6/7/03
During his recent trip to the Middle East, Mr bush exercised his authority as ruler of the new American Imperium by making his "victory lap" through Iraq, thus making his official declaration to the world that he was in fact the winner of what the media refers to as the war in Iraq.
True, Mr bush made his "victory lap" in the comfort of Air Force One, 30,000 feet above the ground. I guess that is one of the privileges of being ruler. It's ok to inflict carnage and mayhem and death and devastation on a quasi third-world country as long as you don't have to get any closer to it than six miles above the ground. At that distance, mr bush won't have to see for example, the face of the 12 year old Iraqi boy who lost both arms from the American bombing. Nor will he, at that altitude, ever need to be concerned that half of the five million citizens in the city of Baghdad are still without electricity and safe drinking water. Still without adequate medication and supplies to perform necessary surgical procedures on the victims of US bombs. And where many of the citizens of Baghdad are still without a roof over their heads because their homes were leveled by American air power. "Collateral damage" I think, is the term still being used to deflect any concern about such human conditions.
Mr bush also spent several days talking to Ariel Sharon. As I read the account of his visit I thought about Rachel Corrie, the 23 year-old student, and American citizen from Olympia, Washington who was crushed to death, murdered some would say, by an Israli bulldozer on March 17 of this year. She was in the Middle East working for an organization that was protesting the destruction by Israel of Palestinian homes whroughout the West Bank. A woman whose death, to my knowledge at least, has never been mentioned or acknowledged by anyone in the US government, including Mr bush. I mention this in part because I have heard Mr bush say on several occasions, "If any American citizen is killed in a foreign land, we will hunt down those responsible and bring them to justice." And so I'm wondering if Mr bush raised the issue of Miss Corrie's death with Mr Sharon. And no, I don't hold out a lot of hope that the death of an american citizen at the hands of Israel will ever be investigated, much less prosecuted.
And the beat goes on........
8:04:44 AM 
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