Flit

HMMM Matt Welch points out

HMMM

Matt Welch points out that election.com, the agency that last was in the news for counting (some say miscounting) the ballots for the Canadian New Democratic Party leadership race, and hence facilitating the rise to power of the fervently anti-war-under-any-circumstances Jack Layton, has just been bought by some anonymous Saudi businessmen. Interesting...

THE CONNING OF THE AMERICANS

THE CONNING OF THE AMERICANS AT HOME CONTINUES

Upon consideration, there was remarkably little attention paid at the time to this latest Wolfowitzian tidbit:

[In testimony] Mr. Wolfowitz said it is wrong to believe that the United States will foot the bill for occupation. He said Iraq itself generates $15 billion to $20 billion annually in oil exports and has up to $20 billion in assets frozen because it invaded Kuwait in 1991. "There's a lot of money there, and to assume we're going to pay for it is wrong," he said.

So it's piracy, then: okay, fine. Screw negotiating war reparations, as with with Germany in 1918, it seems. This time, they're just going to TAKE IT.

PS: In the same article, Wolfowitz calls the estimates of the head of the army on the troops required for an Iraqi occupation "wildly wrong." One would think a career soldier like Shinseki's opinion might be worth a little more than a jumped-up bureaucrat with Napoleonic ambitions... but maybe that's just the soldier side of me talking.

PPS: Even Den Beste thinks this occupation is going to be 30 years long, and fully occupy at least two divisions in at least the first few years. Sounds about right... if the United States also wants to house some offensive capability, to defend against Iranian aggression, or intimidate the rest of the Middle East, that number necessarily goes up (even more so if the Kurdistan situation degenerates any further.) Wolfowitz has every reason to dissemble... he knows saying that outright will torpedo any support at home for his life's dream of reshaping the Middle East through war. Shinseki, on the other hand, has never been a man who said or did the politically correct thing... given a choice between lying to Congress and resigning, his past record indicates the door would slam on his way out before his farewell letter floated to the floor. So who are you going to believe?

NB: Correspondent Adrian reminded me of Shinseki's true title, above. Thx.

THINGS ONE LEARNS AS A

THINGS ONE LEARNS AS A COPY EDITOR

Colby Cosh should know better. There is NEVER a "u" in "honorary," Canadian, or otherwise... likewise "honorand," and "honorarium". The reason being that neither word ever took the side-trip through Old French en route to English usage that added the "u" to words like "honour" and "honourable." (The English lifted "honorary," via "honoris causa" straight from the Latin, instead.)

Obviously, one can only write for a university, with all its honorary degrees, for so long, before this is bashed into one's head with a surgical two-by-four. It's not even my biggest copy editor's peeve... that's reserved for the constant misspelling of "marshal."