Killing Saddam
The summer blockbuster to come
BY TOM HAYDEN
"....It has been a bad summer for the Pentagon and the White House, but Saddam's death could be their summer hit. Nothing the growing number of critics can say compares to the potential public gratification and fortification of righteousness that the White House hopes to generate by the coming assassination. That the administration lied, that the occupation costs $4-billion per month, that we have antagonized our allies, that thousands of Iraqis are collateral damage -- all these venial sins will be forgiven, they assume, when Saddam is dead and gone. To seal the victory, at some later date, weapons of mass destruction will be discovered, both Bush and Blair assure us. That prospect should finish off the lingering critics and set the stage for a triumphal November 2004.
But what if the master plan is left unfulfilled? It seems unlikely, but Saddam may elude the Delta posse or already be dead. Or what if the pursuit climaxes in Saddam's ritual death, but the chaos in Iraq continues unabated? What if Saddam, living or dead, is not the deux ex machina behind the daily shootings and woundings of American soldiers? What if the occupiers are facing a vengeful Iraqi nationalism, not the remnants of the old regime?
There is an opening for the peace movement here. If and when Saddam is killed the question becomes, "Why should American troops continue to die if the dictator is dead?" If the ritual symbolizes victory, why shouldn't the American troops come home and leave the rest to the Iraqis? Why shouldn't Paul Bremer III declare victory, set a date for a national Iraqi election and a parallel American troops withdrawal? Or are American troops dying for purposes other than overthrowing the dictatorship?"....
Foreign Policy:
George Will separates the Conservatives from the Neo-Conservatives
I think Mr. Will has done a very good job deconstructing Tony Blair's
neoconservative rhetoric here and reforming it in the light of reality.
THE FACE OF NEOCONSERVATISM
Excerpt:
"...Blair seems to think: Boston, Baghdad, Manchester, Monrovia -- what's the difference? Such thinking is dangerous. Blair's argument is true only if it is trivial: "Ordinary" people choose freedom, democracy and the rule of law because those who do not so choose prove thereby that they are not ordinary.
But there are a lot of them in the world. Some of them are waging guerrilla war against American forces in Iraq.
Blair's thinking is Bush's, too. "There is a value system that cannot be compromised, and that is the values we praise," the president says. "And if the values are good enough for our people, they ought to be good enough for others."
But one must compromise in the face of facts, those stubborn things. It is a fact that not everyone is inclined to praise "the values we praise." And not every society has the prerequisites -- of institutions (political parties, media) and manners (civility, acceptance of pluralism) -- of a free society.
Bush and Blair and many people called neoconservatives believe that moral objectives in politics are universally applicable imperatives. If so, then either national cultures do not significantly differ, or they do not matter or they are infinitely malleable under the touch of enlightened reformers. But all three propositions are false and antithetical to all that conservatism teaches about the importance of cultural inertia and historical circumstances."
Lessons in how to lie about Iraq
The problem is not propaganda but the relentless control of the kind of things we think about
Brian Eno
Sunday August 17, 2003
The Observer
"....When I first visited Russia, in 1986, I made friends with a musician whose father had been Brezhnev's personal doctor. One day we were talking about life during 'the period of stagnation' - the Brezhnev era. 'It must have been strange being so completely immersed in propaganda,' I said.
'Ah, but there is the difference. We knew it was propaganda,' replied Sacha...."
The Criminal Revenge Against The Wilson Family:
Will there be an investigation into whether Bush administration officials violated the law and undermined national security in order to mount a political vendetta?
by David Corn
"Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone with access to classified information to reveal intentionally the identity of an undercover intelligence officer."
_____________________________
Just another reason to impeach the worst President in U.S. History.
*Which apparently doesn't happen anymore unless the President is Democrat who has an affair.
The GOP impeachers don't "do" criminal and totally unethical liars who are one of their own.*
Visit the
all-new
Pakistani-Fried
KFC!!
Hundreds of angry Pakistani Shi'ite Muslims went on a rampage in Karachi on Sunday, setting fire to a a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.
"WE DO CHICKEN RIGHT BRIGHT"
Knock Knock!
Hundreds of insurgents in a convoy of trucks attacked a police
headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan yesterday, triggering a gunbattle
that killed 22 people.
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