Posts from — March 2003

Who armed Iraq? [link via Metafilter]

Iraq’s Weapons Declaration underscores a tragic irony: The United States, the world’s leading arms supplier, is taking the world to war to stop arms proliferation in the very country to which it shipped chemicals, biological seed stock and weapons for more than 10 years.

According to the December declaration, treated with much derision from the Bush administration, U.S. and Western companies played a key role in building Hussein’s war machine. The 1,200-page document contains a list of Western corporations and countries — as well as individuals — that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades.

Embarrassed, no doubt, by revelations of their own complicity in Mideast arms proliferation, the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier, deleting more than 100 names of companies and groups that profited from Iraq’s crimes and aggression. The censorship came too late, however. The long list — including names of large U.S. corporations — Dupont, Hewlett-Packard, and Honeywell — was leaked to a German daily, Die Tageszeitung. Despite the Security Council coverup, the truth came out.

A German company, for example, exported 1,000 ignition systems for Styx and Scud missiles capable of carrying biological and nuclear warheads.

Why were Bush and Powell so sure that Iraq possessed WMDs, even despite failing to produce hard evidence to corroborate their claims? Well… they knew, because they sold those weapons and launching capabilities to Saddam.

George Orwell’s brilliant essay on empire and nationalism applies directly to the mendacity of the Bush administration:

“Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage — torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Almost prophetic, aren’t those Orwellian words?!

The Bharatiya Blog Mela # 5 is up at Ashwini’s place. Click here to go and check out some of the choicest of this week’s blogs from the Indian Blogosphere!!

And if you did not already know what a Bharatiya Blog Mela is, then well, its weekly affair that showcases a collection of the best Indian blog updates of the week. It does not aim to rate the blogs, but instead it is a collection of recommendations from various people of what they think are the better posts in the week from the Indian Blogland. To check out all the Blog Melas, you can go here.

I’ve quite erratic lately as far as this blog is concerned. Most of my posts have been links to some stories off the Net. The reason for this has been the cricket World Cup that was going on for over a month. I’ve been busy watching, eating, drinking, sleeping and blogging cricket.

In addition to blogging about the World Cup, I was also running a contest on my world cup site. With my friend Abhijeet giving invaluable help all along, both of us managed to keep the blog and the contest running up-to-date throughout the duration of the World Cup. 33 teams took part in the contest. Now that the world cup is over… here are the final standings. Congratulations to Dipali for winning the contest!! She managed to pip Faizan at the post by the slimmest of margins. And as Abhijeet explains, it was just a matter of one ball in the final match and it would’ve been Faizan who won the contest.

Well anyways, I think I’ll be much more regular with my blogging on thi blog from now on. And I have lot to blog about. The war is a constant source of material which prompts a reaction, one way or the other.

Stick around folks… we’re just getting started!! :-)

The Oscar Roll of Honour

Best Picture: CHICAGO, Martin Richards

Actor in a Leading Role: Adrien Brody, THE PIANIST

Actress in a Leading Role: Nicole Kidman, THE HOURS

Actor in a supporting role: Chris Cooper, ADAPTATION

Actress in a supporting role: Catherine Zeta-Jones, CHICAGO

Direction: Roman Polanski, THE PIANIST

Animated Feature Film: SPIRITED AWAY, Hayao Miyazaki

Foreign Language Film: NOWHERE IN AFRICA, Germany, Directed by Caroline Link

Music (Score): Elliot Goldenthal, FRIDA

Music (Song): “Lose Yourself”, Music by Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto, Lyrics by Eminem, 8 MILE

Visual Effects: Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (yayyyy!!)

Film Editing: Martin Walsh, CHICAGO

Cinematography: Conrad L. Hall, ROAD TO PERDITION

Art Direction: John Myhre (Art Direction); Gordon Sim (Set Decoration), CHICAGO

Makeup: John Jackson and Beatrice De Alba, FRIDA

Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, CHICAGO

Sound: Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella and David Lee, CHICAGO

Sound Editing: Ethan Van der Ryn and Michael Hopkins, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

Short Film (Live Action): THIS CHARMING MAN (DER ER EN YNDIG MAND), Martin Strange-Hansen and Mie Andreasen

Short Film (Animated): THE CHUBBCHUBBS!, Eric Armstrong

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Screenplay by Ronald Harwood, THE PIANIST

Writing (Original Screenplay): Written by Pedro Almodóvar, TALK TO HER

Documentary Feature: BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, Michael Moore and Michael Donovan

Documentary Short Subject: TWIN TOWERS, Bill Guttentag and Robert David Port

Australians are World Champions!

The Aussie “Shock and Awe” blitzkrieg knocks off the Men In Blue.