The Monster Limo Weblog

	Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Here's a good one for you: Kanan Makiya is an Iraqi dissident who teaches at Brandeis. He is very big on the idea of using other people's armies to solve the problems of his countrymen; hence his support for Bush's war. However, Professor Makiya pours out his wrath in the above Observer article after being briefed on what the actual US plan for a post-Saddam Iraq looks like at a meeting with US officials in Turkey last week. Some highlights:

> Americans will be appointed to head Iraqi government ministries, even as American soldiers patrol the streets.

> An unknown number of "Iraqi quislings" will be appointed to serve as "advisors" to the American government in Iraq.

> The Kurdish experiment in self-rule will end as Turkish troops, not under US command, invade the northern part of the country and crush Kurdistan.

Pretty horrible stuff admittedly, but the article is remarkable in its tone of wounded righteousness, as if Professor Makiya didn't realize that dealing with people who are willing to plot the overthrow of multiple governments was a treacherous business. The outraged scholar demands to know:

"Is the President who so graciously invited me to his Oval Office only a few weeks ago to discuss democracy, about to have his wishes subverted by advisers who owe their careers to those mistakes?"

O fresh eyes! The outrage! To misquote a great movie: "Forget it, Kanan, it's Chinatown."

- Consider Arms

2:22:25 PM

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The White House says that Iraq can pay for it’s own reconstruction. Let’s not kid ourselves about this whole liberation thing. In addition to a healthy distrust of the Bush Administration, there are two key points that illustrate just how interested the President is in "liberating" the Iraqi people. A couple of weeks ago, the concept of "shock and awe" was introduced to the world (dropping thousands of bombs in a span of hours to demoralize the army and/or vaporize Baghdad). Now there’s this. Talk about a deal for the Iraqi people. "Tell ya what; we’ll come into your country and topple the government, but it’s not going to be a normal ground type war. We’re actually going to bomb the shit out of all of you indiscriminately. And if destroying your country, killing thousands of your innocent countrymen and leaving you without a government of any kind isn’t enough to destabilize you, we’ll leave without helping you rebuild. Deal?" You know, if I were the president, and even if I were tempted by the big dollar sign that is the Iraqi oil fields, I’d like to think I’d have the conscience not to ANNIHILATE AN ENTIRE COUNTRY. We’ve all had concerns (those of us that are rational, that is) about the risks of increased terrorist attacks after an Iraqi war, but this is going to turn even those Iraqis who actually like us now, for whatever reason.

- Marcus-Marcus

9:46:50 AM

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We here at the MLWL are committed to bringing you the day's headlines in the most digestible, attention-deficit-disordered way possible. That's right, kids: It's time for the day's AP Roundup (http://www.ap.org for paranoiacs).

The Big News: Everyone gets their day in court, or so we're told. Today, a German court handed down the first conviction in any September 11-related trial, giving a hijacker helper 15 years. In addition, a UN tribunal convicted two Rwandans (one of whom had fought extradition from the US for 6 years) of genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity. For this, one of them got 10 years and the other got 25. 10 years for genocide and crimes against humanity? Man, that's sending a tough message to all the would-be Hitlers of the world.

The Roundup: South Korea's President says "no" to the possibility of using force to disarm North Korea. Quick, somebody tell John Bolton!. . . Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State, came out today with the strongest condemnation of war in Iraq the Church has issued yet, meaning that the little city-state in Rome has more balls than Germany, which is crumbling like day-old cookies. . . NATO is rapidly moving to establish "defensive" positions in Turkey, even though it looks like the Turks will extort billions from the US in exchange for allowing our troops to be there. . . India and Pakistan, which have been quietly building towards another crisis, have refused to meet during the upcoming Non-Aligned Nations summit. Even more surprising: They still have a Non-Aligned Nations Summit. . . NATO and Germany may have pussed out, but the UN is still unlikely to vote for a second resolution on Iraq. The demonstrations worked!. . . And lastly, a British man who beheaded a statue of Margaret Thatcher was sentenced to three months in prison. A court told him he would've walked if he had actually beheaded Margaret Thatcher, instead of her statue.

- Consider Arms

9:37:49 AM

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