UPDATED - ColdType

in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein, administration
officials said in Washington.
“It’s appalling that The New York Times is
(again) willing to report these extremely blunt
assassination attempts as if they were routine
and clearly justifiable.
“An executive order approved by President
Ford in the mid-1970s and affirmed by President
Reagan in 1981, states: ‘No person employed by or
acting on behalf of the United States government
shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.’
Ford issued the order after extensive
hearings that exposed CIA assassination plots.”
The prohibition is not limited to assassination
against heads of state, said Steve Aftergood of
the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based
watchdog group that follows intelligence
matters.
The legalities of killing a specific person in a
military strike are less clear. “I don’t think the
prohibition applies if you’re undertaking a military
action,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
Arab media coverage
BBC Monitoring offers a flavor of the reporting
on pan-Arab TV channels: “Many pan-Arab TV
channels carried live footage of the prolonged
attempts by Iraqi civilians to topple the statue of
Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Al-Fardus Square.
Commentators were united in saying that the
event was history in the making.
“Syrian TV, which has followed a distinctly pro-
Saddam line in its coverage of the conflict,
ignored the event completely, screening instead
a program on Islamic architecture. Other staterun
TV channels in the Arab world – including
Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan – chose not
SO, THIS IS VICTORY
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to broadcast the event live.
“Excerpts from how the commentators
described the scene: Abu Dhabi TV: ‘This is a
moment of history. Baghdad people must be feeling
sad at witnessing the fall of their capital...
Baghdad has been offered on a silver plate.’
“Al Jazeera – Qatar: ‘This scene suggests something
which does not leave any room for doubt,
namely that the rule of the Iraqi president, Saddam
Hussein, has now collapsed in Baghdad ...
This is a banner saying “Go home.” Despite their
obvious welcome of the U.S. troops, they, as Iraqi
people, are demanding the departure of these
troops, maybe after a short period.’”
The role of The New York Times
BOSTON PHOENIX media critic Dan Kennedy
went after Johnny Apple of The New York Times
who had been under attack from pro-war journalists
for suggesting that there was a quagmire.
He seems to buckling under the pressure. Writes
Kennedy: “Well, today Johnny Apple weighs in
with something that should disturb those who
might be called patriotic antiwar liberals – a
group that includes Media Log and, one would
have thought judging from his previous pieces,
Apple himself. He writes: ‘The antiwar forces,
who have had to contend from the start with the
widespread belief that their position is unpatriotic
and unsupportive of American troops
engaged in deadly combat, must now bear the
additional burden of arguing with success.
American losses are relatively small: 96 dead to
date, compared with 200 a day at the height of
the Vietnam War.’
“As Greil Marcus once said, ‘What is this shit?’
Responsible war critics never thought the U.S.