Sunday, July 04, 2004

This is, I think, my favorite 'toon of Ted Rall's ever. When I read that "President" Bush said today, according to The Associated Press, "that America is safer because Saddam Hussein is in a prison cell," my immediate thought was, "The United States and the entire world would be safer if Bush also were in a prison cell, where the election-stealing war criminal and traitor* belongs." Rall's fantasy of poetic justice, however, is much better than my simple fantasy (although Condi and Cheney seem to get off a bit too easily).   *Stealing a presidential election and sending young American soldiers to their deaths based on fucking lies in order to enable your frat buds to war profiteer qualifies as treason in my book, but then again, I'm a left-wing wacko. 10:08:05 PM    Comments []

Is he or isn't he? The fate of 24-year-old U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, shown in a 2003 photo and in a still from a video made by his captors (one of whom is brandishing a sword above his blindfolded head), is unknown as of this writing. "Hassoun, fluent in Arabic, French and English, was serving the Marines as a translator in his second stint in Iraq when he was captured" last month, notes The Associated Press.  Beheaders are slackin' The whole beheading thing was getting me lots 'n' lots o' hits. Since 26-year-old American Nicholas Berg's beheading in May, I have climbed a full 20 notches in the top 100 Salon weblogs. Supposedly they recently shot 20-year-old U.S. Army Spc. Keith Matthew Maupin in the back of the head and videotaped it, but as the low-quality videotape shows only the back of a man supposedly being shot in the back of the head and slumping into a hole in the ground, and as Maupin's body has not been recovered, Maupin's death remains unconfirmed. Shooting people is so five minutes ago.  They were going to decapitate three Turks recently. Three Turks. Three. Then, they let them go. No sense of show biz whatsoever. They were going to decapitate Lebanese-born U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. Word came out yesterday that Hassoun's captors, who call themselves the Ansar al-Sunna Army, had announced that they'd decapitated him and that the video of his beheading would be posted on the Internet soon. Today, The Associated Press reports that Hassoun's captors deny that they issued that announcement and that Hassoun is still alive. "The denial from the Ansar al-Sunna Army came a day after a statement in the group's name announced that Hassoun had been beheaded. The Ansar al-Sunna said [today] they didn't issue the statement, leaving it unclear if the 24-year-old was killed by another group or was still alive," the AP reports. These slacking Middle Eastern beheaders have a lot to learn about pleasing American audiences. We want more heads to roll, dammit! And we want it now! But seriously -- seriously -- I can't imagine what it would be like to not know if your loved one were alive or dead. I can't imagine what Maupin's loved ones are going through, what Maupin is going through, if he is still alive. I can't imagine what Hassoun's loved ones are going through, what Hassoun is going through, if he is still alive. I can't imagine what the loved ones of the more than 850 U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq because of Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction are going through. These young men and women are dying not for "freedom" or "democracy" or the "war on terrorism" or for anything nearly that noble, but are dying for stupid rich white men's pure, raw, unadulterated greed, dying because these stupid rich white men can't get enough, because "enough" is not in their vocabulary. These stupid rich white men get away with what they get away with because we let them. Happy fucking Fourth of July. God bless America, blah blah blah. Update (Sunday, July 11, 2004): They're still slackin'. No beheadings since Kim Sun-il's. Good for the people whose heads aren't being cut off. Bad for my hits. 1:20:07 PM    Comments []