Tuesday, March 11th, 2003
SARCASTIC LINK WORTHY OF THE ONION: Courtesy of One Hand Clapping, a great Zen name by the way. It’s on Bush and the UNSC.
Archive for March, 2003
Monday, March 10th, 2003
INDIA FLEES IRAQ: Pulls out embassy personnel from Baghdad
India advises its citizens to leave Iraq
By Harbaksh Singh Nanda
From the International Desk
Published 3/10/2003 1:14 PM
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NEW DELHI, March 10 (UPI) — India on Monday asked its citizens to immediately leave Iraq as war clouds loomed large in the region.
Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said Indian Embassy officials in Baghdad have been asked to move out.
“There are about 50 Indians including embassy staff in Iraq and they have been asked to take immediate steps to leave that country,” Sinha said.
The decision came after the Indian government convened an all-party meeting to discuss the Iraq situation.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told the meeting that India was pursuing a neutral path, since it enjoyed good relations with both the United States and Iraq.
Vajpayee assured opposition lawmakers that India wouldn’t extend facilities to the United States if it went ahead with unilateral military action against Iraq.
India’s leading opposition Congress Party and Left Parties called for a parliamentary resolution condemning Washington’s threats of any unilateral action against Iraq. The government rejected the demand.
India’s opposition parties want the government to oppose the war even if the action is sanctioned by the United Nations.
India is one of a few nations that maintained skeleton diplomatic relations with Iraq after Baghdad suffered international isolation following the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq also has an embassy in New Delhi.
“We have taken all precautions to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals in that area,” Sinha said.
The Indian minister said India had enough oil reserves to sail through any crisis in the event of a military conflict in Iraq.
India has maintained all along that Iraq could be persuaded through peaceful means to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction.
New Delhi says it will not back any military action against Iraq if it did not have the approval of the United Nations.
Last week, President George W. Bush had called Vajpayee to court New Delhi’s support for military action against Baghdad.
Although 82 percent of India’s more than 1 billion people are Hindus, it is also home to the world’s second-largest Muslim population after Indonesia.
There was a domestic political furor after New Delhi gave U.S. military planes refueling facilities during the Gulf War.
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Monday, March 10th, 2003
IRAN IS UNDOUBTEDLY NEXT….AND SHOULD BE: Unless reformist, pro-democracy forces in that country topple the highly unpopular ruling clique of hardline mullahs and Pasdaran security apparatus. That group’s mad rush for nuclear weapons will shortly bring it into conflict with the rest of the world much in the manner of North Korea. The United States needs to pressure Iran the way we did with Eastern European regimes particularly with overt and covert aid to Solidarity. Reigime change is best when we can help it from within, a possibility absent in Iraq.
Monday, March 10th, 2003
LEFTIST INDOCRINATION AT TAX-FUNDED UNIVERSITIES IS A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION: We have here an outrageous case where activism against war in Iraq was a college class requirement. This is a profound violation of an educator’s moral obligation to educate the young; the job of a professor is to teach college students how to think, not what to think. For an example of gross abuse, meriting in my mind, a dismissal of the instructor involved for misconduct, go here. No, I am not against professors expressing their political views in their classes when doing so is somehow connected to the course material. What is objectionable – and illegal – is to take federal money and use it to require that students parrot a political position on controversial topics or partisan issues for a passing grade. That is simply agitprop and it doesn’t belong in any university classrooms. Perhaps it is time for an investigative commission to examine these matters from the Education Department. Or Justice.
