Danny's Weblog

2007 Mar 30 [ Fri ]

Iraq war reason -- I never thought it was oil till now

I said in an earlier post that I thought the Iraq war was so costly that it outweighed any benefit from grabbing Iraq's oil: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Iraq/bush01.html]

I felt confirmed in that belief when no effort was made to get Iraq's oilfields back on line – production is still much lower than before the war.

This link certainly confirms my idea that the war is stupendously expensive – it estimates over *two trillion USD*: www.informationclearinghouse.info [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm]

But one of the costs mentioned in that page is actually profit for someone – clear profit at zero risk (unlike say the role of Halliburton). That profit is the *increased price of oil* due to tension in the Middle East as well as diminished flow from Iraq. If the Iraq war had not happened, the big oil companies, and the islamic dictatorships in the Middle East, would still have sold the same oil but made much lower profits.

The story in the link eastimates that the US *alone* will pay 300 billion USD extra, assuming that the Iraq war caused just a 10 USD/barrel price rise – although the price of oil has risen since the Iraq war by around 40 USD per barrel. So the oil companies and the oil sheiks might be congratulating themselves on a 1,200 billion USD profit on US sales alone.

Now we're talking the kind of money where people might reasonably decide that the utter destruction of the USA is worth the trouble. Hmmm.

Who knows if Bush's buddies really control the oil sheiks? Or is it the other way round? Suppose the oil sheiks were going to change to dealing in euros because the USD is collapsing, but Bush bought them off with a price rise? Less hysterical version of oil/euro theory here: www.feasta.org [http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm]

Anothe pet conspiray theory of mine finds some justification here: www.newstatesman.com [http://www.newstatesman.com/200703120024]

I've often wondered whether the US dead figures in Iraq were really true – after all, Bush lied about everything else. The above link mentions, without connecting the dots, that the US Govt's official figures show that the ratio between wounded and dead is an astounding 16:1; in the first Gulf war it was 1.2:1. Hmmmm!

2006 Dec 10 [ Sun ]

Opinion of an Iraqi in "Why We Fight"

"Why We Fight" is the title of a recent documentary about the USA's continuing need to maintain a state of war.

At around 1 hr 33 mins 43 secs on my copy, an Iraqi is shown complaining about the USA, speaking Arabic. I copied down the subtitles because I find them powerful. Here they are:

Due to their behavior the Americans will fail.

They will fail completely among the countries.

And another country will rise and take the Americans' place.

I am not a political man, but that is my analysis as an ordinary person.

America will lose because her behavior is not the behavior of a great nation.

I am particularly interested because I have come to believe that it was the intention of the Bush administration to destroy the USA all along, although "Why We Fight" pushes the argument that the military-industrial complex just wanted the administration to create another enemy now that the USSR has fallen. I think the military-industrial complex probably still believes that the US administration is working for them, although they have got to be starting to wonder.

2005 Mar 02 [ Wed ]

How many US troops have *really* died in Iraq?

Do you remember that there was a big fuss about some photographer who published pictures of the coffins of US servicemen being returned to the US? The Feds huffed and puffed about publishing such pictures being disrespectful to the families, and I didn't see any old-media columnist saying "waitaminute, that's a bunch of malarkey".

Since when is it disrespectful?

I couldn't figure out what was really going on, though. The only obvious reason the government would have for discouraging an objective record of incoming casualties would be if they were attempting to fake the casualty count. I thought that would be too difficult: they would be bound to be caught out.

Here's a link which discusses various reports that the Feds have been doing *exactly* that in many ways: eg by using many non-US citizens in the US Army, who enlisted to get a green card (this has been an option for a long time): www.rense.com [http://www.rense.com/general63/peen.htm]

On the other hand, I *still* don't think that's the real truth. I don't think the Feds really want to win the war in Iraq. What they want to do is destroy the US, so they are systematically destroying the integrity of every institution in it, such as the US Army: now it tortures captives and lies about its casualties.

It used to be that an institution would survive a scandal among its top people, because there was a reservoir of integrity among its workers. In today's culture of fear and isolation in one's job in America, the worker feels no loyalty to his employer because none is shown to him. Of course, he knows that if he tries to resist an improper or illegal order he will find no support from his coworkers or the media. So now the Feds have only to issue a single legal opinion, and the US Army obediently tortures thousands of captives looking for WMDs which the Feds knew would never be found. When the US Army no longer deserves respect, the individual soldiers will no longer care.

When I feel angry about what the US is doing, I try to remind myself that this is what the Feds *want* me to feel: for some reason, they want to pit the US against the rest of the world, so that the US can lose.

I just don't know *why*.

2004 Sep 28 [ Tue ]

Harper's has an optimistic view of Iraq

The following link is to an article which to me is unwarrantedly optimistic: it assumes that George Bush thought the war would benefit big business in Iraq: www.harpers.org [http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html]

I quote:

Jay Hallen, a twenty-four-year-old who had applied for a job at the White House, was put in charge of launching Baghdad's new stock exchange.

This reminds me of a movie that has been running on cable recently, about a team of Allied spies who are required to dress up as women in order to inflitrate a Nazi center and grab an Enigma cipher machine. At the end of the movie it turns out the entire team had been selected in order to fail: the Brits had *already* broken Enigma and just wanted to encourage the Nazis to keep using it.

Not that I think Hallen is *necessarily* a complete idiot. I also have no evidence that he's a cross-dresser.

2004 Jul 06 [ Tue ]

The real reason for the accelerated handover in Iraq

When the "sovereignty" handover took place several days early, I thought "ok, that's kind of neat, it sorta makes sense that they would try to forestall demonstrations timed for the official date".

Then Saddam is suddenly put on trial. I thought "hmmm. the handover happens early and the only thing that happens is the Saddam trial..."

Then I remembered another story that I'd seen on propagandamatrix.com: Saddam's wife claims the prisoner is not Saddam:

American officials rushed forward to shield Mrs Saddam from perplexed Russian observers, trying to insist that Saddam had changed a lot while in custody and she probably didn't recognise him. This was certainly not the best way to handle the Iraqi President's wife. "You think I do not know my husband?" Sajida shouted furiously, "I was married to the man for more than twenty-five years!" Then she stormed off, never to return

www.prisonplanet.tv [http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/june2004/061804saddamnotsaddam.htm]

This may have something to do with another strange little story:

A team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of the hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen on Thursday, destroying videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded legal submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime.

www.counterpunch.org [http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk07032004.html]

Now, if I was a paranoid type, I would link these things together. My feeling is that once the story about Mrs Hussein gets out, the spit hits the fan. So Bush/Cheney figure out that if Saddam is in *someone elses's custody* they can't get blamed. So they hurriedly create their Quisling government in Iraq and hand Saddam over to it (on paper). Now Bush/Cheney can claim that Saddam had been held safely in *US* custody and it was only those nitwit Iraqis who screwed things up.

Incidentally I think the real Saddam has been sitting on a couch in Virginia drinking beer, playing with his new Tivo and swapping jokes with his old buddies in Halliburton since the "invasion". After all, whose interests did he serve every day while he was president of Iraq?

Despite this, I find the following line funny and would like to wear a T-shirt with it:

Les Francais sont des singes de capitulation qui mangent du fromage

This was someone's tagline on Slashdot. A couple more I noticed recently with some relevance to Iraq are:

"I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going." - Avon, Blake's Seven

Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?

2004 Jun 28 [ Mon ]

Homeland Security Admits WMD Found In Smallville

Dateline: Smallville, USA

Several years ago, on a date which the Department of Homeland Security does not wish us to reveal, the residents of Smallville, USA woke up to find that one of the small farms that make up the charming heart of this sleepy rural community had become a military base. Razor wire had been hastily put up overnight; over the next few weeks it was converted to an impenetrable barrier of concrete forms, watchtowers and, according to one rumor, leaping mines.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act application by the New York Times, the government has now released redacted official documents which detail a series of frantic efforts by the underfunded, overworked patriots in the Department of Homeland Security to defend the country from a missile launched by Saddam Hussein.

The missile landed without incident, apparently so that its cargo could be distributed to major cities such as New York, NY and Washington, D. C. Local collaborators, named in documents as Ma and Pa Kent, apparently hid the contents of the rocket on their isolated farm. They had gone to great lengths to hide their Islamic sympathies from their neighbors, "which just proves their guilt", said an anonymous spokesman.

Few local residents wished to offer any support for Ma and Pa Kent. "No! No! Please – don't hit me again!" said one resident as he fled from the scene with a hood over his head, in the back of a Department of Homeland Security truck.

However the New York Times has now uncovered suggestions that Saddam's secret weapons program had somehow created a "Superjihadist", who had been miniaturized to fit in the rocket and to appear similar to a normal human being, but by the use of advanced North Korean genetics techniques was capable of leaping tall buildings at a single bound. (The New York Times was informed of the situation eighteen months ago but were informed that it was a matter of vital national security.)

Fortunately after interrogation Ma and Pa Kent revealed that the Superjihadist was vulnerable to some green glowing rocks which were available on their farm, so the Superjihadist has been kept safely confined at the Kent compound, strapped to a bedframe made from the green glowing material. According to a judgement by the President's legal team, this does not constitute torture, and anyone who says that it does can be secretly arrested.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, at a recent news conference at an undisclosed underground location, said "Although of course I have had no responsibility for the day-to-day running of the so-called "Kent Compound", let me say that our brave fighting men have created a triumph of democracy and freedom, and the Superjihadist has already given us many useful leads on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein..." [redacted] "...Al Qaeda operatives."

"Furthermore", Mr. Rumsfeld continued, "the experience of our democracy and freedom will, we hope, allow the Superjihadist some day to play a role in Iraq's new free and democratic democracy."

As he spoke, a strange sound, like that of a child wailing in terrible pain, but astonishingly loud through the heavy concrete walls of the shelter, could be heard. Audio recordings were confiscatedˆHˆH NOT CON FICSATED.

Attempts by the United Nations to interview either "Ma" or "Pa" Kent have been rebuffed. According to a statement by the Department of Homeland Security, they are among "a group of detainees who continue to offer information useful to the security of the United States."

2004 Jun 09 [ Wed ]

The torture in Abu Ghraib is the same as the torture in US prisons

Some of my attentive readers (are there any?) may have wondered if I was talking through my hat when I pointed out that the US prison system has recorded abuses as bad as anything we have heard about Abu Ghraib:

www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Iraq/abughraib01.html]

www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Iraq/abughraib02.html]

Here's a US site describing a report from "Jamie Fellner, director of the Human Rights Watch U. S. Program" (never heard of them but so what): wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com [http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=3340&sID=3]

A culture of brutality has developed in which correctional officers know they can get away with excessive, unnecessary, or even purely malicious violence. Perhaps if photos or videotapes of abuse in U. S. prisons were to circulate publicly, Americans would be galvanized to protest such treatment as they have the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Absent such graphic and unavoidable evidence, it is all too likely that abuse will continue to be a part of many prison sentences..

...

In his minority opinion, [Justice Clarence] Thomas argued that the beating by three prison guards was not cruel and unusual punishment although the beating left Hudson with loosened teeth, facial bruises, and a cracked dental plate. ''A use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be torturous, it may be criminal ... but it is not 'cruel and unusual punishment,''' Thomas wrote.

Actually I kinda agree with Thomas on that one. He's a Strict Constructionist and thinks you shouldn't take off and apply Constitutional arguments to plain beatings. He would restrict "cruel" to "having attack dogs bite you to death" and "unusual" to "putting starch in your underwear".

(Regrettably, the writer of the above article thinks you hogtie someone "to" the floor. You hogtie someone's wrists to his ankles. Having done that, I suppose you could also tie him to the floor but it seems superfluous. ...I just saw the dangling participle; oh well.)

I found the link to the above page here: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/]

There are a lot of other good articles there, like the one on the ghastly G8 conference and the 2000 body bags they ordered, but they're too depressing to list.

2004 May 24 [ Mon ]

Bush, and USA, have totally lost credibility

I was watching some US spokesman sweating under the camera lights as he tried to convince the pressmen that the US Army had found evidence that the wedding ceremony that they bombed was a terrorist center. Earnestly, he underlined that the building where the wedding guests had died had been set up as a "dormitory", as if that were a military-sounding word that supported his argument.

Bush, and his administration, lied repeatedly about whether they had hard evidence of WMDs in Iraq. That's something that they *knew* would be proven false. (They probably intended to discover some fake WMDs – like the "germ weapons manufacturing trailers" which were being manufactured "to to train Special Operations units" by the guy that they later blamed for having stolen the anthrax powder – but that's another issue.) And *as far as we know* they had no reason to lie about it at that time.

"Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants 28 May 2003" www.cia.gov [http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraqi_mobile_plants/]

Dr Steven J. Hatfill a "person of interest" in the anthrax enquiry: www.ph.ucla.edu [http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/antigermtraining.html]

So now we're supposed to believe them on something where they have every reason to lie and every opportunity to conceal and manufacture evidence?

In the famous Profumo case in England in the sixties, a callgirl called Mandy Rice-Davies took the stand, and when the counsel for the defense pointed out that Viscount Astor's testimony contradicted hers and asked her if she could expect the court to believe that he had lied, she answered "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Powerful people lie whenever they think they can get away with it. Bush would, wouldn't he? The US Army would, wouldn't they? There was a time when I trusted the official spokesman of the US Army, but I was a sap then, wasn't I?

Profumo affair: www.nostalgiacentral.com [http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/pop/profumoaffair.htm]

Surprisingly rational-sounding postings about the recent discovery of traces of Sarin in an artillery round in Iraq: www.command-post.org [http://www.command-post.org/2_archives/012332.html]

2004 May 18 [ Tue ]

An analysis of the Nick Berg "decapitation" video

Many interesting issues are raised. For instance, the clock on one camera is 11 hours ahead of the clock on the other camera. That's the timezone difference between Iraq and California. (Actually, I'm not sure that's correct, when California is on summer time. Maybe Iraq is too.)

www.libertyforum.org [http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_international&Number=1471708&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21&part=1]

2004 May 17 [ Mon ]

A couple more thoughts about Abu Ghraib and Nicholas Berg

1. Some of the links I've followed about Berg have remarked on a "halo" around his head that they thought suggested that digital editing had been used to place his head in the scene. It occurs to me however that this sort of artefact is common in image compression such as the MPEG used for digital video.

2. I think it's very telling that some representatives of the US armed forces are telling us that as a result of the inquiries into prisoner abuse sleep deprivation in excess of 72 hours will not be used.

Have you ever stayed up 12 hours past your bedtime? Imagine doing it kneeling naked, handcuffed against the bars of your cell, wrists to ankles. Now imagine doing that for another 60 hours, never knowing when you would be unbound.

And that's what they're saying they can *still* do to Iraqi prisoners – or anyone else they deem necessary in the War on Terrorism. And telling anyone about it would be illegal... etc...

2004 May 08 [ Sat ]

More thoughts on Abu Ghraib scandal

The IHT today had an article by Ted Conover "In prison, guards watch the boss" which made points rather similar to my own in my previous posting – although, perhaps because he *worked* as a prison guard, he is less eager to talk about the spectacular cases of mistreatment which occur routinely in the US. www.iht.com [http://www.iht.com/articles/518898.html]

My own impression is that the whole prison rape thing in the US is a result of the collision between Hispanic and Anglo cultures. In the Hispanic culture, it is routine for otherwise heterosexual men to make use of effeminate males, and of course the circumstances of being in a men-only prison will accentuate this. So – especially because Hispanics are jailed way out of proportion to their numbers (maybe the chance of winding up in jail is a turn-on) – this establishes rape as a part of jail culture.

Additionally, Anglo men are especially afraid of being raped, and even of involvement in any form of non-hetero society. This makes the threat of non-violent coercion, such as being placed in a queer block, effective by itself, and useful to guards who perhaps would eschew actual violence.

So this form of control has become part of prison guards' bag of tricks in the US, and it is hardly surprising that it would be resorted to in Iraq, where the language problem makes more subtle forms of dominance ineffective. (Perhaps I should add that I think, of course, that the guards involved, and their chain of command, should be punished with maximum severity.)

Btw, it is utterly hypocritical for Arab commentators to suggest that the forms of non-violent humiliation which have so far been revealed at Abu Ghraib are particularly abhorrent in Arab culture. Almost all Arab males are attracted to boys, and their prisoners of war are raped at every opportunity, not just forced to wear panties on their head.

Overall I still think that the whole mistreatment story is just a sideshow. Nasty things happen when you invade a sovereign country, and that's why that phrase "invading a sovereign country" used to carry weight, and why grownups used to think it was worth checking very carefully before their country went to war.

I suppose it's conceivable even now that the US will discover some Dr Evil-style underground fortress with guards in orange jumpsuits and ICBMs full of nerve gas. But it's completely clear that when Bush and his cronies said they *knew* there were WMDs in Iraq, they were full of hogwash. That's Bush's crime: the "high crime". Not the cover story about grabbing oil.

2004 May 06 [ Thu ]

Recent allegations of US abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq

I tried to post this story yesterday but the connection broke several times and I gave up.

Yesterday I started off by saying something like "so far the allegations have been pretty mild". I'd say they're still *fairly* mild, although now they include murder.

What I'm comparing this to is the US federal and state prison systems. Similar allegations, and testimony, and court convictions, have always been routine. Whenever prisoners are helpless and have no effective way to seek redress, abuse just gets worse and worse, more and more florid and bizarre, until it exceeds some terrible threshold. US forces in Iraq would have had to commit human sacrifice to invoke Baal *successfully* to be significantly more reprehensible than reports I have read of the way *US* prisoners are treated.

I suppose there are many who have no idea of how a jail system works. Remember that there is, and can be, no expectation of civilized behavior. Order rests on *proving* your authority every day in the face of people who have proved that they *reject* it. An acquaintance told me a story from when he was working as a prison guard. This guy is tall, works out and has studied martial arts. Unfortunately nobody told him that a prisoner he was assigned to escort was a *savate* expert. The prisoner was walking down stairs *in front of him*, and handcuffed, when he spun round and kicked my buddy in the crotch. My buddy knew that by prison rules a handcuffed prisoner is *per se* not to be struck. And by the *unwritten* prison rules, if he collapsed he would *lose authority*. So my buddy had to coolly continue taking the prisoner to his cell! I pressed the point and my buddy claimed that no reprisals were taken later, either... weird.

So guards are in a position where they have to maintain authority. And how in heck are you going to do that when *neither of you can speak to the other*? There was a famous case of abuse in NYC a few years ago where some hapless arrestee (Abner Louima) had a toilet plunger shoved up his anus. My attitude was unlike anyone else's I read about: I thought the officers were actually trying to *avoid* serious injury to Louima (who wound up in hospital with serious injuries): had they smashed his skull, leaving him dead or a vegetable, nobody would have ever cared about the case. But they figured that *humiliation* would be sufficient to achieve their goal, and were just too *dim* to look up what actually happens when you stick something in an anus. (Kids, don't try this at home – or only with someone who knows what he's doing.)

Likewise, grownups *know* that prisoners are going to be mistreated. That's why things exist like prison visitors, review boards, mail privileges, etc. To keep things at a low simmer; to prevent the pot from exploding. Btw, even if safeguards exist, people are tremendously reluctant to convict LEOs. The Diallo case was much more clear-cut, and all the officers were declared innocent: www.ishipress.com [http://www.ishipress.com/diallony.htm]

It's part of the reason why I have always opposed the conditions at Guantanomo. If you don't know what the conditions *are*, they probably aren't good. And when you're *legally prevented* from reporting them, you know the *Government* knows they aren't good. (Hmmm... the Arab press has been reporting this story since 2003 November and the Army has admitted to investigating it since 2004 January. Why did the story break *now*? Hmmm.)

It makes me think that Bush's strategy is identical to Thaksin's: he wants to have martial law, so he creates a Muslim enemy. Bush *wants* to enrage the Muslims, so that there's no danger of peace breaking out. Isn't my paranoid fantasy a *much* better match with events than the story reported in the NYT and the Washington Post? The story which depicts Bush as a fool credulously following the wicked Cheney and Wolfowitz and Rummy?

Rereading this makes me wonder if people will think I *support* the mistreatment of prisoners. The fact that it's inevitable doesn't mean it can be ignored – much less encouraged. It's like "friendly fire" – grownups know it happens, the US Army tries to cover it up.

2004 Apr 21 [ Wed ]

The war in the USA

Dateline "La Ville de la Liberte" (Washington DC)

The Marines still look jaunty in their berets, but now they look nervous as they have a leisurely lunch of wine, bread and three kinds of cheese. "Ze President, 'e tell us zat ze American, zey welcome us. An' zey welcome us when we arrive an' we bomb ze FBI an' ze Federal Reserve, but now zey say, ze job, where are zey? Ze cable, we not 'ave! Ze internet, eet ees broken, ma foi!"

Indeed the jubilant mood when the French so easily broke through George's much-vaunted defences has steadily darkened since then. Initially, the Americans seemed stunned that all the weapons of mass destruction which George claimed to possess – the nuclear weapons, the bacteria, the nerve gases – turned out to be nothing but propaganda. All the money went to civilian contractors, and payoffs to the "Pentagon", the massive secret complex of interrogation cells next to George's "White House". And there was great relief that ordinary Americans would no longer be subject to arrest and detention without trial by the feared "Homeland Security".

But a year has gone by, and for most Americans the situation has steadily deteriorated. The ambitious plans to revitalize the car industry boiled down to the French system: make a car that's small, complicated, and impossible to fix yourself. But the French found that the Americans had been doing that for years, and their car industry was in a shambles anyway.

The internet never recovered from the virus the French created (it simply flooded all ports with requests in metric units, which of course cause any American software to crash immediately). The internet had been designed to survive all kinds of attacks, but after the attack happened the Americans discovered that the only systems where enough money had been spent to make them secure were spammers, adware, and the FBI-financed child porn websites, so eveything worthwhile on the the internet was destroyed.

It didn't help that the French opened all the jails. "Ze American, zey 'ave four time more prisoner zan a civilize country, you know? So we sink zey are innocent, every one: ze prostitute, ze pimp, ze corrupt politician." But it turned out that although most of the people in jail were helpless victims of "Reno rage", some were so evil that even their colleagues in the laughably mis-named "Justice" division of the Bush regime had to get rid of them. And now these so-called "G. Men" are on the streets, so that the police, who of course immediately pledged their loyalty to their new French overlords, are afraid to be seen on the streets of Georgetown (named after the Americans' mighty leader) or in the markets and street cafes of Reston.

Even the British, who have been France's steadfast allies through two world wars, are starting to express quiet dissatisfaction with the lack of progress. A British military officer, who wished to remain anonymous, General Sir Michael Walker, said "Just look at how much quieter things have been in the British zone. It's true we were assigned the left coast, which is full of George opponents. And we've always been better at understanding the special concerns of local tribes, which is why we put the Mexicans back in charge of California and Texas. But now, the problems in George's home territories in Connecticut and La Ville de la Liberte seem to be spilling over, and it's getting harder and harder to have a simple cricket match with the buggers."

People are starting to say that the French had no real plan for what to do after they won. "The French had about fifteen photo-ops where Robert Maxwell was being groomed to be named the head of the 'New Integral' interim government, but it turned out nobody in America ever heard of him, or if they did they didn't like him." Little has been heard of Maxwell for several months, but new accusations about his role in various shady business deals keep popping up.

Likewise, French troops seemed to have little training in respecting local sensibilities. "A leetle matter like a field bordello, and ze people of Chevy Chase, zey have ze 'ordinance', and ze 'code', it make you sick!"

Even fundamental matters like the food supply turned out to be afterthoughts. "We arrive and zere is no food in ze 'ole country! Ze poor American, zey must survive to eat nuzzing but 'amburger an' American fries!"

The last word is deserved by a marsouin, warily huddled behind sandbags. His FAMAS carbine is a technological leap beyond the Mossberg 500s and Colt .357s of the terrorists, but his jacket a flak cannot protect him from everything. "What if zey give a war... an' everybody stay 'ome?"

2004 Apr 03 [ Sat ]

FBI translator testifies to Sep. 11 commission

Sibel Edmonds has made many allegations. Some of the most incendiary suggest that the Feds were well aware Al-Qaeda was planning an attack similar to 9/11 in the months before.

www.democracynow.org [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/02/1516216]

In addition, the FBI deliberately held up translation work in order to have a pretext for increased funding: www.upi.com [http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040331-035731-2120r]

Article in "the Independent" says "The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege". " news.independent.co.uk [http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514]

Of course, many of the things we were told by the Feds have now been deactivated: edition.cnn.com [http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/04/03/powell.iraq/]

For me, it always seemed like the US was invading a sovereign country and that was an important fact that needed not just Powell waving his hands in the air but proof. And people can say "well now the terrorist threat is so urgent we can't wait for proof", but *we've been there before*.

What Bush and his unindicted coconspirators have done is *not new*. Inventing a quarrel with a bunch of hapless nonentities and inflating it into a reason to arrest your enemies and imprison them without trial was old in Rome.

Perhaps people think I rejoice when Americans are killed in Iraq. On the contrary – I love America and the American people, and every American who dies in Iraq is another reason to oppose Bush. In fact, the casualties in Iraq so far have been tiny. I don't know what the equivalent statistics were at the end of WW2, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were about the same.

A soldier – unless he is very very strange – doesn't demand that there be no casualties. Nor even that there be no foulups. What he hopes for from his government is simply that he is fighting in a just war: a war that he can be proud of. That's something they don't have in Iraq.

Of course I had the same opinions way back before this war got started. Here's an article I posted just after the invasion: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Iraq/iraq1.html]

I guess I can be written off as a "premature antibushist".

2004 Mar 23 [ Tue ]

What were Bush's motivations for invading Iraq?

Here's a SLashdotter's answer:

Re:Oh, please... (Score:5, Insightful) by k_head (754277) on Tuesday March 23, @12:32AM (#8642214)

What do you mean "worked"?. Clinton's Iraq policy did indeed work in that it accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. The goal being keeping Saddam under control and a non threat to the US and it's interests. Saddam was declawed enough to make him a non threating to the US, it's allies and it's interests. Clinton accomplished this with minimal amount of expenditure of lives and money. His plan worked perfectly and accomplished exactly what he wanted to do. As I said he had no desire to cram socialism down their throats. He felt that saddam was the problem of the Iraqis and it was up to them to do something about it. He really didn't care all that much about your average Iraqi, he was only concerned with US interests.

Bush had different policy goals. He wanted to invade and occupy iraq and was not content to merely contain saddam. His motivations were complex (oil, his father, biblical prophecy, US hegemony etc) but he knew from day one that he wanted to control iraq totally and absolutely. He too accomplished what he wanted even though it cost lots of money and lots of lives.

In the end both Clinton and Bush were looking out for their own interests. The interests of the Iraqis was and remains totally irrelevent.

If Bush had stood up before 9/11 and said "The US will use it's wealth, power and military might to end opression in the world and to destroy all dictators" I would be lining up to give him money and support. If he had said "we will deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody from the chains of opression and bondage no matter what it costs in lives and money" I would walk around my town begging people to vote for him.

He didn't say that because that's never been his goal. He will not lift a finger to deliver freedom to chechnians, palestenians, africans, tibetians, chinese, and the tens of millions of people suffering all over the world because they don't have something he wants.

I am still waiting for somebody (anybody) to explain to me why the Iraqi people deserved socialism more then any other people on the planet. Why they had to be delivered from evil first. It seems to me that your average north korean is and has been much more opressed. The average chechnians is much poorer, the average east timorese has suffered much more death and bloodshed, the average tibetians much more misery and ethnic cleansing. Too bad none of them have oil, too bad the bible makes no mention of them, too bad none of their leaders tried to kill his father.

2004 Feb 23 [ Mon ]

Buchanan article opposes war in Iraq and neocons in general

The March issue of the American Conservative magazine has an essay by Patrick Buchanan, a right deviationist who ran for the US presidency a few years ago, in which he assails neconservatives and the mess they have gotten America into in the Middle East.

I wish that liberals who oppose the war in Iraq would realize that a substantial proportion of the American right is as disgusted as they are with Bush and the neocons. In fact, we're *more* disgusted than they are because Bush and cronies are making *us* look bad.

www.amconmag.com [http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html]

2004 Feb 09 [ Mon ]

What can Bush's real plan *possibly* be?

I've never fallen for his cover story: that Iraq was invaded just to grab the oil. Even if you suppose that the costs are all borne by the USA, not Bush's coconspirators, it just makes no sense. It's like burning down an apartment building to defrost a turkey.

Everything Bush has done has been utterly disastrous for the USA.

1. The police state

2. Alliances with brutal regimes like CIS, PRC

3. The brush-off to democratic allies like Europe (NATO countries may well start to see the USA as a greater threat than CIS)

4. Huge expenditures on military operations

5. The collapse in the dollar and the end of its currency-of-refuge status

I had assumed that the plan was simply to set up an old-fashioned military dictatorship in the USA. Now I am starting to wonder if the real intention is a re-run of the Depression, which was intended to eliminate wealth that had built up in the middle classes and make every citizen dependent for bare survival on totalitarian work camps reminiscent of China's factory towns today.

We are also being set up for a world war. But this time the USA will fight alone.

Here's a link to a fellow conspiracy theorist – Andreas von Buelow, former German Minister of Technology. Among other things, he finds it hard to believe that the towelheads could have organized such a bizarre coup. I'm with him there.

www.ratical.org [http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/VonBuelow.html]

Actually, he complains about being called a conspiracy theorist. Personally, I think my theories are a lot more plausible than the conspiracy theory that's relentlessly promoted by the feds.

2004 Feb 04 [ Wed ]

Acronyms we'd like to see dept

In the midst of a Slashsdot discussion on the US State Dept's recent decision to standardize on the Times New Roman font instead of Courier, two contributors offered their insight into White House operations:

Re:The real reason (Score:5, Funny) by Zeinfeld (263942) on Tuesday February 03, @11:11AM (#8169610) (slashdot.org [http://slashdot.org/] | Last Journal: Monday October 07, @05:09PM)

> The word "Oil" is often misintepreted as "Weapons of Mass Destruction" when written in Courier New 12.

Ever wondered why the Bushies did not use the name 'Operation Iraqi Liberation'?

2004 Feb 02 [ Mon ]

What value does intelligence anaysis have now?

It seems to me that whatever one's viewpoint on the basic reasons for the invasion of Iraq, the intelligence analysis was worthless.

That is: either Bush honestly relied on a bad analysis, or Bush demanded the intelligence services support his lunatic scheme.

I suppose you can argue that Bush – in the latter scenario – found their craven toadying very useful, but I don't think that's an argument the public would wish to support.

I think it's worth making the point that the WMD issue *should* have been one which the intelligence services were *ideally* set up to answer. This was not a vague unanswerable question like "is this source really reliable?". This was a "national technical means" kind of thing, or should have been. Ok, Saddam was trying to hide it, but that's usually the case. Was he really any better than the East Germans?

I want to divide the "analysis" function from other functions of the intelligence services, because things like positive vetting and cryptography are not really tainted by analysis failures. But if it were up to me, I'd put each one of the people responsible for that analysis in a room with a pistol with one round.

2004 Jan 28 [ Wed ]

Is there any evidence that Dr Kelly committed suicide?

Dr Kelly was an analyst for the British Ministry of Defence who expressed doubts of the Coalition claims of WMD to a BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan. The reporter attributed Kelly's statements to an anonymous source, but after Kelly's identity became known Kelly was found dead. Some people blame the BBC for Kelly's death, asserting that Dr Kelly committed suicide because of the pressure of media scrutiny.

I have seen no evidence that Kelly's death was a suicide, although the British Government organized an inquiry that reached that conclusion.

Suggestions to the contrary are fiercely opposed: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1052141,00.html]

The above farrago of nonsense asserts that Dr Kelly must have committed suicide because his mother (allegedly) committed suicide, and that he showed no signs of being suicidal because he had converted to the Baha'i faith:

But the striking feature of the case seems to be that Dr Kelly bottled things up rather than sharing them.

The writer (Michael White) is arguing backwards from his conclusion: he asserts that Kelly committed suicide because he bottled things up, and White knows he bottled things up because he showed no signs of being suicidal. Clearly the Guardian cannot rustle up a *good* writer to propagate this party line.

Recently however the Guardian did (by mistake?) print a letter from several medical men suggesting that the medical evidence did not support suicide: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1131833,00.html]

It promptly printed an article denying their claims which managed to avoid including a link to them: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1132796,00.html]

I originally heard of the Guardian letter from an article on propagandamatrix: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/270104expertsquestion.html]

2004 Jan 22 [ Thu ]

Iraq war cost compared to Mars mission

I've posted a couple of articles which were pretty dismissive about Bush's Mars mission plans. I want to make the point that I didn't dismiss them because I'm against a Mars mission. I dismissed them because I thought they were the ravings of a madman. Indeed, Bush did not refer to the project in his immediately subsequent State of the Union message.

On the other hand, let me just make the point that the war in Iraq has cost 120 billion USD *so far*: wireservice.wired.com [http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=816058&tw=wn_wire_story]

Bush's Democratic challengers have criticized the high cost of the war in Iraq and its chaotic aftermath. They say Iraq has cost 120 billion USD so far despite initial administration assurances that it would be "an affordable endeavor."

On the *other* other hand, NASA's estimate for the *total* cost of the Mars mission was 120 billions USD: www.gomemphis.com [http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/news_columnists/article/0,1426,MCA_646_2594495,00.html]

Now both of those estimates are subject to revision. Here's a guess that the cost of invading Iraq may be up to 1.6 trillion USD: www.pasadenastarnews.com [http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~1905927,00.html]

From Fallows' account, we even know when they knew it. In September 2002, Lawrence Lindsay, then chief White House economic advisor, estimated the cost as between USD 100 billion and USD 200 billion. He was dumped from the administration for telling the truth.

At the same time, the House Budget Committee estimated the cost of the war at USD 48 billion to USD 93 billion.

Three months before the war, Yale University economist William Nordhaus estimated the cost between USD 121 billion and USD 1.6 trillion!

I think we're all well aware of the accuracy of NASA's budget estimates.

Still, we could have actually had a Mars mission for roughly what Bush is *already* committed to spending on the invasion of Iraq. Which he invaded because of... umm...

2004 Jan 15 [ Thu ]

Jessica Lynch stars in "Wag the Dog"

Probably you remember all the hype over the Special Forces "rescue" of Pvt Jessica Lynch. How the BBC broke the story that it was fishy. How eventually, after the BBC had been attacked by every pundit and barstool polisher in the USA, it was shown that almost everything the Pentagon said had been a lie.

Hackworth has a mixed reputation as a soldier, but nobody can deny that he was one. The following is a very interesting article from Hackworth. He seems to think that the war now *must* be won, though... I guess he needs to "grow" a while longer.

www.worldnetdaily.com [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35656]

2004 Jan 14 [ Wed ]

War in Iraq *only* a strategic mistake?

The BBC has a story about a new report which says that the war in Iraq is a strategic mistake for the US: news.bbc.co.uk [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3391583.stm]

My own feeling is that while one can certainly oppose actions which are blunders, states (and people) make blunders all the time: they are more or less forgiveable. My real worry about the Iraq war is that the Bush administration is *not* a pack of fools – although I have observed several news stories lately which seem designed to protect Bush with that cover story – eg the recent interview with ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: www.csmonitor.com [http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0114/p01s03-uspo.html]

My real worry is that all this money is being spent, and the USA is losing its allies and friends and currency, as part of a *clever* scheme by *ruthless* people.

"Bush still trusts his Teflon" www.upi.com [http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040113-022418-9435r]

What Bush really wants, he gets: www.washingtonpost.com [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9669-2004Jan12.html]

2004 Jan 11 [ Sun ]

The Iraq invasion in a nutshell

A while back it occurred to me there was a neat way to sum up the invasion of Iraq: it's America's Pearl Harbor.

2003 Oct 28 [ Tue ]

Peculiar changes detected on White House website

Webmasters can use a "robots.txt" file on their website to tell "webcrawlers", software which indexes entire sites, not to index certain directories. (Clearly this only works if the webcrawler is programmed to be polite. Some sites, on the other hand, use this to *detect* impolite webcrawlers: a webcrawler which noses around in a folder reachable only via the robots.txt file can be either barred completely or led to misleading information).

Someone noticed that the robots.txt file on the White House website suddenly barred webcrawlers from many folders, almost all related to Iraq. The speculation is that they want to limit people's access to reports of the White House's claims on Iraq that are now, retrospectively, embarrassing.

The Slashdot discussion:

yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/10/27/2052228.shtml]

A particularly interesting post:

related links (Score:5, Interesting) by js7a (579872) * on Monday October 27, @04:35PM (#7322288) (www.bovik.org. [http://www.bovik.org./] | Last Journal: Saturday August 02, @02:17PM)

A couple of web sites that (1) have in the past done a great job of catching these kind of things, and (2) have mailing lists you can subscribe to:

The Memory Hole www.thememoryhole.org [http://www.thememoryhole.org/]

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting www.fair.org [http://www.fair.org/]

Here's a minor example of something those two sites didn't catch: Remember Iraq's so-called "mobile biological weapons factories" www.fas.org [http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/levin062603.html] ? A month after the story broke that they were for weather balloons yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/~js7a/journal/36820] , the CIA moved their report's URL www.informationclearinghouse.info [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3911.htm] .

An intriguing fact about this whitehouse.gov/*/iraq thing is that they do in fact cover some of the important statements www.bway.net [http://www.bway.net/~keith/whrobots/] which are apparently not duplicated in the press release, conference, and briefing directories. Perhaps there was a "unique urgency" to cover up some poor choices of words?

I just think it's cute that whenever something comes up that fedgov can't really explain, they say "weather balloons". In other words, what's really interesting about those so-called weapons factories is why the CIA suddenly wants you not to worry your pretty little head about them.

Pretty soon, they'll be saying Saddam was really Venus all along.

At the risk of spoling my punchline, I should make a statement about my own practices. The problem with basing the navigation of a website on the weblog paradigm is that you can't edit a page without changing its modification time, and that breaks links to it. So several times, having noticed typos or wanting to add something, I've edited the page but set the modification time back to the original. This may well seem sneaky, but who you gonna believe, me or yo lyin eyes?

2003 Oct 21 [ Tue ]

Why has France become the issue in the invasion of Iraq?

I detest the French, but even I was surprised by what seemed like an orchestrated campaign of vilification in the USA. It reminded me a lot of the "Blame Canada" thread in the South Park movie:

www.geocities.com [http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lane/8879/blame_canada.html]

(I looked around for the lyrics in Google and found several sites that wanted to install filthy garbage on your PC as a price for viewing lyrics. The blasted Geocities popups in the link above were mild by comparison.)

Here's a link to an excellent riposte to the "Blame France" campaign:

home.earthlink.net [http://home.earthlink.net/~descubes/damn-french.html]

2003 Oct 13 [ Mon ]

Some letters about Iraq not really written by US soldiers

See story at CBS News: www.cbsnews.com [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/13/iraq/main577716.shtml

] 2003 Sep 23 [ Tue ]

The invasion of Iraq

It seems pretty clear that the invasion of Iraq was not for any of the reasons that Bush (and Blair) purported. But I'm not going to address that here; that's a matter for when we hang them for treason.

It also seems to have been poorly planned, at any rate for the period after Saddam's regime collapsed. Still, we all make mistakes, and things just go wrong sometimes.

I want to go over here the *ostensible* case for the invasion. Ie, we assume that *everything Bush alleged in advance was true*. Should the US, or anyone else, have proceeded to invade?

The answer depends on the now, sadly, outdated concept of "sovereign state". There used to be some sort of international understanding that a state would be left alone until it did something across its own borders. This was not an arbitrary principle: it saved everyone's time, like the principle that diplomats are not molested. (Of course everybody probed the limits of that principle, but it has remained in effect for centuries.)

When a state transgressed that principle, we used to care. For instance, when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, he used as a pretext the operations of "Czech terrorists" against ethnic Germans, much as Israel used the operations of islamist terrorists to justify its annexation of the West Bank. At the time this pretext was denounced, but the concept that such a figleaf was *necessary* was unquestioned.

For many years, the US was constrained by the Cold War; it took pains to carry out aggression via third parties, or at least give that appearance (eg Iraq in 1953, the ousting of Mossadeq; even during the Vietnam war, there was a continuing insistence on presenting it not as a war but a "police action", as returning soldiers who had hoped for a new "Veterans Bill" found to their cost). It seems we now see what the US wanted to do all along.

*Even assuming the WMD issue were true* there was simply *never* any consensus that it was legitimate to start a war because of a *threat*. Before WW2 the Japs decided that the US was moving to cut their country off from raw materials in Asia, and their position was getting more and more untenable the longer they waited. (After the war, it turned out their suspicions were fully justified.) They decided that although they probably did not have the strength to overcome the US and its allies, it would be best to attack sooner rather than later, especially while the US's allies were preoccuiped with Nazism. Believing their country was in danger of ruin, and seeing a gigantic threat aimed squarely at Japan in Pearl Harbor, they made a preemptive strike. FDR called it "a day that will live in infamy", whatever that means. Later the US called it "fighting an aggressive war", and hanged General Tojo for it. Pretty much the whole civilized world thought it all made sense. They let go thousands of Japs who had gleefully tortured Allied prisoners of war to death, and they hanged Tojo and 6 others for a principle.

The US whined that France was not supporting the invasion. Well, France is a sovereign state, or it used to think so. Now it can reasonably conclude that the US sees it as "Target 11".

And to gather support, the US made concessions to the Russian Federation and the chicoms. Hmmm... if ghastly murdering gangster states support you and the French are against you... no, the US would never draw any conclusions from that. Because they had the UK. Folie a deux.

2003 Sep 08 [ Mon ]

Ex-Blair cabinet minister Michael Meacher accuses US of 9/11 conspiracy

Meacher resigned from the Blair cabinet in June 2003; not the only Blair cabinet member to have resigned as a result of the invasion of Iraq. An article in the British "Guardian" newspaper outlines Meacher's view of the US conspiracy to cause 9/11.

Meacher's original article: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1036571,00.html]

Comments from readers: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1037434,00.html]

Reactions: www.guardian.co.uk [http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1036525,00.html]

My own point of view is that the towelheads could never have organized anything so spectacular. Personally I suspect the East Germans. Or possibly McGyver. Or the "Mission Impossible" team.

I also wonder whether the airplanes involved had fly-by-wire installed.

Also, I have always wondered what the people who drive the suicide-bomber trucks are told. "Now Ahmed, when you reach the checkpoint just press this big red button and our highly-trained commandos will leap from their hiding places in the back of the truck. NO – NO – Ahmed – not just yet."

2003 Aug 04 [ Mon ]

Won't anyone think of the children?

Re:What about the Liberal Media? (Score:4, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02, @11:27PM (#6598080)

California is a desert land roughly the size of Iraq. It is also an object lesson in the dangers of trying to impose democracy in a culture that is not ready for it. California "is degenerating into a banana republic," writes former Enron adviser Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. Leon Panetta, himself a Californian, writes in the Los Angeles Times that California is undergoing a "breakdown in [the] trust that is essential to governing in a democracy." Newsday quotes Bob Mulholland, another California political activist, as warning of "a coup attempt by the Taliban element." Others say a move is under way to "hijack" California's government.

What isn't widely known is that the U. S. has a large military presence in California. And our troops are coming under attack from angry locals. "Two off-duty Marines were stabbed, one critically, when they and two companions were attacked by more than a dozen alleged gang members early Thursday," KSND-TV reports from San Diego, a city in California's south.

How many young American men and women will have to make the ultimate sacrifice before we realize it isn't worth it? Is the Bush administration too proud to ask the U. N. for help in pacifying California? Plainly California has turned into a quagmire, and the sooner we bring our troops back home, the better.

2003 Jul 22 [ Tue ]

US FOREIGN POLICY - EVEN A CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND IT!

This was originally posted on rec.humor and is quite funny. But it isn't just funny.

From +rec.humor Tue Jul 22 03:48:08 2003 From rec.humor Wed Jul 16 12:06:07 2003 From: "Rowland Croucher" Newsgroups: aus.jokes,rec.humor,alt.humor,za.humour Subject: U. S. Foreign Policy - even a child can understand it Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 20:56:36 +1000 Lines: 317 NNTP-Posting-Host: 211.28.150.73 Xref: panix aus.jokes:143293 rec.humor:550560 alt.humor:174548 za.humour:59756

US FOREIGN POLICY - EVEN A CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND IT!

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?

A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.

Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.

A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.

Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?

A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?

A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.

Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?

A: To use them in a war, silly.

Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?

A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.

Q: That doesn't make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?

A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.

Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.

A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.

Q: And what was that?

A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.

Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?

A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.

Q: Kind of like what they do in China?

A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U. S. corporations richer.

Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?

A: Right.

Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?

A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?

A: I told you, China is different.

Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?

A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.

Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?

A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.

Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?

A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Like in Iraq?

A: Exactly.

Q: And like in China, too?

A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.

Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?

A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being communists and started being capitalists like us.

Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?

A: Don't be a smart-ass.

Q: I didn't think I was being one.

A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.

Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?

A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate leader anyway.

Q: What's a military coup?

A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.

Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?

A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.

Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?

A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.

Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?

A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.

Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?

A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.

Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?

A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men, fifteen of them Saudi Arabians, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.

Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?

A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.

Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's heads and hands?

A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.

Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?

A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.

Q: Fighting drugs?

A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.

Q: How did they do such a good job?

A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.

Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for other reasons?

A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands for stealing bread.

Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?

A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.

Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?

A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.

Q: What's the difference?

A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers.

Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.

A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.

Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia. A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.

Q: Who trained them?

A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.

Q: Was he from Afghanistan?

A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.

Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.

A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?

A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.

Q: So the Soviets ? I mean, the Russians ? are now our friends?

A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.

Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?

A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we want them to do?

A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.

Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?

A: Well, yeah. For a while.

Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?

A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.

Q: Why did that make him our friend?

A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.

Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?

A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.

Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?

A: Most of the time, yes.

Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?

A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.

Q: Why?

A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?

Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?

A: Yes.

Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?

A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.

Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?

A. Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.

–

Shalom!

Rowland Croucher

www.pastornet.net.au [http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm/index.htm] (Now 10,250 articles!)

2003 Jul 14 [ Mon ]

IE error page used as template for joke about WMD

www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk [http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/]

The emulation of the error page is very close. It makes me think that it would probably be easy to create an error page which would have a lot of sneaky links on it. On the other hand we're all used to seeing this page and knowing with great certainty that nothing on it is worth reading or clicking.

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