[CLUE-Talk] [Fwd: MRC Alert Special: ABC's War News Touts Doubt and Dissent]

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 21:42, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Thought some of you might be interested in this.  I saw tonight that a
> poll of the British people have now moved from 29% approval of the Iraq
> conflict to above 50% for Blair.

Gee, and such a reliable source, too... from the Media Resource Center
"The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media
Bias" -- I'm just going to run over and get all my news on the war from
them! 

In fact, there is a good article on this in the Guardian Unlimited:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,921394,00.html

It does indicate that the mood has shifted to support for the war, but
that's fairly normal -- The public mood usually shifts to support once a
war has begun. It's a well-documented phenomenon, and rarely lasts. I'll
be curious to see how strong support is in a month, and even more
curious to see whether the Bush administration follows through on
promises to rebuild Iraq and allow the Iraqi people to choose their own
government. 

As we all know, or should, progress in Afghanistan has been less than
stellar since we lost interest there:

Short On Change
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7280

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), Chairman of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, expressed "surprise" to the BBC that
the president had overlooked Afghanistan in its budget proposals
package. Kolbe says that when he questioned the administration on the
oversight, it couldn't offer a satisfactory explanation.

Of course, we are taking care of rebuilding oilfields once this is all
over -- and what a surprise, Cheney's buddies at Halliburton are up for
big bucks to do it:

Iraq rebuilding contracts awarded
http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/25/news/companies/war_contracts/index.htm

The first contracts for rebuilding post-war Iraq have been awarded, and
Vice President Dick Cheney's old employer, Halliburton Co., is one of
the early winners.

Also interesting:

Rightwingers dismiss UN role in future Iraq
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,921973,00.html

The British government, which is struggling to win US support for two
new UN resolutions on humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of Iraq,
is frustrated at being forced to negotiate with some of the most
rightwing elements in the US Republican administration. 

And while everyone is paying attention to the war, special interest
groups (banks, credit card companies) are working on passing an
anti-customer bankruptcy bill:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7469

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net