I was looking back at my archives to see what I was saying right before the war began, and my post in response to President Bush’s speech announcing that the war was beginning on March 17, 2003, concluded with this paragraph:

I sit here in America, and I ponder the fact that we’re the people who are about to inflict that on another country. Not because they’ve attacked us, and not because they’re preparing to attack us, but because they might possibly attack us. I won’t argue with anyone who says that Saddam Hussein is a brutal, oppressive dictator who deserves whatever fate befalls him, but there are literally millions of people who are about to stop being Saddam Hussein’s victims and start being our victims. The United States is about to be the disaster that befalls them. And when I look at President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and their ghoulish set of war-loving minions, I don’t think they appreciate the gravity of that.

I wish I had been wrong.

The lead investor in the $50 million round of financing SCO landed last year, Baystar, wants its money back.

Andrew Sullivan’s essay in favor of raising the gax tax is strongly argued. I’m inclined to agree with it for all of the reasons that he mentions, but I worry about some of the unintended consequences that aren’t explored.

Here’s why all famous people should have weblogs: Mark Cuban smacks down Donald Trump for all the world to see after Trump obliquely disses Cuban’s new show as an imitator.

So that PlayFair project I mentioned the other day was bounced from SourceForge at Apple’s request, as predicted. Then it moved to a host in India, but Apple has forced the host there to pull it down as well. I wonder where the next stop is. Gaza Strip anyone?

Juan Cole has a piece in Salon today discussing the implications of President Bush’s blind support of Ariel Sharon’s plans for the United States’ relationship with the Arab world. The Bush administration’s schtick is that it wants to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab world for their own good (and, consequently, for our good). By offering our unconditional support for Israel’s imposing any sort of settlement (and settlements) on the Palestinians that it wishes, we destroy our credibility with the very people who we claim to want to help. Anyway, Juan Cole’s reporting is better than my ranting, so read his piece.

Update: In the piece, Cole mentions the fixation among Iraqis on Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder that Israel blew up a few weeks ago. It doesn’t take much imagination to invision what the reaction would be if the US were to do something similar to Muqtada al-Sadr. The fact that the “kill or capture” rhetoric is still in heavy rotation is worrying.

I’ve not been into saying much about Iraq lately, because I’m not exactly what to say. I fear the worst, and I don’t feel much confidence in any of the reporting we’re seeing. One thing I have been doing this week is obsessively reading all the Iraqi weblogs I can find. I’ll post a list of the ones I’ve been reading later, and what I think about them. There’s a wide spectrum of opinion across the ones I’m reading, but one thing the authors have in common is that they want a secure, peaceful country. Unsurprisingly, there’s little agreement on how to make that happen. Anyway, another thing they have in common is that none of them are happy with what has gone on in Fallujah. When it comes down to it, imagine how you’d feel if Bakersfield, California were under siege by foreign occupiers, and every day you saw images of dead Californians on CNN, along with images of helicopters and jet fighters razing the town. Further imagine that people in your neighborhood were taking in refugees from the siege of Bakersfield, who came into town with all of the belongings that they could salvage and without their husbands or sons. Even if you thought Bakersfield were populated by obnoxious rednecks, you’d probably sympathize with them over the heavily armed foreigners, regardless of the intentions of those foreigners. Oh, and judging from the reaction among actual Iraqis writing from Iraq, General Mark Kimmitt ought to be fired for his change the channel comment.

I’m trying to avoid commenting on campaign stuff, because I already know who I’m voting for and chances are you readers probably all know who you’re voting for as well. However, I think that this Timothy Noah piece on John Kerry’s proposal to end the corporate tax break for shipping jobs overseas is worth reading. I’m a strong proponent of free trade. America has benefitted throughout its history from free trade, and I am eager for other developing countries to benefit as well (and for us to reap the benefits of lower costs on goods that derive from free trade). However, when it comes to corporate income, taxing overseas revenue at a lower rate than domestic revenue is just stupid. I’m glad that this is the main plank of Kerry’s trade platform. It’s common sense, it’s not protectionist, and it’s something that should already have been done.

The big news from the 9/11 commission lately seems to be George Tenet’s statement that he did not meet with George W Bush at all in August 2001 because Bush was down on the ranch, and Tenet was on vacation much of the month himself. A reader found this (from August 25, 2001) on the White House web site:

Q When you have those business meetings, like the Joint Chiefs briefing, do you like to keep it separate from the living quarters on the ranch?

THE PRESIDENT: Actually, you know, what we call the governor’s house, the place where you all came out during the — that’s where we went. Condi and Karen Hughes stayed there. And right across the street from that is a — it’s a nice looking government doublewide. (Laughter.) And that’s where the mil aide, the nurse, the WHCA head, the doc, they stay.

The CIA briefings, I have on our porch, the end of our porch looking out over the lake. When Tenet came up, that’s where we visited, out there.

You know, everybody wants to see the ranch, which I’m proud to show it off. So George Tenet and I — yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon.

I wonder why Tenet said hadn’t been to the ranch that month. Certainly President Bush had no reason to lie about George Tenet’s having been there the day before.

Update: The Washington Post reports that Tenet forgot about visiting the President in Texas.

My knowledge of the classics is neither wide nor deep, but I did read Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War when I was in college, or at least parts of it. So naturally when I read about President Bush’s press conference with Ariel Sharon yesterday, my inclination was to pull a particular quote from it that is quite famous. I see that someone else was reminded of that quotation as well.