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DrudgeReport.com

• Oscars

• Michael Moore Booed, Applauded at Oscars

• Coalition Forces May Reach Baghdad by Tuesday

• Adrien Brody Pours Oil on Waters Troubled by Michael Moore

• Motion Picture Stars Who Support Iraq Operation

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OSCAR WIRE...

They might have taken the glitz out of Sunday's Oscars but in the end there was no distancing the biggest show in Hollywood from the real drama on the other side of the world.

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"We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it is the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush!," shouted Moore, wagging his finger to a mixed reception of boos and cheers from the celebrity audience.

His outburst shattered the restraint that had marked the Oscar ceremony where stars such as Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek and Julianne Moore wore discreet peace pins or peace doves on their gowns and tuxedos but otherwise kept their opinions largely to themselves.

Some of Hollywood's most strident anti-war campaigners, including Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere prompted surprise by sticking to the official Oscar script.

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Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, winner of the original screenplay Oscar for "Talk to Her" dedicated his award to "all the people that are raising their voices in favor of peace, respect of human rights, democracy and international legality."

Michael Moore booed as he slams Iraq war, Bush at Oscars...

This article reports that Moore was applauded as well, indicating Hollywood’s strong “anti-war” sentiment.

“Michael Moore booed as he slams Iraq war at Oscars.” Yahoo! News (AFP). March 24, 2003.

Ground War on Baghdad 'Seen by Tuesday'...

If our forces reach Baghdad by Tuesday it will mean that the Iraqis weren’t able to hold the Karbala Gap.

The unanswered question is why our forces haven’t made contact with major Iraqi units and fixed them in place so they can be bombarded.

One would think that our strategy would be to keep major Iraqi units from entering Baghdad and taking defensive postitions.

Brody's plea steals thunder from Moore...

As the band began drowning out Moore, he got in one more zinger: "And anytime you've got the pope and the Dixie Chicks (news - web sites) against you, it's a bad sign!"

PITT: 'We can't go back now'...

Loyal actors and actresses:

• Brad Pitt

• Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos)

• Brittany Murphy

“Some stars are giving war a chance.” New York Daily News. March 24, 2003.

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 OpinionJournal.com

• Coalition Strategy in Accord With Political Goal of a Stable Iraq

• Both Parties Contributed to the Current Situation in Iraq

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The most striking fact about this war so far has been the allied meshing of military means with political ends. The ultimate U.S.-British-Aussie political goal is a stable and pluralistic Iraq. Allied strategy is therefore designed to cause as little damage as possible in Iraq in order to make the postwar reconstruction easier.

This column assigns blame for the current operation in Iraq to both parties, which can be interpreted as a result of Beltway mentality.

It also says that Colin Powell did the most to call off the dogs in the Gulf War.

The principal unanswered question of why the Gulf War ended as it did was the role, if any, of the Arab oil states financing the war played. Since they paid $23 billion of the war’s $30 billion cost they could have told the elder Bush that they wouldn’t pay if we removed Saddam from power.

Republicans were also culpable. During the 1991 Gulf War, the first President Bush gave a speech saying, "There's another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." Both Shiites in the South and Kurds in the north responded with widespread insurrections. But U.S. aircraft controlling the skies let the Iraqis fly combat helicopters to suppress the revolts.

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The lesson of this second Iraqi war is that the U.S. cannot afford an on-again, off-again attention span, whether from fear of "quagmires" or notions of Realpolitik. Withdrawal of American power creates a vacuum into which forces of instability flow. History has thrust the U.S. into peacekeeping; its elites now have to learn to do it without having to bust up the same real estate every dozen years or so.

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FrontPageMag.com

• “Anti-war” Second Front

• Protestors Fly Iraqi Flag at Texas State Capitol

• Ithica NY Catholics Willingly Break Law to Oppose War

• “Anti-war” Gives British Left New Lease on Life

• Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” Propaganda, Not Documentary

• Canadian Expresses Shame on Canadian Foreign Policy

• Iraqi Fedayeen Capture American Troops, Murder Some

• Principled Leftist Tries to Talk Sense to “Anti-war” Types

• Saddam May Think His War Crimes May Cause America to Withdraw

• Iraqis Use Fake Surrender to Kill Marines

• Russian Companies Have Sold Iraq Arms

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Molotov cocktails

Some of the most radical of the Vietnam Era “anti-war” groups sought to start a “second front” in America in which there would be a terrorist assault. Collier’s and Horowitz’ Destructive Genertion: Second Thoughts on the Sixties says that the Weathermen faction of SDS met with Vietnamese Communist officials in Club to plan a terror campaign.

The history of the Twentieth Century showed that socialism failed to create free and prosperous societies.

I’m surprised that only half of the Democratic Party opposes the war.

But there is another front in the war against America, which has not been so quiet. This is the war orchestrated by the anti-American left at home and abroad. While U.S. and British troops risk their lives to conduct a war of liberation remarkable in its effort to prevent civilian casualties on the other side, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators blocked traffic on American streets and tied up police endangering civilian lives on our own. In New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and cities across the country, activists are breaking the law in a manner calculated to cause economic disruption and urban chaos. In accord with the plans of the organizers, thousands of police who are an integral element of Homeland Security defense have been tied up attempting to prevent the activists from escalating their war at home to a level of serious violence.

This violence is coming. Molotov cocktails were confiscated in San Francisco, where an activist also took his own life in a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge. Thousands of law-breaking activists have been arrested. Abroad, where police are not so solicitous of rioters, several activists were killed.

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It took the anti-Vietnam movement five years to reach the levels of these anti-American demonstrations and another two to initiate real violence. When that line was crossed, there were more than a thousand domestic bombings, and at least one terrorist cult was launched. The current movement is potentially far more dangerous. Unlike its anti-Vietnam predecessor, it is allied with terrorist solidarity groups and radical Muslim organizations active on college campuses. This increases the likelihood that its violent tendencies will intensify as the war against terror abroad continues. The prospect that it will develop its own terrorist offshoots is real.

… Socialism has been dead as a serious goal for the most of the left for decades. In its core, the left has always been a nihilistic and reactionary revolt against the modern world (capitalism, individualism, liberty), which is why it can ally itself so easily now with Islamo-fascists.

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In its potential to disrupt American post-war policy and to limit the options of the American military lie the greatest dangers of this leftist revival, especially because of its deep resonances in the Democratic Party, half of whose constituents (and many of whose leaders) are opposed to the war. …

That the police let an unpermitted demonstration disrupt rush hour traffic may indicate a city government that has Leftist sympathies.

If they were encouraging minors to commit crimes it should be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Even though anti-war protesters lacked a permit, on Thursday, March 20, the Austin Police Department remarkably blocked off Guadalupe Street for the afternoon and rush hour at the protesters' request. This allowed the anti-war demonstrators to shut down a busy thoroughfare that connects the State Capitol and the University of Texas, even during rush hour.

The result was severe traffic gridlock on parallel streets where traffic was diverted, immobilization of the city bus system, and blocked access to many businesses. I had to walk 20 blocks from the campus to my job at a conservative think thank in downtown Austin because city buses had stopped running.

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Organizers of the protest distributed flyers encouraging protesters to get arrested and instructing them to contact attorneys associated with the leftist American Friends Service Committee. The flyer even provides the names and phone numbers of two of these lawyers. Also, Austin news' radio station KLBJ 590 AM reported that many of the protesters were using bongs to smoke marijuana.

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At tables bearing the red and black banners of the International Workers of the World and the International Socialist Organization, students sold Marxist pamphlets, and copies of The Socialist Worker.

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Sponsors of the protest included the N.A.A.C.P., AFL-CIO, and a variety of local groups, including the "78704 Neighborhood Association." This zip code in South Austin is notorious for being inhabited by affluent aging hippies, including Ivins.

Another example of Roman Catholic contempt for American law. The big question is whether Ashcroft will prosecute them.

The Marxist-dominated Catholic community in Ithaca, New York has taken its hatred for America to a new level. With members of the United States Armed Forces in harm’s way, representatives of the Ithaca Catholic Worker doused a local military recruiting center with human blood and called on our troops to engage in mass desertion. According to a first-hand account of the event:

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No prominent leaders in the local community—religious or political—have denounced these traitorous extremists. Rather, most Ithacites seem to take pride in the fact that the activists took such action to convey their strong antiwar sentiments.

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The Catholics who signed this statement acknowledge that their actions are in violation of federal law: “We knowingly and willingly make this plea to you in violation of 18 United States Code (USC) Sec. 1381 and 2387.”

The American unit that suffered the Malmedy massacre during the Battle of the Bulge took the wrong road, too.

Gen. Abizaid said the six-vehicle convoy, supplying ground forces moving toward Baghdad, was ambushed by Iraqi security forces. The convoy's commanding officer made a "wrong turn and went somewhere he wasn't supposed to be," Gen. Abizaid said. He said 12 soldiers from the supply unit were missing last night.

But the Marxist Left has been given a new lease of life by opposition to the conflict in Iraq. The Stop the War coalition, which is behind the wave of anti-war protests - including today's London march - is a predominantly hard-Left organisation chaired by a leading member of the Communist Party of Britain. It also comprises senior figures from the Socialist Alliance, a Marxist umbrella organisation that includes groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Alliance for Workers Liberty.

The Michael Moore production Bowling for Columbine just won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary.

… I am embarrassed that my countrymen evidently believe more in the preservation of the UN than they do in the values the UN was created to preserve. …

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I am not embarrassed by the student demonstrators who use excessive language to press their case, for we expect them to be ignorant -- that is why we call them students. But what can explain their teachers encouraging them to do this?

As U.S. military leaders condemned Iraqi treatment of American prisoners of war, experts said on Sunday Saddam Hussein may be gambling that the United States turns and runs as it did after the bodies of U.S. troops were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993.

If Saddam thinks that Bush will react in the same manner as Slick he’s sorely mistaken. Apparently he doesn’t realize that there’s a new sheriff in town.

An Iraqi military unit Sunday faked a surrender to a U.S. Marine unit but then opened fire as they approached near Nasiriyah, just one fight in a day of pitched battles marked by what military officials called "ruses" on the part of Iraqi forces, according to Central Command military officials.

The Iraqis used a fake surrender in their abortive assault on Kopje, Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.

Fox News confirmed that Russians were in fact selling the equipment to Baghdad and that Russian technicians were in the Iraqi capital this week, instructing Iraqis on how to use the devices. Russians were in Baghdad as of Friday but it's not known whether they have left.

France has also ignored the arms embargo imposed on the Saddam regime. This is why “containment” wouldn’t have worked.

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