Category: World

Well, for someone who is (falsely) accused of dodging military service, I’d say President Bush displayed a fair amount of personal courage flying into an airport that had just seen a SAM launched at another plane. Bravo.

And to those yammerers who complain about the media blackout: can you say the word “embargo”. Thought you could. News stories are held back all the time for the most trivial reasons. Complaining about an embargo on a story about the President of the United States putting his life in significant danger simply goes to show your agenda, folks.

Two French reporters were present when anti-American terrorists fired a SAM at a DHL cargo plane. As Den Beste remarks:

One has to wonder what Paris Match would have done if their reporters had been invited to Africa to visit an insurgent group fighting against French forces. Would they have passively watched an attack which might have killed French pilots? Would Paris Match have published the pictures?

I suppose one could compare this with the embedded reporters in the American campaign. But wait, the French keep saying they’re allies.

The text of Bush’s speech in Whitehall on Wednesday is here.

Ironic that Bush’s detractors claimed he knew nothing about foreign policy when he was running for office. Well, now he’s overturned 50 years of US foreign policy, and to my mind it’s much to the good.

Tim Bray has posted the text of the draft agreement from Geneva on Israel and Palestine. Seems like a reasonable effort, and I hope that Sharon and Arafat will at least allow referendums on it.

Of course we’ll need to see what’s in “Annex X”.

Update: as Damian Penny notes, this is basically a repeat of Oslo, of which agreement the Pals failed to implement a single point.