America and the Iraqi WMDs: the opponents to war vindicated?

I visited Mark Shea who linked to an in extenso citation by Dan Darling on how Powell is admitting that the Americans had no solid evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and literally shrugs his shoulders as if it were no big deal.

But it is.

I'm deeply incensed about this cavilier attitude. As regular readers know, I never believed that the the ancien r?gime had huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction nor a highly advanced program since '91. I've repeated myself incessently that Powell exaggerated the claims and was the weakest argument to go to war. Yet what truly disgusts me is that Powell's assertions and the skepticism by the other western countries soon degenerated into a gratuitious and unnecessary torrent of abuse heaped on allied/sympathetic countries for their oppoistion to a war.

More fundamentally, the facile attitude will only reinforce the belief that the opponents of the war were right after all and will soon be vindicated. Even more troubling was American behaviour towards those sympathetic and allied countries that opposed the war was shamefully arrogant. Those same countries that were so shabbily treated will be very reticient to help out the Americans or to accede to their request.

Already some European countries refuse to allow armed sky policemen to board planes preferring instead to cancel the suspected flights. The harm and delay in ending the threat posed by islamojishadist terrorists are simply uncalculable and the American administration will deserve blame for squandering the trust of allied/sympathetic countries.

L'?crasement du vol de Flash airlines: n?glience fran?aise potentielle?

En lisant cette article parue dans la Monde, des questions se soul?vent: Est-ce que les autourit?s fran?aises ont ?t? au courrant de l'avis ?mis par l'autorit? f?d?rale suisse de l'aviation civile qui d?noncait les graves lacunes d'entretien par Flash Airlines?

Cette question est tr?s important car si le Minist?re francais du transport avait r??u cet avis et il, ou l'autori? fran?aise comp?tente ? l'inspection d'entretien de l'avation civile, n'a pas faite de suivi cette faute pourrait ?tre g?n?ratrice d'une faute civile de l'?tat fran?ais. En cons?quence, les ayants droit pourraient le poursuivre.

Cependant, cette poursuite n'emp?chrait soit l'?tat fran?ais a appeller la compagnie a?riene comme tiers garante ou comme une d?bitrice soldiaire au proc?s soit la loi ?dicterait la solidarit? pusique l'obligation de r?parer caus? ? autrui par la faute de deux ou plus est solidaire lorsque cette obligation est extracontractuelle. En tout cas, la preuve vers?e lors du proc?s s'av?rera forte int?ressante ? d?gager qui est responsable en plus de r?v?ler qui connaissait quoi, quand et pourquoi celui n'a pas agi. Entre-temps, l'enqu?te judiciare fran?aise s'ouvre pour homicides involontaires donc du droit criminel et le juge a d?livr? une commission rogatoire ? l'Egypte.

Test your Communist holocaust knowledge

La trag?dia del vol Aire Egypte

Quan sent? a les notic?es aquest fin de setmana, que un vol d'aire Egipte havia caigut al Mar Roig matant a tothom, la primera cosa que pensava que es tractava d'un possible atemptat terrorista i secund?riament d'un fall mecanic. Esclar que que pensat el primer per que els ?rabs no han fet res per canviar el prejudici popular que un ?rab o un musulm? equival a un terrorista.

Mentrestant, avui el diari angl?s hi ha noves informaciones sobre el charter. Es veu que les autoritats su?sses havian bannit el charter- que es diu Flash- a aterrir i volar a Su?ssa per incompliment de les normes de mantenament. Una portaveu del l'aerol?nea ha dismentit aix? dient que es tractava d'un problema financier. Com si aquesta concessi? tranquilitz?s les clients potentials. No s? que es pitjor: problemes potential de solv?ncia o incompliment de la mantenament. Amd?s potser son lligats. En tot cas, s'haur? de investigar i divulgar exactament i publicament que pass?. Sin? tothom gravitar? a les te?ries conspiratorials. Encara pitjor degut a la securitat molt servera sobre els avions i si o no poden volar i aterrisar a EE UU, le gent es posaran encara m?s parano?aca i no voldran voler. Que fa tanta pena es come de families enteres moririen en aquest accident.

Actualitizacio: la premsa francesa ens informa que tampoc es pot descartar un atemptat Adem?s l'accident provoca moltes q?estions que pel moment romanen inexplicades EN tot cas reitero que l'investigaci? ha ser exhaustiva no sols per tranquilitzar les familiars sobrevivants ans tamb? per discartar rumors err?nies que es prendr?n com a fets verdiques.

Frum and the national ID cards: how very European

In today's diary entry Frum was supposed to write about his advocacy for a national ID card system in the U.S. Instead, he discusses his new book An End to evil that he coauthoured with Richard Perle. I've commented briefly about the book and Dan has responded with his own post on the subject. Frum states that he'll respond to reactions to the book. Excellent, I look foward to the forthcoming debate (Cato has written an interesting rebuttal to my critical post on the book). In the meantime, let me remind Frum and Perle that the title of the book remains ill-considered. As if ending terrorism will terminate evil. Sadly, people will still rob, steal, adulerate, kill among other evil choices long after the islamojihadists are defeated.

Personally, I'm opposed to implementing a national ID card system. The principal reason is a deep distrust of the state's basic competence to even carry out its de minimis obligations with such a system Here in Canada, the federal government has so utterly botched the gun registry's implementation that the federal Auditor general has refused to accept any financial statements or testimony from the functionaries in charge of the registry because the information is unverifiable.

Further, the federal income tax ministry (strictu sensu: the Ministry of revenue, customs and excise) has had one of its own workers steal a shoebox of microfiches containing the tax returns of some 20-40 000 people some years ago. Finally, in Quebec, 2 employees of the SAAQ- the entity in charge of driver and car licences as well as the payer to those injured in car accidents, were corrupted by the Hell's angels (a notorious motocycle gang) to act as moles and send the gang a list of addresses of potential witnesses, cops, prision guards, judges in order to kill or intimidate them.

If the Canadian provincial and federal governments have shown some ineptitude for less critical databases, what makes Frum assume that governments will be anymore competent with such a key database? Moreover, I dislike the ID card system because it erodes civil liberties. Nothing aggravates me more than having some cop demand to see your papers. It's only happened to me once in Spain and since I'm a foreigner who speaks Spanish and catalan comptently enough, the cop left me alone but hassled my cousins and friends for 20 minutes. The danger is that neither Canada nor the U.S. have a tradition of preventative prision nor the judicial mechanisms to adjudicate the matter. Will not carrying your ID card be a penal or criminal sanction? Will the adjudicator be a court or an administrative tribunal? Cops will hate the card because it'll tie valuable resources of both space and personnel processing those who forgot or didn't bother carrying it.

Frum must answer the obvious question of how exactly would a national ID card system foil terrorist attacks and net terrorists? If Frum points to the successes in Europe, the irony will be complete; European citizens are less assertive than the Americans over potential civil liberty infractions by law enforcement. So imagine Frum's surprise at how the adoption of the ID card system in America will 'Europeanize' the country's law enforcement.