ordinary Iraqis and the very environment of the Gulf.

The most chilling film clip you will ever see is the one where Saddam announces to an auditorium that he has discovered a plot and has the names of the plotters, including close acquaintances, read out. As they are named, they stand and are led away, never to be seen again.

[ . . . ]

In sum, this is a truly wicked man, deeply evil, as deadly and disgusting as his role model, Stalin. He just hasn't had as broad a canvas to work on.

He has tried to remedy that defect, relentlessly pursuing the weapons that would make him a destroyer of worlds. He was almost there when the Israelis took out a reactor near Baghdad in 1981, and again 10 years later, when the first Gulf War interrupted a nuclear arms program that was only months from fruition - not to mention biological and chemical horrors.

The scary thing is that much of the world actually believes that Bush is more dangerous than Saddam. I suggest they try spending a week living near either one of them. Let them try voicing a dissenting opinion to both of them. Let's see what they have to say after that.

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10:09 PM
Josh Freed thinks it would be kinda cool if we all had doubles, like Saddam.

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8:44 AM
Ungrateful brats:

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing," said Snow when asked about his reaction to the Bell Centre fans booing the U.S. national anthem.

It wouldn't hurt all the childish idiots who were booing last night to remember that the only reason Canada can afford to keep its nose clean is thanks to the U.S.

After 9/11, Canadians were going around proclaiming how much they loved Americans, buying pins with the Canadian and American flag together to pin to their lapels, grieving together with the U.S. But now, less than two years later, they're booing the U.S. national anthem at hockey games. Utterly disgraceful, and utterly fickle. It seems Canadians only have compassion for helpless victims, not for strong nations willing to defend the interests of the world.

Idiots like that give all Canadians a bad name. It's time for Canada to re-examine its relationship with the United States, and to start acknowledging that we have more than enough reason to be grateful.

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12:10 PM
Jean Chretien said it's pointless to criticise the U.S. about Iraq, because it just plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein:

"At this point I think there is no use debating the reasons why some people think war is necessary and some people think it is not. We should not say anything that would comfort Saddam Hussein," he told reporters.

Hmmm. Do you think Chretien is reacting to this:



Sometimes a picture does indeed say a thousand words.

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12:30 AM
Good editorial in the London Times:

There has not been, despite what some critics charge, an unseemly rush to war on the part of the United States and the United Kingdom. Six months have passed since George W. Bush first went to the United Nations, five months since he acquired the political authority from Congress to deal with Iraq and well over four months since the UN Security Council backed Resolution 1441 and provided Saddam Hussein with his final, final chance.

[ . . . ]

Now that British forces have been committed, the country should and almost certainly will rally around them. The Prime Minister deserves the support of all political parties. The peace may prove harder to win than the war, but war will still be a difficult endeavour. It rarely proceeds precisely as planned. Ulysses Grant, the general who took charge of the Union army after its rout at Fredricksburg, eventually received Lee's and the South's final surrender at Appomattox with the words: "The war is over — the rebels are our countrymen again." His respectful tone was such that it prevented his men from cheering the defeat of their opponents. Mr Bush and Mr Blair must welcome the people of Iraq back into the civilised world in exactly the same spirit.

Worth reading.

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11:45 PM
It's the fault of the Jews again . . . It appears that Saddam Hussein might only be alive today thanks to the efforts of an Iraqi Jewish man who talked his pregnant mother out of committing suicide:

85-year-old Nassima Karush [ . . . ] relates how Saddam's mother, Subha, had watched her first-born son die of what doctors said was cancer. Depressed from the death, she didn't want to live and tried several times to kill herself and her unborn child, Saddam.

Karush, who immigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1951, said Wednesday she remembers her sister-in-law's husband, Sallim Zirha, convincing Saddam's mother not to commit suicide.

Man, the antisemitic conspiracy theorists must be frothing at the mouth on this one!

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11:26 PM
The war now officially has a name. Bush has dubbed it Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Well, at least we can start calling it something (even though a good many people are sure to use the name in an ironic or sarcastic sense).

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11:05 PM
In yet another example of strife between Arab nations, it appears that Syria has closed its border to Iraqi refugees trying to flee ahead of attacks.

As the countdown to war continues, Iraqis have been trying to get out of the country.

But since midday on Tuesday, they have been unable to cross the border into Syria.

There were conflicting explanations about why this was the case, but from speaking with Iraqis waiting to be let in and officials on both sides it appears that Syria decided to close its border after an influx of Iraqis earlier in the morning.

The Iraqi side then decided not to process any more passports for travelling Iraqis.

An Iraqi custom official expressed his anger at the Syrian decision, saying it was turning back families with women and children at a time when their lives were at risk because of an impending war.

Note that Syria not only sits on the UN Security Council, but has been adamently opposed to the prospect of war supposedly out of concern for the civilian population. Some concern.

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10:58 PM
It's war.

Here's hoping and praying that this conflict is short, that casualties are as few as possible, that civilians remain unharmed, and that military personnel return home safely to their families as soon as possible.

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7:04 PM
Saddam's greatest cheerleader, Hans Blix, said that he doesn't think Saddam will use chemical or biological weapons for fear of turning world opinion against him:

Iraq is unlikely to use chemical or biological weapons to defend itself from a U.S.-led invasion because world opinion would turn against it, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Wednesday. "Saddam Hussein has certainly figured himself to be a sort of emperor of Mesopotamia, and the leader of the Arab world," Blix said. "So I think he very likely cares very much about his reputation."

Wait a sec . . . I thought Blix assured us that Saddam didn't have any of those chemical or biological weapons.

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6:53 PM
Well, the old missing comments are back, but now the new ones have disappeared (from the past four days or so). Hopefully they'll be back soon. Sorry about the inconvenience - nobody's being censored, it's just Haloscan having problems again.

Update: They're all back now.

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12:51 PM
Meanwhile, back in Quebec, there's an election going on here (anyone remember that?) and today's polls show the Liberals slightly ahead of the PQ.

This is good news on the surface, but with daily fluctuations, it doesn't mean much. The only poll that matters is the ballot box, in other words.

It's also worth noting that a majority in the polls doesn't mean a majority government. It doesn't even mean being elected. The Liberals won the popular vote last election, but the PQ won a majority of seats. Thanks to our ingenious ridings system, the Liberals need a ton more support in "soft nationalist" ridings in order to have a chance at forming government, because the PQ's support is traditionally more spread out, while the Liberals tend to get a lot of waste votes in concentrated areas like Montreal. In fact, a party could win the election with only 17% of the vote under the current ridings system.

How's this for absurdity? It is theoretically possible that a party that finishes third in the popular vote April 14, with 17 per cent of the valid votes province-wide or even less, could win a majority of the seats in the next Quebec legislature.

(You can do the math yourself. It takes 63 out of the 125 seats in the National Assembly for a majority. With three major parties, one of them could win every one of those seats with only 34 per cent of the votes in each riding, if the other two parties split the rest of the votes evenly.

Factor in votes for minor candidates, and it could win with even fewer votes. It wouldn't need a single vote in the other 62 ridings.)

It is a real possibility that a party rejected by more than 60 per cent of the voters will form a "majority" government.

And it is possible, even probable, that another majority government will be elected in Quebec with less than half the overall vote, as in seven of the last nine general elections.

And the Americans think that they have it bad because of Florida.

As it turns out, the ADQ could be the spoiler factor here. If they succeed in splitting the nationalist vote enough in certain ridings to allow the Liberals to edge the PQ, then the Liberals could have a shot. If they steal more support from Liberal ridings, giving the PQ the spoiler vote, than we're sure to have another five years of separatist government.

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12:48 PM
A group of high school students have been suspended for skipping class to protest the war. Apparently, many of them are complaining, but the school board is standing firm:

"We're sending a message out to students who want to do the same thing," said Michael Cohen, spokesperson for the English Montreal School Board.

"We have nothing against the idea of them protesting the war. If they would have done this after school hours, it would have been fine."

[ . . . ]

Frat, who has two kids at Lester B. Pearson, said the "demonstrators" were probably more intent on enjoying the balmy weather than denouncing George W. Bush.

They could have added a couple of points: firstly, most of these kids probably have no idea why they oppose the war, since it appears they don't spend too much time in classrooms reading their history textbooks. They probably are protesting because their friends are, and they think it's cool. Secondly, anything high school students do as an excuse to skip class isn't exactly a protest, it's just an excuse to get out of class. Maybe it's a little more creative than the ones we used to use, but come on, we're talking about high school here!

Note that if this had happened at Concordia, the CSU would be suing the administration as we speak.

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11:03 PM
Political strife in the classroom:

This evening, something strange happened in my French class at Université de Montréal. It's something that didn't happen at all in three years at Concordia - Concordia, the school known more for its riots and anti-American, anti-Zionist politics than for its academics. And despite that, never once did I have this problem. But this evening, in the middle of verb conjugations and vocabulary lessons, my teacher decided to vent her political views. And the classroom rapidly turned into a bastion of America-bashing, right before my very eyes.

It's not so much that she chose to express her opinion (which pretty much consists of the standard leftist line on how the US was going to war for "no reason" and how it's such a tragedy because innocent people are going to die so Bush can get oil, etc.). It was the fact that she allowed the rest of the class to use her opening as an opportunity to bash the United States. And of course, the inevitable non-sequiteur tie-in to Israel, as Rachel Corrie's name was bandied about within seconds.

And I just sat there, fuming.

Of course, I could have said something. I could have said a lot of things. I've never had a particular problem of being in the minority — as I clearly was in this case. In fact, I think I was the only one who doesn't consider it a badge of honour to have been out at the anti-Bush (er, anti-war) protest on Saturday. But I've never been one to shy away from debate before.

The point is, I felt it was inappropriate. It wasn't the time or the place to get into a political debate. We were all there to learn about possessive pronouns, not possession of weapons of mass destruction. I thought it was horribly inappropriate for the teacher to start the conversation, and I didn't want to compound it by turning the anti-American free-for-all into a full-fledged debate. In French, no less — and I must admit that being somewhat inarticulate in French was a factor that motivated me to keep my mouth shut. So I just sat with my arms folded and did my best to give the teacher a dirty look.

In the second half of the class, however, I decided I needed to say something — quietly. I told the teacher I felt uncomfortable with what had happened, and while I didn't think it was appropriate to say anything at the time, I don't share her political views and I'd appreciate if she kept differing opinions in mind. I talked about how I could have explained my position but I didn't want to turn French class into world politics class.

Her reaction was interesting. She was very polite, and said it was never her intention to be insulting — and indeed, she never was. But she continued to hold that "it's an issue that touches all of us" and claimed that she was very upset and needed to share her thoughts. She also seemed unable to comprehend that there were people out there who weren't opposed to war in Iraq on principle. She took it as a given, and seemed genuinely surprised to hear that other viewpoints exist.

Still hoping to avoid a political debate, I ended the conversation right then and there. But I learned a few valuable lessons.

First and foremost, it's all too easy to understand why an overwhelming majority of university students hold the same antiwar views. Quite simply, they want to fit in. They want to feel like they belong. And everyone else thinks it, and most of them don't have enough background information to form a strong counter-position. So they just get swept along with the tide.

I also learned why even innocent offhand comments by a professor in a classroom are so dangerous. Freedom of expression, yes. Freedom of speech. But with the role of teacher comes the responsibilty not to abuse that position. My French teacher is a very nice person, and she had absolutely no malicious intent. The problem is that not all professors are so innocent. Just check out Campus Watch for a few examples.

Certainly I don't expect everyone to conform to my views. But there's a time and place for debate, and that wasn't it.

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9:47 PM
It's strange - when it's a slow news day, I tend to go nuts and blog incessantly. But now that there's actual news, I find I'm not in the mood to blog. Maybe it's because I'm spending too much time tuned to other media sources. I don't know.

At any rate, there's no shortage of blogs with regular updates on the situation. I recommend checking out some of the ones listed on the lefthand side of this site, for starters.

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2:48 PM
And Canada's out. Canada will not be playing any role in a US-led attack on Iraq, expected to be launched this week, according to Jean Chretien.

Not that we would have had much to contribute . . . but by making this statement, Chretien is saying that he doesn't support the US and its allies over the UN. And that is likely to have consequences. The world will remember that when the courageous took action, Canada remained silent.

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10:24 AM
So it's starting to look like war is looming, inevitable, and that it will begin sometime this week, as allies the U.S., Britain, and Spain abandon a second UN resolution.

"The co-sponsors of the resolution have agreed they will not pursue a vote on the draft resolution," British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said. "The co-sponsors reserve the right to take their own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq."

Meanwhile, the White House said U.S. President George W. Bush would address his nation at 8 p.m. ET Monday (0100 GMT Tuesday).

This is the final countdown. We're in it now, folks.

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9:09 AM
Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone.

Oh, and happy birthday to the zillions of people who I know who were all born this week. This is always the World Series of birthdays at this time of year for some reason.

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