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Apr. 9th, 2003 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockI am bereft of a theme for today's post I'm afraid. It may come off as a series of random thoughts, so I apologize in advance.
Got home from my errands last night in time to water the plants, also noted that the mostly dead strawberry plant is producing what look to be huge fruits. Thank the gods I'm an optimist when it comes to my little green babies, and that my composting skillz rule. I'm quite convinced the combination of good soil, compost, and some moisture retaining moss is going to lead to a kick ass strawberry patch this year. That is if I can keep the snails at bay. A trip to OSH should take care of that problem. Yay copper!
Aelf and I settled in for some crocheting and "Stargate" last night, got my sister L-'s afghan finished and started on my own. Woo! Love the navy-grape color and I've got enough purple homespun to create a kickass border on it. Of course I'll be finishing it up just as the weather gets warm 'cause that's how my life works. At least I've got the veil to work on too, a lapfull of veil is a lot less heavy and warm to work with. Must get more trim for that.
Must...practice...dance...tonight. I have too many choreography ideas and not enough time to actually work on them or even jot them down. I've got my own choreography pretty well worked out in my head, it's just a matter of trying to emulate it physically, that's the tricky bit.
Also, for anyone interested in learning to drum or who'd like to practice with their zills![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aelfsciene picked up some fantastic practice mixes from Alyne on Monday. Most of one CD is drumming stuff and the rhythms start with a fairly simply beladi and then escalate into complexity later on. I have this vision of a bunch of us sitting around on my deck with the music playing in the background while some play drums and others keep time on their zills. Sound like fun to anyone else?
And for those of you who haven't done so yet, take at least one of Alyne's classes. Seriously, do it. I don't often go over the top praising a teacher, but even my kindest words for her are not nearly enough to describe my respect and admiration of the lady's talent and generosity of spirit. Anyone even considering it please check out her site bellydance.com, or ask me for more details. She will be holding a double veil workshop this Sunday, and the beginners class is just that, no experience necessary! If you've ever had any desire at all to give veils a try this is the perfect chance to do so. She even has loaner veils, so no excuse not to go, got it?
Exclusive: The Evil of Cluster Bombs
On that particular street, many Iraqi military vehicles were abandoned, burned out after being targeted by US planes. A resident of the street, who said his uncle and sister were killed in the bombings, told Arab News: “I think the Americans wanted to destroy these military trucks, but in order to do that they had to destroy our neighborhood three streets deep.”
In an adjacent ward lay a 15-year-old boy, his left arm missing from below the elbow and his face and stomach severely burned. No one Arab News spoke to was celebrating the reported news of Saddam Hussein’s death. “I don’t believe what we are hearing,” said a 42-year-old hotel receptionist.
“Even if he is dead, it’s not worth the price our children and families have paid,” he added.
Saddam Hussein General Hospital alone has seen 307 deaths and treated 920 injuries. Of those, only 20 of the dead and 50 of the injured were soldiers.
The people of Najaf need water, electricity and munitions clearing teams more urgently than they need a new government.
Aid that comes too little, too late
"We have had no food for a month," said Mr Hussain. An English teacher by profession, he now drives a taxi for a living, ferrying people from Basra to the nearby market town of Zubayr. As he walked around his living room, he pointed to empty tables. The family's other belongings, he said, including a TV set and hi-fi, had been sold years before to pay for basic essentials. "First, the government kills us," he said. "Then, the Americans and the British bomb our houses. We cannot do anything. We have nothing."
Full list of casualties
Wednesday April 9, 2003
Casualties so far
US - 91 killed (27 non-combat);172 injured; 16 missing; 7 PoWs
UK - 30 killed (22 non-combat); 74 injured
Iraqi military - about 4,000 (coalition estimate); 9000 PoWs
Iraqi civilians - (Iraqi estimate) 1,252 killed; 5,103 injured
Journalists - 9 killed; 2 injured; 2 missing
British military casualties. Source: MoD
British personnel officially confirmed as dead: 30
British personnel officially confirmed as missing in action: none
British personnel officially confirmed as prisoners of war: none
Somehow I can't think of a single thing to say...
Got home from my errands last night in time to water the plants, also noted that the mostly dead strawberry plant is producing what look to be huge fruits. Thank the gods I'm an optimist when it comes to my little green babies, and that my composting skillz rule. I'm quite convinced the combination of good soil, compost, and some moisture retaining moss is going to lead to a kick ass strawberry patch this year. That is if I can keep the snails at bay. A trip to OSH should take care of that problem. Yay copper!
Aelf and I settled in for some crocheting and "Stargate" last night, got my sister L-'s afghan finished and started on my own. Woo! Love the navy-grape color and I've got enough purple homespun to create a kickass border on it. Of course I'll be finishing it up just as the weather gets warm 'cause that's how my life works. At least I've got the veil to work on too, a lapfull of veil is a lot less heavy and warm to work with. Must get more trim for that.
Must...practice...dance...tonight. I have too many choreography ideas and not enough time to actually work on them or even jot them down. I've got my own choreography pretty well worked out in my head, it's just a matter of trying to emulate it physically, that's the tricky bit.
Also, for anyone interested in learning to drum or who'd like to practice with their zills
aelfsciene picked up some fantastic practice mixes from Alyne on Monday. Most of one CD is drumming stuff and the rhythms start with a fairly simply beladi and then escalate into complexity later on. I have this vision of a bunch of us sitting around on my deck with the music playing in the background while some play drums and others keep time on their zills. Sound like fun to anyone else?And for those of you who haven't done so yet, take at least one of Alyne's classes. Seriously, do it. I don't often go over the top praising a teacher, but even my kindest words for her are not nearly enough to describe my respect and admiration of the lady's talent and generosity of spirit. Anyone even considering it please check out her site bellydance.com, or ask me for more details. She will be holding a double veil workshop this Sunday, and the beginners class is just that, no experience necessary! If you've ever had any desire at all to give veils a try this is the perfect chance to do so. She even has loaner veils, so no excuse not to go, got it?
Exclusive: The Evil of Cluster Bombs
On that particular street, many Iraqi military vehicles were abandoned, burned out after being targeted by US planes. A resident of the street, who said his uncle and sister were killed in the bombings, told Arab News: “I think the Americans wanted to destroy these military trucks, but in order to do that they had to destroy our neighborhood three streets deep.”
In an adjacent ward lay a 15-year-old boy, his left arm missing from below the elbow and his face and stomach severely burned. No one Arab News spoke to was celebrating the reported news of Saddam Hussein’s death. “I don’t believe what we are hearing,” said a 42-year-old hotel receptionist.
“Even if he is dead, it’s not worth the price our children and families have paid,” he added.
Saddam Hussein General Hospital alone has seen 307 deaths and treated 920 injuries. Of those, only 20 of the dead and 50 of the injured were soldiers.
The people of Najaf need water, electricity and munitions clearing teams more urgently than they need a new government.
Aid that comes too little, too late
"We have had no food for a month," said Mr Hussain. An English teacher by profession, he now drives a taxi for a living, ferrying people from Basra to the nearby market town of Zubayr. As he walked around his living room, he pointed to empty tables. The family's other belongings, he said, including a TV set and hi-fi, had been sold years before to pay for basic essentials. "First, the government kills us," he said. "Then, the Americans and the British bomb our houses. We cannot do anything. We have nothing."
Full list of casualties
Wednesday April 9, 2003
Casualties so far
US - 91 killed (27 non-combat);172 injured; 16 missing; 7 PoWs
UK - 30 killed (22 non-combat); 74 injured
Iraqi military - about 4,000 (coalition estimate); 9000 PoWs
Iraqi civilians - (Iraqi estimate) 1,252 killed; 5,103 injured
Journalists - 9 killed; 2 injured; 2 missing
British military casualties. Source: MoD
British personnel officially confirmed as dead: 30
British personnel officially confirmed as missing in action: none
British personnel officially confirmed as prisoners of war: none
Somehow I can't think of a single thing to say...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re:
Date: 2003-04-09 11:46 am (UTC)Unfortunately nobody has been able to produce even the slightest evidence of this, though gods know Powell did try:
Rumsfeld's Exaggerations: On the Saddam/Al-Qaeda Link
(http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20021002.htm)
Leaked report rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2727471.stm)
The classified document, written by defence intelligence staff three weeks ago, says there has been contact between the two in the past.
His [Bin Laden's] aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq
But it assessed that any fledgling relationship foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies.
"If we had a relationship with al-Qaeda and we believed in that relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it." Saddam Hussein
It may help to think about it in these terms, Ossam's a fundamentalist psycho, Saddam is a secular psycho.
2) No, it doesn't say much. Killing innocents is bad. I don't want to lower us to their level, but dammit, I'm tired of the US being dogged and spit upon and beaten and all we do is talk talk talk.
Hey no question or argument there. But talk is...well it's important. Right now what I'd like to hear more talk about is constructive ways this country can make a difference in the world and change a lot of the global perception of who and what we are. I don't think we're ever going to be able to change everyones' minds, but I'd prefer not to be seen in quite the negative light we currently are.
As much as I *hate* the Shrub Regime, sometimes, it takes action, not words. Yes, I'm upset that innocents are getting caught in the crossfire, but a LOT of those innocents were shoved into the crossfire like so many meat shields by the Iraqi 'army', while they were shooting at our people from behind them. We're honoring a lot of things when the Iraqis are fighting dirty. We're not firing into mosques, but they're firing out of them. We're allowing them to come close under a flag of truce, and they're butchering us for it.
Well yeah, but isn't this the sort of thing we expected them to do? If you want to hold off a super power you can't play by the rules of war, you fight dirty. They're supposed to be doing nasty, evil shit like that, and if anybody tells you they didn't see it coming... Well best to leave that thought there. We, however, are not supposed to be bombing farmhouses and killing civillians and reporters. Honest mistakes? Mmm, probably, but we're under the world's microscope right now, by our own choice, and we can't really cry foul when they point out our missteps.
The best thing we can do right now is not to deny our mistakes, comment that they're "being investigated" or blame the Iraqis. The best thing we could do is to own up to them, apologize, and try not to make them again.
Unacceptable. Is this entire thing right? Probably not. Is it warranted? To an extent. Is it going to cause world peace? No. Someone is always going to hate us. Does that suck? Damn right it does. It sucks a lot that we stick our noses in where we're not wanted, but I'd rather that than have a gajillion screeching zealots (most of whom don't live in Berkeley) come at us with bombs. Tyrants in any country need to die. If Saddam is dead, mission accomplished. I want dental records, though.
Ok, but we kill Saddam, then what? I think that's what a lot of folks are wondering right now. Will that silence the gajillion screeching zealots? Does it get us any closer to catching Ossama? Does it do anything to stabilize the Israel/Palestine conflict? And do the ends justify the means ultimately? I'm guessing only history will tell us that.