PERRY DEHAVILLAND THINKS THAT TURKEY HAS CREATED THE KURDISH PROBLEM IT FEARS by not supporting the United States in Iraq. Since we couldn’t send troops through Turkey en masse, we’ve used irregulars and Kurds. Now the Kurds will be feeling their oats, and there won’t be a lot of American troops in the area to restrain them.

GO READ LILEKS. Now. I’ll be here when you get back.

DAN KENNEDY WRITES THAT PETER ARNETT IS INSINCERE EVEN WHEN HE GROVELS:

Obviously Arnett didn’t mean a thing that he said when he apologized yesterday. One wonders what else he has said that he didn’t mean.

One really wonders if Arnett is a mole tasked with destroying the credibility of anti-American journalism. Note that he’s now burrowing from within at The Mirror . . .

JOHN SCALZI says that if you don’t know the Marines kill people, you’re too damned stupid to be a conscientious objector.

KENNETH SILBER WRITES:

It is sometimes suggested that “you can’t kill an idea.” But actually some ideas can be killed—literally, on the battlefield. In particular, ideologies that glorify military conflict tend to fare poorly after their exponents suffer crushing military defeat. And this bodes well for the aftermath of the Iraq war, as well as for the broader war against terrorism.

Political ideologies can be divided, roughly, between those that believe “might makes right” and those that do not. Nazism, Fascism and Japanese militarism all were in the former category; each extolled its own military prowess and saw it as an indicator of racial or national superiority. Hence, losing World War II took away not only the institutions and resources of these might-makes-right ideologies but also their intellectual legitimacy. Their claims to superior power were refuted by Soviet tanks in Berlin, American planes over Japan, and so on.

Guess which category Saddam fall into. Osama, too. Read the whole thing.

A COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF WAR: It’s worth it, we’re told. Here’s more on the study in question.

IN THE PAST MONTH OR SO, 21 European tourists have disappeared in southern Algeria. Maybe somebody ought to take a close look at what’s going on there.

SYRIA APPEARS TO HAVE CHOSEN UNWISELY.

THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT IS BECOMING THE BUTT OF JOKES.

DE GENOVA UPDATE: Apparently, Columbia alumni are upset:

Some alumni donors are pressuring the president’s office and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations to fire Professor Nicholas De Genova for statements he made in last week’s anti-war teach-in.

In the past few days, donors have barraged the offices with emails and phone calls, informing the University that they feel that De Genova overstepped the limits of academic free speech.

In mass-mailed email messages circulated among each other, alumni have urged each other to issue an ultimatum to the University: Fire De Genova or lose our donations. . . .

CC alumnus Steve Stuart wrote an email a few days ago to over 100 alumni–whose combined “net worth,” he said, is at least $250 million–asking them to express outrage to University President Lee Bollinger.

Frank Cicero, CC ’92 and Senior Vice President of Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers, told Bollinger that he felt De Genova’s presence on campus “pollutes the educational atmosphere.”

That “pollution” may compel Cicero to stop contributing to the University.

“In the past, I believed that it was naive and in bad taste for alumni to withhold gifts because of the political opinions of faculty members,” Cicero said in his email to Bollinger. “However, I am now considering doing just that in response to the vile and mendacious comments made by De Genova.”

I don’t think that De Genova should be fired, even for vile comments — though it’s certainly okay for alumni to withhold their contributions if they choose, as it’s their money — but I can’t help but feel that a faculty member who called for “a million Matthew Shepards” would already be gone.

READER GEOFF MATTHEWS notes that Canadian support for the United States is growing:

Support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq is surging in Calgary and across the province, with three-quarters of Albertans in favour of Canada joining the fight, according to a new poll.

However, despite growing support for the war in Alberta and across the country, the Chretien government is standing firm on its decision to keep Canada out of the conflict.

“The (federal) government really blew it by looking at short-term polls (saying Canadians were against the war),” said pollster Faron Ellis of JMCK Polling.

“You’re now seeing a shift everywhere, outside of Quebec, in favour of the war — and Alberta is leading the edge of that shift.”

Very interesting.

THEY’RE FIGHTING AROUND SADDAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, but the reports say it’s not terribly intense. Here’s a satellite photo from Tuesday. Apparently, they’ve found a lot of tunnels under the airport.

What is it with dictators, bunkers, and tunnels?

ACCORDING TO THIS PEW STUDY 4 percent of Americans are getting their news from weblogs.

UPDATE: Er, that’s 4 percent of Internet users, not “Americans.” Sorry; I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote it that way.

POWERLINE NOTES that the New York Times has admitted two serious errors that just happened to form the core of the last week’s antiwar spin.

But unlike blogs, they’ve got editors!

BEN DOMENECH has numerous observations on the war and the domestic scene. Check ’em out.

“IT WAS LIKE THE LIBERATION OF PARIS:”

AJAF, Iraq — An enthusiastic welcome for US forces in Najaf turned jubilant yesterday, as several thousand Iraqis braved sporadic firefights for what one special forces officer described as ”the Macy’s Day parade,” applauding a US patrol that pushed close to a religious shrine at the center of the city. . . .

In the midst of the fighting, a US patrol approached Ali’s tomb, attempting to contact local clerics, but were met instead by a crowd. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hughes, a battalion commander in the First Brigade, said: ”We waited about an hour and a half, and the hair on the back of my neck began to stand up. The crowd got bigger and bigger, so we pulled back out. But it was like the liberation of Paris.”

I wonder if it has anything to do with the pro-US fatwa mentioned below.

Jay Fitzgerald, who sent the link, wonders if they’ll be showing these scenes — and making that comparison — in Quebec and France.

I’VE WONDERED IF SADDAM’S INCREASINGLY RELIGIOUS RAVINGS WILL DISCREDIT RADICAL ISLAM. It can’t help. Meanwhile, there’s this.

LONDON (Reuters) – An Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim leader has urged Iraqis not to hinder U.S. invading forces after previously asking them to resist efforts to topple President Saddam Hussein, a Shi’ite group in the UK said on Thursday.

In a religious ruling, or fatwa, Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged Iraqis to stop fighting in and around the Shi’ite holy shrine of Najaf, the Al Khoei foundation in London told Reuters.

Grand ayatollahs are the highest authorities in Shi’ite Islam and Sistani is the only one in Iraq. The fatwa applies nationwide.

“Until now the Shias of Iraq and the followers of Sistani were confused on whether to take up arms against the Americans, whether to fight,” said a spokesman for the foundation, which represents followers of Sistani.

“This is reassuring to everyone. The regime wanted to portray the Shias of Iraq and Sistani as supporting him (Saddam).”

Sistani is the supreme religious authority at the al-Hawza al-Ilmiyya theological school in Najaf and had been under house arrest on President Saddam Hussein’s orders.

This was the first fatwa Sistani has issued since his house arrest was recently lifted, the spokesman said, and it was expected to prompt fighters inside the holy shrine of Najaf to give themselves up within a couple of hours.

I wonder if we’ll see more pronouncements like this.

KIM JONG IL HASN’T BEEN SEEN IN PUBLIC FOR DAYS. Apparently, it’s because he’s started blogging.

Yep, that would explain it.

DOUG INSTALAWYER WEINSTEIN REPORTS:

We just had a roving pro-USA rally come by my office here in Knoxville. Probably 75 to 100 people, waving american flags, boisterously shouting “USA, USA!” They came up the block from the Duncan Federal Building, turned left on Main Avenue, and were still yelling when I lost sight of ’em.

There should be more pix — taken, like the one above, from his office window — up on his site shortly.

UPDATE: He’s emailed me a bunch of much better pix that will be up on his site soon. Here’s one, though, that shows the crowd pretty well — much bigger than the one above makes it seem.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’ve replaced the lame original picture with a new one, above.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader at the Knoxville paper emails:

Our reporter on the scene of the pro-USA rally said estimates were about 1,000.

Wow. It sure looks like more than 75-100 in the pictures.

HOW BOGUS IS MARC HEROLD’S “IRAQI BODY COUNT PROJECT?” About as bogus as you’d expect, I guess, considering his track record with Afghanistan. Today he comes in for an Oxonian slap, as OxBlog points out that he’s claiming more civilian deaths than the Iraqi government is. And that’s his “minimum” count.

But read the whole thing, which makes clear just how shoddy and biased his methodology is.

EUGENE VOLOKH is slamming the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for selective quotation in its “Polly Awards,” which are supposed to be aimed at left-wing excesses on campuses.

His example seems pretty damning.

THE IRAQIS HAVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO SLOW THE AMERICAN ADVANCE:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iraqi deserters and civilians are flooding out of Baghdad by the busload on Thursday and surrendering to U.S. forces advancing on the Iraqi capital, said a U.S. television reporter traveling with Marines. “There are so many people on the road now that it’s impossible to further conduct military operations and so our unit has stopped now and set up a hasty prisoner of war compound,” said ABC correspondent Mike Cerre. . . .

“What is stopping us now is the flood of deserters and civilians, on buses, trucks, taxicabs and whatever they can catch a ride on, trying to make their way south to their families or American forces to surrender” he said.

No doubt it’s really a clever ruse.

ANTI-AMERICANISM IS COSTING THE MIRROR CIRCULATION:

Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has admitted the paper’s resolutely anti-war stance could lead to sales falling below 2 million for the first time in over 70 years.

Tim Blair has more. Didn’t the circulation drop start about the time they hired John Pilger?

UPDATE: Why yes, yes it did. Heh. Somehow I don’t think that hiring Peter Arnett will turn things around, either.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eddie Vedder, meanwhile, is finding that anti-Bush theatrics turn off fans:

Incensed fans walked out of Pearl Jam’s concert Tuesday after lead singer Eddie Vedder impaled a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand, then slammed it to the stage.

Most of Vedder’s antiwar remarks earlier in the Pepsi Center show were greeted with mixed cheers and scattered boos. But dozens of angry fans walked out during the encore because of the macabre display with the Bush mask, which he wore for the song Bushleaguer, a Bush- taunting song from the band’s latest album, Riot Act.

“When he was sharing his political views in a fairly benign manner – supporting our troops, opposing policy – that’s OK,” said Keith Zimmerman, of Denver.

“When he takes what looks like the head of George Bush on a stick, then throws it to the stage and stomps on it, that’s just unacceptable. I love Pearl Jam, but that was just way over the edge. We literally got up and left.”

Of course, when I read this my first reaction was “Pearl Jam is still together? Who knew?”

SYRIA LEARNS THAT IT’S EXPENSIVE — sometimes literally — to cross the United States:

ABU DHABI — U.S. special operations forces are said to have blown up an Iraqi pipeline that delivered more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day to Syria.

The Kuwaiti Al Rai Al Aam daily reported on Wednesday that U.S. forces sabotaged the Iraqi oil pipeline to Syria last week in an operation in northwestern Iraq. The newspaper quoted U.S. sources as saying the forces also blew up a railroad link between Iraq and Syria.

Until the start of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Syria obtained 250,000 barrels of oil per day through two pipelines that stemmed from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Middle East Newsline reported. One pipeline reached the Syrian port of Banyas for export. The other provided oil directly to the Syrian national energy grid.

This is the wartime equivalent of a polite note. Let’s hope they get the message.

HUMAN SHIELDS SAY THAT IRAQI CLAIMS ARE LIES:

THE US military says an Iraqi claim that buses carrying human shields had been bombed has proved to be false.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf yesterday said several people were wounded when a US warplane attacked two Iraqi buses carrying the volunteers. . . .

In Amman yesterday, volunteers arriving from Iraq in a road convoy denied coming under US attack.

“We saw damaged vehicles on the side of the road that were hit, but we did not witness any bombardment,” American Scott Kerr said.

The 27-year-old, from Chicago, was among a group of 14 peace activists from the United States, Britain, Canada, Ireland and South Korea who drove out of Baghdad in a convoy of three mini-buses.

The whole “human shield” thing has been kind of a bust for the Iraqis, really. It’s almost as if they were set up from the beginning.