Thursday, April 10, 2003

TODAY'S TOP FIVE An Iraqi crowd of virtue pulling down the Saddam statue of iniquity New Yorkers Most Affected by 9/11 Least Likely to Support Iraq War But who cares, really? I mean, those 9/11 people are so September 10, don't you think? Tonight We're Going to Party Like It's 1944 The image of the Saddam statue in Baghdad coming down yesterday is going to be the chief symbol of this misadventure. Why? Well, chiefly because the American press is only too happy to lie about it: "As if to match such sentiment, MSNBC had by then transformed the statue collapse into myth. It was being edited into one seamless fall, rather than the herky-jerky, two-part process it had been, and the network had, on at least one occasion, told viewers that Iraqi citizens had pulled it down on their own." The Time For Debate is Over: We Must Strike Now While Andorra is Weak! So we're getting ready to tee off on Syria, then. Rumsfeld and Co. are squabbling with Powell and the CIA, who says there is "no evidence" of any inter-governmental help between Iraq and Syria (the governments have long been bitter rivals over control of the pan-Arab Baath movement). Why the hell should that matter, though? As Clancy Wiggum might say, "The CIA says a lot of things." Now the American Enterprise Institute, on the other hand, says just one thing: We have to go to war with Iran and Syria. "So they are coming to kill coalition forces, which means that there is no more time for diplomatic solutions," a paper published by the Institute said. Who wrote that paper, pray tell? Why, it was Michael Ledeen, who eagle-eyed observers will remember from his stint as a go-between during the Iran Contra arms deal! It truly is a small world, after all. Jubilant Iraqis Welcome Home US-Backed Shiite Cleric; Two Dead Killed by a mob at the shrine of Ali, no less. Maybe that "unnamed Sheik" the British have allegedly installed as the puppet ruler of Basra can help sort this out! On second thought, perhaps not. North Korea Withdraws from Non-Proliferation Treaty, Cites Iraq as Reason So they DID take the administration's warnings to heart! You see, you can reason with these folks after all! Oh, wait. -Consider Arms 2:08:26 PM    comment []

Now that the war is essentially over, it’s back to business as usual for Americans. That’s not going to be a big change as few seem to give too much of a shit anyway – the biggest difference will be fewer newsbreaks during prime time programming. And, now that all is said and done, the sweeping under the carpet of all those unsavory details will be complete. Many pro-war groups and even moderates questioned the necessity, validity and appropriateness of the protests once the war had begun. Now that it is over, what will there be to protest? The Administration keeping the U.N. out of the rebuilding of Iraq? Sweetheart contracts for Bush favored companies in the post-war effort? The ransacking of the Iraqi oil infrastructure? The lingering specter of Iraqi civilian casualties? They’re all good reasons to make noise, but if protesting a war isn’t going to capture significant attention, what’s a post-war protest good for? But it’s not over. While the shooting may soon come to an end (in Iraq, anyway; who knows which country will be next), it’s important to remember why the war was wrong in the first place. It should be important to Americans that the rush to war was a predetermined course, that all evidence of weapons of mass destruction was fabricated, as was all information linking Saddam to Al Qaeda or the September 11, 2001 attacks (a good article about all of that, courtesy of Consortium News and Buzzflash). The concept of an imminent threat has always been bullshit, and although this might have been the most readily accepted of the many truths about the war drive, nobody in America really cared. When it comes down to it, as soon as the cruise missiles first leave the decks of our naval ships, any justification for war is irrelevant. Americans support the shooting, regardless of who we’re shooting at. During the war, there were thousands of Iraqi deaths, both military and civilian. International journalists were also killed (one incident seeming suspiciously intentional). The media coverage was startlingly propagandistic, with information carefully controlled by the military (there seems to be a common misconception that these embedded reporters allow for a freer flow of information) and the media outlets’ self-censorship in full force. A media reluctant to sacrifice ratings was careful to seem as "patriotic" as possible at all times, following the lead of the "America Kicks Ass" Fox News channel, whose trumpeting of the Bush Administration’s victories over the America-hating left and international community was the model for success. The neoconservative version of patriotism does not allow for dissent or analysis or any other form of negativity, unfortunately. Never mind the argument that protestors protest because they love the country they’re trying to save. The "You’re Either With Us or You’re Against Us" doctrine was in full effect during the war and the months leading up to it – loving America meant loving her military campaigns, a sentiment that could only be more creepy if Administration officials wore full military regalia and shot rifles into the air at public rallies. The first chapter of the New American Century has been written. We shall see what happens next. People seem to balk at the idea that Bush is trying to build an empire, but the evidence is undeniable. He and his administration talk of imminent threats, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and liberation, but these are merely selling points. Even Hitler was wise enough not to sell his motivations to his people as imperial. The United States now has an empire upon which the sun never sets; I’d be curious to see how this all looks in history books centuries from now. - Marcus-Marcus 11:27:35 AM    comment []

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