3 From Reuters

Reuters: "Democrats said on Saturday that Bush administration plans to transfer power to a sovereign Iraq on June 30 might spark a civil war."

Uh huh. Damn clairvoyant those Democrats.

"Although Iraqis look forward to the formal end of U.S. control, a rushed handover could unleash 'even greater violence against our forces, including the possibility of civil war', [Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan] said."

Oh now the handover's rushed, eh? A year ago it was too little too late. Return soveriegnty now now now now.

"'Embracing the U.N. as a full partner in deciding the make-up of an interim Iraqi government and the timing of the turnover of sovereignty would help distribute the burdens of stabilizing Iraq more equitably,' he said."

Would it? Would most, or even a decent number of US troops be sent home to be replaced by French, German, Russian, and Chinese troops if only the UN were in control? (By the way, I wouldn't wish Russian troops on the US's worst enemy, which I take to be Saudi Arabia. I wouldn't have them in North Korea or Iran either.)

When is this fiction that UN control means less US involvement going to die the death that it deserves? It would only mean less US control, not less US involvement.

I note the use of "help" in the phrase "would help distribute the burdens of stabilizing Iraq more equitably". In the US, advertising law makes it relatively easy to say that your product "helps" to accomplish something - even if your product is only tangentially related (this is similar to sugary, nutritionally bankrupt cereals claiming to be "a part of this complete breakfast", other parts of which actually make the breakfast nutritional). The degree of help could be damn near zero, but even if it helps just a tiny bit, that qualifies as help. "Crest helps prevent tooth decay" you always hear. You never hear "Crest prevents tooth decay". Wonder why.

"The UN helps distribute the burdens of stablizing Iraq." Yeah, right. Doesn't do it though.

Reuters: "An Iraqi group holding three Japanese hostages said on Saturday it would free them within 24 hours, a move which surprised Tokyo officials working to secure their release ahead of a deadline to kill them on Sunday."

Hope that's true. I also hope that Japan isn't too thankful that a bunch of crazed Islamists isn't going to kill their citizens. I mean that's not something to be thankful for. That's the minimum standard of behavior. I wouldn't want to see Japan grateful to that bunch.

I also note that the likes of Reuters and other global media have said very little about the three Japanese hostages' anti-war backgrounds. I'd bet that if they were casualties of American force, we'd hear a lot more about their backgrounds. Killing peaceniks makes you look bad - only report that when the US or UK does it!

Reuters: "Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq war who once predicted that U.S. troops would be 'greeted as liberators,' vowed to stand firm in the face of unrest as he embarked on only his third overseas mission since taking office in 2001."

They were greeted as liberators. ('Course Reuters doesn't deny that - they're just insinuating.)

"But Cheney's stay-the-course message is a harder sell in Japan -- a country in shock after rebels kidnapped three civilians in Iraq and threatened to execute them if Japanese troops did not swiftly leave Iraq."

In shock? Really? I think it's more a matter of the anti-war forces there taking advantage of a situation that terrorists have created. There's a lot of that going around lately.

I'm not implying that anti-war people from the democracies are colluding with global anti-democratic forces, but some of them certainly use anti-democratic power-plays to support their own positions after the fact. (See also Spain.)

It's that 'after-the-fact' that relieves the anti-war democrats from responsibility.

But to what extent do global anti-democratic forces rely on the democratic anti-war forces to press their issues domestically? The short answer is: to roughly the same extent that terrorism succeeds.

Would those three Japanese have been taken hostage if there were little Japanese opposition to Japanese contributions to the war effort in Iraq? I doubt it. So we have Japanese anti-war people screaming for the Japanese government to get out of Iraq. Even the mother of one of the hostages can be counted upon to do the kidnappers' bidding by demanding the withdrawl of Japanese troops (and more - she also demands the withdrawal of US troops).

Naturally the global anti-war, anti-democratic media, led (only slightly) by Al-Jazeera, cheer this whole thing on. The relationship between the global media and the global anti-democratic forces is quite cozy. If you have a scary and/or threatening message for Americans and democracies, who ya gonna call? Well, the list is quite long actually.