Busy day's thoughts

Karen Hughes:  nice that the public diplomacy czar will have the president's ear;  too bad she's almost exactly the wrong person for the job.

Lebanon's rallies: I guess big, organized crowds aren't less authentic and pure than spontaneous, happy go-lucky ones after all, eh?   Either way, what Jon Edelstein said:  two powerful, deeply rooted and authentic popular movements, and any political solution is going to have to take both into account.  I still don't see what the anti-Syrian opposition has in common beyond opposition to Syria, though,  nor do I see that Syria's leaving actually hurts Hizbollah very much, but that will be a topic for another day.

Egypt:  al Hayat and other sources report that Mubarak told a crowd of some 300 civil society advocates in Alexandria that more political reforms would be forthcoming.   That would be nice.  Haven't seen much discussion of it anywhere yet, though. 

Iraqis are burning Jordanian flags over an article published in the new daily al Ghad, which seems to have falsely reported a Jordanian family celebrating their son's role in a terrorist operation over there.  They have apologized for the story in a front page retraction.  Reporting false information which leads to the burning of Jordanian flags in Iraq:  bad.   Having the editors of the paper hauled into the police for violating a provision of the press law which makes "harming the national interest" a crime:  also bad.  And, as yucky as this incident appears to be, the appearance of al Ghad, which appears to be a genuinely independent daily paper and which is staffed with at least some people who I know personally to be talented journalists and politically astute writers:  good.  It would be nice if there were actually a Jordanian newspaper worth reading again... it's been a while.

And last, but not least, having Wild Bill Hickok be shot in the back in the fourth episode of Deadwood, which I am now watching for the first time courtesy of Netflix? .... don't even get me started.  Bastards.  F**ing c**ks*****i*g b*as*ta**s. 

Comments

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Wow. Everyone bought the story. Here's the flag-burning incident as reported by L'Orient-Le Jour.

Shi'ite protesters hauled down and burned the Jordanian flag which flew over the Jordanian Embassy yesterday to protest the involvement of a Jordanian in a bombing in Hilla which killed 118 on 28 February. The demonstrators, who numbered about 200, renewed their Sunday demands to expel the Jordanian Ambassador, to sue the family of the presumed suicide bomber and to demand compensation from Jordan to the surviving family members of the victims.

The angry crowd, demonstrating for more than two hours, shouted slogans insulting to Jordan's King Abdullah II. Iraqi police had to fire into the air to disperse the protesters. Furthermore, the provisional Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution condeming the celebration of the bombing organized by the family of the suicide bomber in his native town of Salt, near Amman.

[David Witt]

while it's obvious that the Shia need to be included in the dialog about Lebanon's future, this tidbit has me a little nervous ( via Juan Cole):

a recent scientific poll by Zogby International, half of Maronites and Druze blame Syria for Hariri's death. Only 14% of Shiites do, while 70% of Shiites blame the US and Israel. Shiites are probably over 40 percent of the Lebanese population, while Maronites are probably only about 20 percent (Lebanon may now be as much as 70 percent Muslim if Druze are counted in that group).

the first thing i thought of here was the high percentage of (misled) Americans who believe that Saddam was behind the 9-11 attacks, and i jokingly said to my wife 'the Shia are all 'red staters!'

however, it's no joke, because Lebanon isn't the US, and a political stranglehold like we are experiencing in the US would be devastating...

i'd like to rail against demagoguery, the need to confront ignorance with truth, and rally behind a common cause, but have a hard time saying this, given that the Bush regime is currently in power here;>

[erg]

So what happened ? Was the story really mistaken or did the Jordanian Press get pressured to retract the story ?

Also, I'm impressed that the Iraqi National Assembly, which hasn't been seated yet, managed to pass a resolution :-).

[Nur al-Cubicle]

erg, I expect the provisional assembly will be unseated tomorrow when the new assembly is to meet deep inside the Green Zone.

[Kaywinnit Frye]

hey, maybe some of us have only made it to the third eposide....

[praktike]

the only thing I've seen coming out of the meeting today has been Bush's call for Hezbollah to lay down its arms.

[Geoduck]

That's exactly where and how the real Wild Bill Hickok died. What would you have prefered?

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Another story in Thursday's L'Orient le Jour.

Hilla. Demonstrations continue in protest against Jordan. Demonstrators marched through the main streets of Hilla to protest the involvement of a Jordanian man in the February 28 bombing which killed 118. The crowd condemned Jordan and King Abdullah II. The organizers made demands similar to those during demonstrations in Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala: the expulsion of the Jordanian Ambassador and economic sanctions against the country. In addition, the protesters in Hilla demanded the explusion of all Jordanian nationals in Iraq and the resignation of the Allawi government. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari summoned Jordanian chargé d’affaires Dimaï Haddad to protest the martyrdom ceremony organized by the family of alleged terrorist Raëd al-Banna, said to be responsible for the bombing. Mansour al-Banna says he was informed by an anonymous phone call that his son had died in Mossul and is buried there. Meanwhile, Jordanian authorities released journalist Hadi Abdellatif al-Nsour of the Amman newspaper al-Ghad who was taken into custody on charges of fabricating the story.

[the aardvark]

Geoduck: what would I have preferred? I guess that the shooting in the back took place considerably later in the series, so that we had more time to get to know and explore the Wild Bill character, and to see Keith Carradine bust acting chops all over the set. Don't have to change the "ending" - and really, where could Wild Bill have gone at that point in his life without doing violence to the character? - but not quite so abrupt, ripping one of the hearts of the show out of its chest before it's fully established itself. That's what I would have preferred...

K Frye - sorry about that, if you're serious! I guess I just figure that if I'm watching something on Netflix, every spoiler which could be spoiled has already been spoiled...