Recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery today, and the media coverage of the war doesn't seem much better even through a vicodin haze. I'll probably only post sporadically for the next little while, leaving things in the capable jaws of the Wolf.

Let us know, by the way, if you'd like to use "Vicodin Haze" as the name for your band. We'll work something out.

U.S. Force Plans Taking Kirkuk Oil Fields

Note that this is a strategic maneuver, rather than a seizing of the oil fields, which the peaceniks would love to see. And it's easy to assume it means something quite different, especially when the story is accompanied by a picture of a giant oil pipeline.

Ah, here we go. Note the following paragraph, referring to a statement by Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashehm Ahmed.

He called the two-day sandstorm that engulfed Iraq this week and slowed the U.S.-led coalition "a divine gift to tell the aggressor that he is an aggressor."

The propaganda is becoming increasingly predictable.

Hacked!

Both the Arabic and English versions of the TV network's websites are inaccessible.

UPDATE: Instapundit disagrees with this tactic, saying it's not the same as hacking Al Qaeda or Taliban websites. He may have a point, but I'm finding it difficult to sympathize... Sure, it would probably be an easy thing to take this site out of commission, for example, but we make no claims of impartiality. If you read something here, it's an opinion, pure and simple. Al Jazeera claims to have "objective content and analysis," so when their content is obviously anything but, I'm not really surprised (or even particularly disturbed) by this type of reaction.

I think that if this were true, the civilian casualty count would probably be a lot higher than the 350 claimed by the Iraqi Health Minister. Even Iraq admits that thousands of missiles and bombs have been dropped since the war began. So is the point of this article that it takes over one dozen precision-guided bombs to kill one civilian? Or perhaps it's that despite the Coalition's best efforts, Ba'ath Party buildings, Republican Guards, and guerrillas keep getting in the way at the last second? Or maybe (brace yourself), the various Iraqi Ministries are trying to use the media to deliberately spread their own propaganda and lies. This last idea seems to cause more "shock and awe" in the media than any amount of bombing.

"Well, jackass, for starters, these press conferences are held for your benefit, not mine. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you come here. If you don't like them either 1) ask better questions or 2) stay in your hotel room and stop wasting everyone's time. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time. I'm limited in what I can tell you; there is, after all, a war going on and I have to be sensitive to the security of coalition troops. If you want entertainment value out of a press conference, I suggest you attend those held by the Iraqi leaders. No matter what I tell you, you will ultimately write that the US is indiscriminately bombing civilians, so why don't we cut out the niceties so that both of us can get back to doing our jobs?"

A rather interesting piece in Kanan Makiya's War Diary on "de-Baathification," and what will need to happen after the war. Worth a read, there are some good points about how although the war is destroying many of the symbols of the regime, Saddam's influence runs much deeper.

The primary structures of his control are not housed neatly in government ministries. In fact, outside of the departments of interior, education, and defense, Saddam's ministries are largely technocratic bureaucracies that are either harmless or useless. The most insidious presence of the Baath Party is in the schools, the universities, the trade unions, the women's organizations, and the youth groups. It is reflected in curricula and in the way teachers have been trained to think; it is evident in the affairs of the mosques--especially the subordination of the appointment of clerics to political considerations; it figures prominently in the practices and mindsets of hundreds of thousands of police officers and army personnel.

Curing themselves of this indoctrination will certainly be no easy task for the Iraqi people. Hopefully, as seen in post-War Germany and an Eastern Europe free from the Iron Curtain, freedom will bring with it patience, determination, and enthusiasm as they work toward their common goal of peace and prosperity.

"Baghdad is where the beginning of civilization occurred, literally where the wheel was invented, where the very first city was built, where writing began, and it has a very deep and profoundly beautiful history -- which we should never take lightly, no matter who the existing president is."

Even if it's Saddam? "I think he is very proud of the history of his country. I think it's we Americans who don't know the facts about what anthropologists call 'the cradle of civilization.' When we watch the bombing on television, we really don't seem to understand or appreciate that some of these places are sacred. . . . I disagree with those who say that Saddam Hussein doesn't think about this. He cares about these places and their people."

She continued: "I don't think American lives are threatened by him. There is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction and we have no right to make a preemptive strike on another country and try to assassinate its leader. We have no right legally or morally. We are way out of line."

But most of the evidence of civilian casualties is anecdotal — although no less powerful.

So we can all let emotion get in the way of facts because it is much more "powerful."

Is it at all surprising that the IBC Project Consultant is non other than Marc Herold, who fantastically overcounted civilian casualties in Afghanistan? Max Power reports that the IBC website was counting casualties before the war even started. Not a bad idea, they could have started with the hundreds of thousands that came at the hands of Saddam Hussein

A follow-up to this post by the Wolf. The same article mentions that:

Questioned about France's prewar offer to support the U.S.-led coalition if Iraq used chemical weapons, Powell said, "The fact is, if France wanted to help us, our troops are in just as much danger from high explosive rounds than they are from chemical rounds."
"So I'm not sure what the particular distinction is," he said dismissively on France 3 television.

Indeed, I don't think anyone is really sure, Mr. Secretary.

Plans already being made for a new $30 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, after the war. I like how the State Department

could not describe the condition of the former embassy which was abandoned ahead of the 1991 Gulf War.

Check out the view from my limb, while I guess "not good."

Well, this should come as no surprise. Citizens of Basra are rising up against their oppressors. It will be interesting to see the spin put on this little nugget by the See-No-Support / Hear-No-Support crowd.

Any bets on how long before the Iraqi Ministry of Weather, or whatever, takes credit for this?

Combat missions from two aircraft carriers were called back because of bad weather and two Army divisions were virtually stalled in a vicious sandstorm that reduced visibility to a few feet. Thousands of Marines trekking north toward Baghdad traveled only about 20 miles in five hours, buffeted by heavy winds and blowing sand. While Iraq often sees sandstorms in the spring, meteorologists said this one was exceptional.

I hope the Coalition men and women can use the down-time to catch up on some much-needed rest.

I did not know, until now, that the military is using trained dolphins to assist in mine-clearing operations in the Persian Gulf. Why didn't the State Department mention aquatic mammals in its list of Coalition members?

So we have humans, dolphins, chickens, and pigeons participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Also, quite possibly though it's not confirmed, we're seeing involvement from Ronald McDonald and maybe a couple of camels.

Meanwhile, the jackasses are running wild.

UPDATE: A "reader" points out that sea lions and parakeets are also part of the effort.

US remembers Geneva Convention Images of surrendering Iraqi soldiers being forced to kneel down and body-searched by US-troops stirred few emotions in the Western world

Surrendering soldiers were forced to kneel down and were searched? Oh, the humanity! There is so much spin going on in this web page I'm getting dizzy.

Saturday, March 22: In the morning, ABC reporter Chris Cuomo (son of the former New York Governor Mario Cuomo) picked up where Jennings left off. Previewing new protests, he insisted that anti-war activists represented more than the tiny fraction of the country that shares their views: “In American history, protests like this have been prescient indicators of the national mood, so the government may do well to listen to what’s said today.”

With 7 out of 10 Americans supporting the war at this juncture, one wonders exactly how these are "prescient indicators of the national mood." In fact, if if Cuomo wants to find a historical reference, he will have to search deeper than the Vietnam war (to which he was undoubtedly referring). After so many well-documented protests of that conflict, after all, how did warmonger Richard Nixon manage to win the 1972 presidential election in a landslide?

This is rich. A "reverend" who never completed his seminary training and who was "ordained" outside of the normal procedures of his adopted Church is denouncing violence, when he has a long history of supporting some of our time's most vicious tyrants and dictators, and exploiting fear, violence, and hatred to suit his own needs. Read this book, and you'll know what's really on his agenda.

In an interview this evening with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, a University of Chicago Law Professor (I'm sorry I didn't catch his name) was caught up in a debate on criminal anti-war protestors. In response to Bill's mention of the hundreds that were arrested during the Lake Shore Drive incident, the guest (perhaps in an attempt to make it seem less significant) mentioned that only men were arrested. All of the women detained were released.

Interesting.

This is great.

In what is apparently yet another exception to their promise to fully abide by the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, Iraqi state TV is parading more alleged American prisoners.

I suppose we could try to reciprocate, if there were enough videotape.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has

denied US allegations that Russians were helping Iraq and that a Russian firm had sold Baghdad embargoed equipment to jam US weapons guidance technology.

Oh.... well.... if you say so. What were we thinking?

Maybe that'll knock a few billion off of their debt.

CNN just announced that Greek antiwar advocates have tried to bomb an American bank and an American restaurant in Athens.

"Antiwar advocates" makes them sound like political action committees. They are terrorists. CNN shouldn't be afraid to call them what they are.

"We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results, that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons," Moore said.

No one should know more about fiction than Moore, who unabashedly blurs the lines between fantasy and reality to create his own alternative universe where he is omniscient and the bad guys foolishly play right into his hands. It was nice to see that some in Hollywood had the balls to boo his sorry fat ass after he won an undeserved award in a category in which he didn't belong