carpe decorum

Grey Days and News

The Romans celebrated New Year's on March 1. Some of today's news:

• From Reuters:
  • Iraq to destroy missiles, Turkey rejects hosting US troops and
  • Bush rejects missile destruction, looks at post-Saddam Iraq and
  • North Korea accuses US of war preparations
• From Salon, a senior US diplomat resigns because of Iraq policy, saying:

  The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. ...

  We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has ‘oderint dum metuant’ become our motto?

• Salon interviews Molly Ivins who thinks Bush is in over his head.

Happy New Year.