Here and There, Mar. 12

This sounds like an episode of Nash Bridges:

German investigators are examining documents found in Don Johnson's car that list transactions totaling $8 billion, a customs official said Wednesday.

Johnson's car was stopped for a routine check as he entered Germany from Switzerland in November with two other men, said Wolfgang Schmitz, a spokesman for German customs.

Useless Idiot Watch: A group of Useful Idiots turn out to be not so useful after all:

Five volunteers who went to Iraq to serve as ``human shields,'' including two Americans, were forced out of the country because they were critical of the government's choice of sites to protect, the head of the group said Wednesday.

They had chosen locations ``essential to the civilian population,'' such as food storage warehouses and water and electricity facilities, said Ken O'Keefe, of Haleiwa, Hawaii.

But the Iraqi government wanted the shields in more sensitive locations, he said. He did not elaborate, but some earlier activists have also left Iraq, reportedly after being told they would be posted at potentially strategic targets, such as oil refineries and power plants.

Go figure.

And just when we thought that he had left the stage, our old friend and Chief Idiotaryan Juergen Moellemann shows again that he is the Energizer Bunny of German politics. Moellemann is about to release a new book Klartext für Deutschland, (Straight-talk for Germany) where he bids farewell to the FDP and argues for the establishment of a new populist party. The most intriguingly silly revelation from the book's pre-publication reviews is Moellemann's claim that FDP chairman Guido Westerwelle was blackmailed by the Israeli Mossad so as to prevent Moellemann from becoming German foreign minister.

I took a hiatus from updating the Moellemann.com website a few months ago when it looked like he was simply getting expelled from his party. But now that he's resumed his delusional rampage, I am back on the case!

Meanwhile over in Santa Monica, Moellemann's comrade in Saddamy, Robert Scheer, claims that "When bombs fall [on Iraq], U.S. will join ranks of war criminals".

The maiming or killing of a single Iraqi civilian in an attack by the United States would constitute a war crime, as well as a profound violation of the Christian notion of just war. That is because the recent report of the U.N. inspectors has made indelibly clear that disarmament is working and that Iraq at this time poses no direct threat to the well-being of the American people.

I'm sure that the families of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis already murdered, maimed and "disappeared" by Saddam appreciate Scheer's concern for every last Iraqi civilian. But somehow one gets the feeling that Scheer is more interested in throwing spitwads at George W Bush than he is in obtaining justice for Iraqi civilians. Otherwise why would he want Saddam to stay in power? And why isn't he demanding that the UN punish Saddam as a war criminal? Furthermore, Blix' most recent written report states:

"Unmovic has credible information that the total quantity of BW [biological warfare] agents in bombs, warheads and in bulk at the time of the Gulf war was 7,000 litres more than declared,"

And the report dismisses Iraq's claims to have destroyed its stocks of the agent 10 years ago. If Scheer thinks that this makes "indelibly clear" that disarmament is "working", then he either has an unconventional definition of "working" or he is pleased that the charade of disarmament is working for Saddam.

This latest Scheer column also appeared in today's San Francisco Chronicle. If the Chronicle had any integrity they would print a disclaimer beneath it stating: "The above column is Scheer nonsense, but we carry it anyway because Bob's wife is the third-highest ranking editor on our masthead "

And while we're on the subject of hollow accusations of war crimes and pointless appeals to international law a collection of British teachers of "international law" (including the aptly named Matthew Craven) wrote an op-ed claiming that using military force against Iraq without Security Council authorization would be illegal. One of these very useful barristers, Philippe Sands, argues that British troops involved in a military campaign in Iraq could face prosecution for war crimes. To which I ask: Who is going to enforce all of these wonderful international "laws"? The UN? It's not like a crew of blue-helmeted Cameroonians are going to descend on Whitehall to cart off the generals who liberated Iraq, any more than they are going to do anything to protect anybody from the Butcher of Baghdad who started this whole thing in the first place.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 12, 2003 01:41 PM