Found this via Instapundit. William Saletan of Slate on today's UN SEcurity Council meetings:

Fischer and de Villepin have declared passionately for months that war would be wrong and that their governments wouldn't stand for it. So what are they doing about it, now that it's started? The same thing they did about Saddam Hussein's rearmament: nothing. Sloth and cowardice, it turns out, are as agreeable to American aggression as to Iraqi aggression.

"The Security Council has not failed," Fischer told fellow council members. "The Security Council has made available the instruments to disarm Iraq peacefully. The Security Council is not responsible for what is happening outside the U.N."

Wait, let's hear that again. The Security Council is not responsible for what is happening outside the U.N.

And to think some people said the United Nations was useless.

If the peace movement had sounded more like Michael Kinsley, some people might have listened. He's witty, reasonable-sounding, and most importantly, focused on a few strong points with sound arguments.

FROG!

Orson Scott Card has my new favorite acronym:

And not one word from France, Russia, or Germany (FROG) suggests....

You simply must listen to this radio interview. An Iraqi caller has questions for a peace activist...

about 2.5 MB, 6min, mp3

France, Germany, Iraq dismiss British compromise

nothing else to say, really.

pointed out by Steven Den Beste

The Speech Last Night

I thought it was, well, frankly, pretty good. Not his best, but OK.

I liked his direct appeal to the Iraqi people. I don't think there'd been enough public stress on that.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

Also interesting to note that he demanded that Saddam and his sons leave dodge, not the whole regime.

War and Politics

Clausewitz: "War is politics pursued by other means."

But is Saddam sane enough to to be pursuing politics anymore?

Certianly, he has manipulated the world quite successfully into prolonging the pre-war setup practically indefinitely, and partyl responsible for changing the rules of the gmae of who needs to prove what...

Even better was Saddam's relentless launching of SCUD missiles into Israel during the 1991 war. His goal: Piss off the Israelis enough to retaliate and the whole region explodes, with Saddam as it's leader, despite the fact that he attacked first...

But then again, he gassed Iran. He gassed the Kurds. OK, OK, I know, everyone hates the Kurds anyways, but gassing Iran has no political benefits whatsoever that I can see.

Does this mean that Saddam has a certain snapping point, a moment where political reason, albeit through war, fails altogether?

What is this war about?

A war in Iraq isn't about vengeance.

A war in Iraq will not yield UBL.

A war in Iraq for the love of god isn't about oil.

A war in Iraq isn't about taking out a man that has killed 10 million
Iranians with Chemical Weapons.

A war in Iraq isn't about taking out a man that has killed hundreds of
thousands of his own people with Chemical Weapons.

A war in Iraq isn't about freedom for the people of Baghdad

A war in Iraq isn't about freedom for the Kurds. No one likes the Kurds
anyways.

A war in Iraq isn't even about righting the previous wrongs of America,
the wrongs that kept SH in power and gave him arms during the 1980s.

A war in Iraq is about fixing a fundamental instability that thrives
throughout the Middle East. It's about taking advantage of a morally
justified opportunity to straighten out one central and historically
powerful land area in the heart of the Arab world, presenting
opportunities to rectify the rampant political systems that oppresses
people, breeds hate, allows or encourages terrorism not just in the US but
throughout the world.

That's right. A war in Iraq is about fixing the fucking Israel-Palestine
issue. It's about letting women out in public and letting them drive in
Saudi Arabia. It's about freeing Jordan from threats from it's neighbors
so it can continue to modernize. It's about a regional political and
economic modernization.

Why?

Because rich free happy people don't bomb other people.

Because rich free happy people make the rest of the world richer, freer,
and happier.

Because it's the right thing to do.