Friday, November 28, 2003

..The idea that the attack on Iraq was our first salvo in a war to import democracy to the Middle East, is an altruistic sounding cover-up for a war built on lies, and conceived, as we now know, in the dark recesses of dank neo-con think tanks, and embraced by the Gang of 5, even before 9/11. What ever gave these burnt-out old gloryhounds and their wanabes the idea--if indeed they actually believed their own coverup--that we could impose democracy by force whenever and wherever we chose? Yes, we've had spotty success in some places where we prevailed. But did any of the Nixon and Reagan leftovers ever study the region where they plan--or claim they plan--to see free peoples and free elections?  Democracy is not for everyone, believe it or not. You need a certain set of circumstances to bring forth a democratic government:  Things like eras of being protected by oceans from invading Visigoths, land as far as the eye can see, free education for all for years and years, money for the tools of production, and the production of goods and services, and people with the money to buy them. You need people of every race and color, and culture coming to your shores to share their knowledge of everything-- from farming to heavy machinery to quantum physics. What you don't need is firmly entrenched hierarchies of tribal leaders and mullahs and ayatollas fighting with raised scimitars, down through the ages, for control of lands and riches.  Governments in the countries we are messing with are built on religous faiths. We have separation of church and state (at least for the moment). Religion intrudes on government in these countries, and democracy goes out the window. 3:56:31 PM    comment []

*** Who's behind the "Make Nice, Howard Dean" movement? Some say the Clintons. Yes, and rabbits cause earthquakes by stomping their feet. Anyway, it's creeping into the media like a virus. Who's feeding us the idea that the Moderates, the Middles, and the Undecideds will be turned off by Howard Dean's righteous anger? The country is polarized. There is no middle. Let the warm and fuzzies choose sides, let them go left or right and, if, while poised gracefully on their white picket fence, they aren't angry at what's happening to this country, and in Iraq, then let them stay home on November 4, 2004…it they still have a home. Today's latest piece in the Los Angeles Times talks about how Mr. Dean should be instilling hope in equal measure with this anger. His anger is our hope. Somebody has to get fighting mad. Does the Sunday congregation deplore the preacher's righteous anger at sinners? We have sinners in our midst, and if the Moderates don't know it by now, or don't care, we are in trouble.   11:39:10 AM    comment []

..A visit from the President of the United States on Thanksgiving Day in Iraq had to be a real morale-booster for our troops. It was not without personal risk, and I applaud Mr. Bush for undertaking it. Surely, it should make the man happy to know that I, at long last, approve of something he's done. It was also a good idea politically. That said, this quote from yesterday's speech to the Troops is becoming a part of the Bush campaign litany: "You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so that we don't have to face them in our own country." You'd have to spin like a whirling dervish on speed to justify such a statement. First off, who says fighting guerilla warfare with terrorists and insurgents in Iraq will keep them from attacking here? Second, insurgents aren't necessarily terrorists; these militant, enraged Iraqi citizens are retaliating against occupiers, rather than creating terror for the sake of terror. They are not in the business of flying planes into buildings. Thirdly, there is the matter of morality: Did we, without provocation, start a war with Iraq in order to serve the dubious notion that we could attract terrorists into another sovereign country, instead of our own, and kill them by the lot? Is it moral of Americans to applaud the idea of letting others die--our men and women and the Iraqis--to save our own precious hides? It would be a different thing entirely had Iraq attacked us, but that wasn't the case. We are the attackers. Who gave us the right to deliberately make a killing field out of somebody's else's land? Well, I don't think there was such a plan. The Administration, though many times warned, found it unacceptable information that we would become mired in a guerilla war and that it would eventually spread. According to the Administration, we were supposed to be spreading "democracy," instead we are spreading war--cult against cult, religion against religion, sect against sect, peoples against peoples--and stirring up a veritable stew of malignancy. Some hard rightist Christians welcome the hellfires, believing, as they do, that it is the beginning of Armageddon, and the return of Jesus Christ. 11:29:20 AM    comment []