Nick Denton writes: “And that was before the missiles went astray this morning, apparently killing as many as 15 people. Hell, 15 dead: that’s a quiet day in the Arab world. Even imagining the United States was targeting civilians, its efforts are laughable compared with Saddam — 5,000 dead in the chemical attack on Halabja in one day — or Assad — 30,000 shelled to death in Hama — or pretty much any other Arab ruler” 1. Not a good idea to lump all Arab governments together with Saddam’s. 2. This analogy is equivalent to using the fact that there are more people killed by guns in the US every year than in the attack on the World Trade Center to justify an anti-gun stance comparing the NRA to terrorists. No matter what your stance on gun control this would be morally offensive. As the US government says, it is…

Fisk: “Most of these cruise missiles that we hear exploding at night are bursting into government buildings, ministries, offices and barracks that have long ago been abandoned. There’s nobody inside them; they are empty. I’ve watched ministries take all their computers out, trays- even the pictures from the walls. That is the degree to which these buildings are empty; they are shells.” From this report, other than the fabled bunker-busting bombs, air attacks on Baghdad are presumably largely useless, other than as a frightener. Be sure that the Special Republican Guard is spread throughout the city and most likely under the shelter of schools and hospitals. I’m no expert, but it seems that no matter what the risks of casualties to the coalition forces, storming Baghdad is and always has been, unfortunately, necessary. The other option, siege, would surely be a disaster. One can only hope that the reported uprising…

If we can’t get representatives to get together anymore at the UN, perhaps events like IDEX the massive International Defence Exhibition & Conference which took place last week in the United Arab Emirates would be a suitable venue. Where else would you get the Libyan Charge d’Affaires, Algerian Chief of Staff or Somalian Deputy Minister of Defence rubbing shoulders with the French Commissioner General for Armament, German Deputy Minister of Defence, Russian Head of Defence, rubbing shoulders in turn with the British Minister for Defense Affairs and US Deputy Commander in Chief. There are even 14 Israeli firms to pitch to the 17 Arab countries in attendance. www.worldsecurity-index.com – IDEX 2003 – VIPs and Official Delegations – KNM Media LLP

BBC NEWS | Business | Senate reverses Bush tax cuts “Moderate Republican Senator George Voinovich said that ‘we are at the edge of a fiscal precipice if we keep going the way we are, particularly with this war hanging over us’” With the full tax cut plan having benn approved by the House of Representatives the differences between the two branches of Congress will have to be resolved when the bill goes to the conference stage.

an article on US initiatives for network-centric warfare Network warfare making progress “The tenets of network-centric warfare are as follows: * A robustly networked force improves information sharing. * Information sharing enhances quality of information and shared situational awareness. * Shared situational awareness enables collaboration and self-synchronization, and enhances sustainability and speed of command. * These, in turn, dramatically increase mission effectiveness. “

We live in an increasingly networked world where advances in technology are having profound effects in many diverse areas. Just as the the coverage of war is becoming decentralized, so too is warfare itself and this is very disturbing. Global profile reports on a guerilla leader: “we confront this occupation by a war of small cells. This type of war spreads and scatters. Every cell can work by itself as a base, a leader and a decision-maker, deciding the right time and place to attack. This type of organisation is a complex system which is very difficult to destroy. It can reproduce itself and grow on a daily basis” The Colonel’s Network Warfare

Ananova – Bush wants

I said that I would say when I disagreed with the normally hyper-rational Dawkins. Dawkins writes: “Saddam Hussein has been a catastrophe for Iraq, but he never posed a threat outside his immediate neighbourhood. George Bush is a catastrophe for the world. And a dream for Bin Laden.” Oh cummon – Hussein has been trying to get his hands on nuclear weapons for 30 years since he wooed a very naive Chirac into giving him Uranium. Saddam walked around with a copy of Mein Kampf in his pocket and modelled his regime on Stalin’s with the express notion of extending the Ba’athist rule to a pan-Arab nation. The Bush administration may not have gone about diplomacy very well, to say the least, but it is false to say that Hussein’s ambitions don’t extend beyond Iraq’s boundaries. via Jeff Jarvis