Just to confirm the dreadful rumors that things are happening on this earth beyond Saddam Hussein's capture, here's a bit of MLP for you guys.
Afghanistan's Loya Jirga has convened, and is attempting to finalize their constitution. You may remember my analysis of the draft constitution from last month. Well, now, over the next several days, we'll get to see whether it will be finalized and will succeed. I personally hope it does. The BBC article has a quote of Karzai's own "bring it on" rant - something he is probably a bit more justified in saying, being in the thick of the Afghan violence and not daring attacks from a comfortable distance.
Paul Martin, the new Canadian Prime Minister, is butting heads with Bush over the reconstruction of Iraq. In the wake of Washington's infantile decision that only countries which helped to wreck Iraq can help to rebuild it, sharp enough outrage has come from some quarters that the administration seems to almost be thinking about listening to other countries. This will probably serve as another slap to Washington, considering the general stance of the US media that the new Prime Minister would merely be a client ruler of Washington, rather than head of an independent country.
In other news related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The last Canadian warship has returned home from one of our larger (proportionally!) overseas deployments in the past few decades. When ninety percent of a country's best military branch goes on deployment in any particular situation, I think they have a right to feel somewhat proud. Two years and something in the vicinity of a thousand boarding operations later, I think they can state they've Done Something out there, and deserve some pride.
It sucks to live in Atlantic Canada right now.
Wesley Clark tangled with Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague today. I'd give a few limbs to have been a fly on the wall at that proceeding.
Pervez Musharraf came within a relative hair's breadth of getting assassinated Monday. Do I really need to elaborate on that one?
Russia is continuing to pick up the American slack in space in a prime example of irony in our times. it's interesting seeing the country condemned by NASA as a horrible slacker basically being the main force holding the International Spce Station, such as it is, in orbit. With the growing American opposition to manned spaceflight - something I consider not just good but necessary for the survival of the species - it is important to see other countries willing to take charge, or at least part, in maintaining our presence in orbit.
In sadder news, Japan has given up on their space probe, which had gotten fried by the massive solar storms of the past few months. This one hits me a bit closer than most probe failures, as there was a Canadian sub-probe onboard set to study Mars which is also lost as a result. Nozomi has, even in its failure, provided us with just that much more knowledge about what forces things are subjected to in deep space, which gets us that much closer to preparing and hardening craft against the hazards of spaceflight. Next time things should go a little better.
There's a dose of the past few days' news for you, at least. Be strong, there still are a variety of things going on out there, if you're willing to scratch the surface of current events.
Posted by zibblsnrt at December 15, 2003 12:15 PM