Did one of the Sept 11 terrorists meet an Iraqi intelligence officer before the attack? The Congressional Report says that he may well have. The US authorities have been unable to find any evidence that he did not travel to Prague or some such sinister place.
"We haven't ruled out the possibility of [the meeting] happening," a senior U.S. official said yesterday. "But we have no evidence to demonstrate conclusively that it did."
The terrorist in question
may have traveled under an unknown alias: the CIA has been unable to establish that he left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias.
Here is a quote on the activities of another conspiratorial group:
In fact, they're so good at evading detection that when the FBI, some years ago, tried to authenticate reports of their conspiratorial activities, not a single trace of evidence could be found!
One of these quotes is from a satirical text, the two others are really and truly genuine.
Note: One of the quotes is from Frederick Crews: Postmodern Pooh, New York 2001
2003 07 25
"Have web site, will investigate"
In a commentary in Business Week, Spencer E. Ante discusses blogging and what he calls "pay-to-read journalism." BW wouldn't be BW if it didn't focus on the strictly commercial aspects: the by now familiar stories of Allbritton (Back-to-Iraq) and Andrew Sullivan (raised a lot of money for himself) but adds also a few new examples of bloggers trying to get their readers to finance investigative blogging. And the BW commentator asks:
Is this the future of journalism? The New York Times may have nothing to worry about...(but) it offers an increasingly powerful megaphone for the little guy.
The BW commentary is one page long. It contains a lot of interesting references. The problem is that it is not easy to get hold of those publications at least not at the same time as you are reading the article. For the service of the BW readers, I will therefore list below all of Dante's references, with www links, the result of 10 minutes of intensive investigative googling:
Back In Iraq
The Blogging Network
David Appell, freelance science writer
OhmyNews.com (you really should look at this one.)
The Baffler Magazine
Village Voice
The Center for Public Integrity
Andrew Sullivan - Daily Dish.
and then of course:
Associated Press
CNN
The New Republic
Nature
The Washington Post
The New York Times
but you knew those already...If Spencer E. Ante had been a blogger all his readers could have been taken directly to those sites. (There are no links in the BW on-line article.) But then he would also be a "little guy" (what about all the blogging little gals?)
At the end of the commentary it says:
Ante, who covers technology, is looking for a few good blogs to fund.
According to the accession treaty Sweden is obliged to participate in the third step of the EMU, that is to say to introduce the Euro as soon as the legal preconditions -the so called convergence criteria- are met. In contrast to Denmark and the United Kingdom, Sweden has not negotiated any exception to these general rules of the EU.
The 2002 convergence report from the EU/ECB is quite clear about this. In contrast to Denmark and the United Kingdom:
Sweden is thus committed by the Treaty to adopt the
euro, which implies that it has to strive to fulfil
all the convergence criteria, including the exchange rate criterion.
Nevertheless, there will be a popular referendum in September as to whether Sweden should introduce the Euro or not. Given the popular sentiment in the country there is little doubt that there will be an overwhelming NO-victory. This will raise some important and difficult issues of community policy (quite apart from a severe domestic policy turmoil.)
The EU information service of the Swedish Parliament seems to think that a “no” to the EMU would be such a fundamental change that the pre-conditions for a EU membership are no longer valid and would oblige us to initiate a procedure, according to the principles of International Law, for leaving the EU.
It is, perhaps, quite unlikely that this would happen. So far the EU Commission, the ECB and the Swedish authorities have succeeded, in a rare combination of efforts, every second year, to invent reasons as to why Sweden would not be qualified to participate in the third stage of the EMU. Mainly the exchange rate has been found to be too "volatile". Also the Central Bank legislation, apparently, is not quite up to European standards.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:3)
Sweden is an important net contributor to the budget of the EU which will be subject to some pressures due to the forthcoming enlargement of the Union. It is thus overwhelmingly likely that the European authorities would abstain from provoking the Swedish public opinion by insisting that the country should meet its contractual obligations. In one possible scenario a new Swedish Government under the present Deputy Prime Minister and supported by communists and greens might intitate the procedure for leaving the EU, particularly if the IGC would establish clear rules for such an eventuality. The budget people in Brussels would probably like to avoid that.
The convergence reports must be submitted every second year - next time is 2004. It is thus likely that the Commission, the ECB and, obviously, the Swedish authorities will keep the mythos of non-convergence alive at least until 2006, maybe until 2008. By then the political situation should have cleared and it might be self-evident for Sweden that it has to introduce the Euro since it will be the common currency for all Baltic countries, probably including Denmark and maybe even Norway.
In a column in Financial Times, a British (of course) columnist is mildly critical of the US effort of "nation building" in Iraq. His solution: set up a "Colonial Office" modeled on the "old British Colonial Office and India Office."On second thoughts he feels that it might be better to call it something like "the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance", an "anodyne euphemism" according to the writer.
But it gets better. Our commentator is slightly surprised that the Americans didn't come up with this idea by themselves since they
have run so many similar nation-building exercises in recent years: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Afghanistan. Yet there has been little attempt to apply the lessons of those places in Iraq.
Please note that this is not sarcasm or irony but a serious article by an Olin senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in one of Britain's most venerable newspapers. Oh Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo and Afghanistan, those paragons of democracy, peace and respect for human rights - perfect models for the future Iraq.
Financial Times has already elevated the US administrator, general Garner, to viceroy. I predicted earlier that we will have Lord Blair of Baghdad before all this is over. Remember, you saw it here first.
Note: I found this article via Peevish - I'm just saying, one of my favorite American blogs.
Swedish-speaking readers are referred to this article about the not so glorious results of British nation-building.
Another note: Having written the above I forced myself to reread the FT column to make sure that it wasn't meant as irony after all. Monty Python could hardly have done it better. But no - I am rather sure.
