Saturday, June 12, 2004

Criminal Probes of Our Troops

Give me a break. We sent them over there to kill people. We knew darn well they'd become killers.

Top News Article | Reuters.com

Not Worth It!

I'll bet this is harder to swallow than that pretzel was ...

A majority of U.S. voters now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq and feel the United States is getting bogged down there, according to a Los Angeles Times poll published on Friday.

Top News Article | Reuters.com

Friday, June 11, 2004

Can't we plant this guy?

My God, how long must we endure these egregious eulogies, these silly ceremonies, this platitudinous speechifying on Ronnie's death? If you were alive and aware during his presidency, you'd be shocked at all this piffle over his passing. I'm sure Reagan--if he's the man all these speeches say he is--is appalled.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Never mind

The earlier report by the Bush administration that terrorism is abating is, quite simply, wrong, the product of cooked books.

I'm going fucking nuts

with the ceaseless commemoratives of Reagan. That's all I can find on the news channels--hour after hour of pulp banter about his fine qualities, ignoring Iran/Contra, the multiple scandals of his administration and his unstinting retribution against those less fortunate than he. The man was no saint. He wasn't even a good person. He was an actor, and not much of one at that, who stumbled through eight mediocre years as our chief executive.

So--I decided to tune to Turner Classic Movies channel, for a respite from all the mainstream mendacity. Guess what: A series of Reagan features in honor of his death.

I'm leaving America, no shit. Be back when Carter dies.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Meanwhile, back on the ground

The Security Council passed, unanimously, the US/UK resolution on the handover of authority in Iraq. The G-8 group passed, unanimously, the US-sponsored resolution concerning democratization of the Middle East. Bush, say some pundits, is soaring with these successes. Soaring, however, is not quite the proper word to apply to the situation in Iraq, where the reality is that the violence is unabated. Apparently, the Iraqis don't know how well off they are.

Indescribable

As a writer, I'm not pleased to admit that I can't find a word--can't even find an approximation--to capture the outrage I feel upon hearing BBC's radio broadcast a moment ago of several UN Security Council members' reaction to their passage of the mealy-tongued Iraq-"self-government" resolution yesterday. The diplomats used phrases like, "recognizing the new reality," "putting the past behind us," and "coming together in the interests of Iraq's future."
So--the US/UK are forgiven. Everything is coming up roses. The thousands of dead and maimed and tortured Iraqis are forgotten, as are the young American and British troops who gave their lives and limbs for this patent violation of the UN Charter and international law. The violence we've done to the tenets of world order by the lying and intimidation we used to invade Iraq is subsumed in the slime of realpolitik. All's well that ends well. The end justifies the means.
I'll never--never--accede to such a cynical view of human governance. It's not governance at all, but an exercise in facile fakery by which those in power maintain their positions, then attempt to justify our keeping them there.
The two-year debacle we've witnessed within the United Nations (and, chiefly, without it) shows me this: Nothing has changed in the world order, or in the conduct of human affairs. We are, at base, still animals. Might, as always, makes right.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Call me insensitive, call me crass

but I'm already bored blind by remembrances of Ronald Reagan on TV during this week of mourning--and it's only Tuesday!

Monday, June 07, 2004

Crunch time

The proposed US/UK Security Council resolution on Iraq has been revised by the US four times, each time ceding more authority to Iraq's interim government, including the power to tell the US military to leave the country. Of course the US knows that that won't happen, but what might happen is that there is a disagreement between the interim government and the US Army or Marines over various military actions in Iraq.

A typical example would be the Fallujah debacle, in which the maltreatment of four "civilian" workers (read, mercenaries) led to the Marines' assault on Fallujah with hundreds dead on both sides, eventually leading to a withdrawal by the US and Fallujah in the hands of Sunni sheiks and their minions. (BTW--We never caught the Iraqis--if they were Iraqis--who killed the contractors, just as the US is pulling out of the Shiite towns without "capturing or killing" al-Sadr, which was the reason we invaded those towns.)

So, what happens if some US general, or Rummie or someone decides to launch an invasion of some segment of Iraq, perhaps on "intelligence" that al-Qaeda is lodged there or that Iranians or Syrians are sneaking in and up to no good? And, let's say, the interim government fears that such an action might end up killing hundreds of its citizens, as it might well do?

Well, as of the latest draft, we don't know. The two entities are supposed to exercise "close coordination" of such exercises.

What does that mean? Does it sound like "full sovereignty" to you?

The US/UK wants a vote on this draft Tuesday. France and Algeria are resisting, unless the above question is clarified, giving the Iraqis the power to negate any US military action. Sounds right to me, but who knows how long they can hold out against pressure from the other Security Council members, who are less strident on the subject.

Of course my dream is that just such a situation as I've described above comes to pass. The US makes a military move over the objection of the interim government and refuses to desist. The interim government appeals to the UN and/or calls out its own soldiers and the US is shown to be the warmongers that it lately has become. On Bush's watch, of course.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

He who lives by the media dies by the media

Whoever planned Bush's sojourn to Europe to grab media attention around D-Day's 60th anniversary must be miffed that Ronnie chose this weekend to die. Bush's PR folks couldn't plan for this, of course, but are learning that the media are such whores that they'll cover the latest video-worthy event no matter what it is, and "great man" attributions to Reagan, plus peals of memorials and remembrances trump time-worn D-Day anytime.

Kinda like how Bush benefited from the coverage of the violence he inflicted on Iraq. He's now suffering from the media's coverage of the violence of "reconstructed Iraq."

Whatever goes around comes around.