Op-Ed
Here's a statement that's blasphemy both in the peace movement and in the halls of the warmongers:
Whether we escalate the war or not is unimportant.
Whether we escalate the war or not is unimportant.
Back to Saddam one last time, and his trial and death, and the strong possibility - indeed, the common-sense conclusion - that part of the point of the charade was to silence him.
Why else try him only for his earliest crimes when the later ones racked up the big numbers (and, incidentally, served so nicely as a moral cover for our own activities in Iraq)?
Our alliance with Saddam in his "foment war with Iran" phase is so well documented - who hasn't seen the photo of him shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld, President Reagan's special envoy, in 1983, for instance? - that there's almost certain to be something hideously compromising in the secret record, which an ex-dictator at large would surely have talked about and a real trial would have unearthed.
Why else try him only for his earliest crimes when the later ones racked up the big numbers (and, incidentally, served so nicely as a moral cover for our own activities in Iraq)?
Our alliance with Saddam in his "foment war with Iran" phase is so well documented - who hasn't seen the photo of him shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld, President Reagan's special envoy, in 1983, for instance? - that there's almost certain to be something hideously compromising in the secret record, which an ex-dictator at large would surely have talked about and a real trial would have unearthed.
President Bush may be a headless horseman. But the biggest problem is
what he rode in on.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a good name for it 40 years ago. “The madness of militarism.”
We can blame Bush all we want -- and he does hold the reins right now -- but his main enablers these days are the fastidious public servants in Congress. They keep preparing the hay, freshening the water, oiling the saddle, even while criticizing the inappropriately jocular rider. And when the band plays “Hail to the Jockey,” most of the grown-up stable boys and girls can’t help saluting.
The people who actually live in Iraq have their own opinions, of course. UPI reported at the end of December that a new poll, conducted by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, found that “about 90 percent of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before the U.S.-led invasion than it is today.” Meanwhile, according to a CNN poll last month, 11 percent of Americans support sending more U.S. troops to Iraq.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a good name for it 40 years ago. “The madness of militarism.”
We can blame Bush all we want -- and he does hold the reins right now -- but his main enablers these days are the fastidious public servants in Congress. They keep preparing the hay, freshening the water, oiling the saddle, even while criticizing the inappropriately jocular rider. And when the band plays “Hail to the Jockey,” most of the grown-up stable boys and girls can’t help saluting.
The people who actually live in Iraq have their own opinions, of course. UPI reported at the end of December that a new poll, conducted by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, found that “about 90 percent of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before the U.S.-led invasion than it is today.” Meanwhile, according to a CNN poll last month, 11 percent of Americans support sending more U.S. troops to Iraq.
Compared with Nixon and the Republicans who followed him, Gerald Ford looks like the embodiment of Main Street decency and prudence. Ford’s judgment seems even better when we learn that he told Bob Woodward that the Iraq war was “a big mistake," concluding, "I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." Ford’s words should give strength to all of us who’ve questioned the war and were attacked as unpatriotic in the process. They reflect well on his common-sense willingness to acknowledge discomforting truths. But because he’d told Woodward to keep the interview private until after his death, they don’t represent courage, but in fact a failure of nerve.
"He spent the rest of the day working to pull the dead bodies of his family from the rubble of his home, finally reaching his dead son at 4:00 p.m."
- Human Rights Watch, in a 2003 report on the U.S. air war in Iraq and the campaign to execute Baathist leadership with high explosives
Saddam's execution last week was, for the war's apologists, a merciful respite from the chaos and humiliation of this catastrophe and a chance for one last swig of moral clarity - the Butcher is dead! the Butcher is dead! - which, in the Bush era, costs about a trillion dollars a shot.
Few in the mainstream media were willing to be party poopers and point this out, of course, or mention anything, in their pseudo-serious coverage of Saddam's career, about his long, complex involvement with the U.S. foreign-policy establishment going back to the Reagan administration, as both ally and extremely useful enemy.
- Human Rights Watch, in a 2003 report on the U.S. air war in Iraq and the campaign to execute Baathist leadership with high explosives
Saddam's execution last week was, for the war's apologists, a merciful respite from the chaos and humiliation of this catastrophe and a chance for one last swig of moral clarity - the Butcher is dead! the Butcher is dead! - which, in the Bush era, costs about a trillion dollars a shot.
Few in the mainstream media were willing to be party poopers and point this out, of course, or mention anything, in their pseudo-serious coverage of Saddam's career, about his long, complex involvement with the U.S. foreign-policy establishment going back to the Reagan administration, as both ally and extremely useful enemy.
Unlike the previous majority party in Congress, the Democrats who take power today know their weaknesses. They know they're not very good at the whole press conference thing where you're supposed to stand there and say something people care about. So they've announced an open-mic policy.
And it seems to be working. It turns out that an ordinary person who's not been through our campaign bribery system and not agreed to a list of positions acceptable to Washington strategists is much more interesting to listen to than Rahm Emanuel. Speaking at Congressional press conferences could become a regular stop for tourists of our nation's Capital as well as for locals who enjoy karaoke.
Congressman Emanuel had not been informed of the new policy yesterday, but we knew he'd appreciate it. So, while he was in the middle of trying to impress employees of Disney and GE with his commitment to banning lobbyists from donating small islands to Congress Members except on weekends (or something), Cindy Sheehan livened things up by beginning a chant of
DE-ESCALATE, INVESTIGATE, TROOPS HOME NOW!
And it seems to be working. It turns out that an ordinary person who's not been through our campaign bribery system and not agreed to a list of positions acceptable to Washington strategists is much more interesting to listen to than Rahm Emanuel. Speaking at Congressional press conferences could become a regular stop for tourists of our nation's Capital as well as for locals who enjoy karaoke.
Congressman Emanuel had not been informed of the new policy yesterday, but we knew he'd appreciate it. So, while he was in the middle of trying to impress employees of Disney and GE with his commitment to banning lobbyists from donating small islands to Congress Members except on weekends (or something), Cindy Sheehan livened things up by beginning a chant of
DE-ESCALATE, INVESTIGATE, TROOPS HOME NOW!
These days, a hefty slab of the teenagers alive in America will supposedly live to be 100 (presumably working till they drop to pay for the rest, jobless and dying from diabetes). Given the reproductive shadow hanging over America -- poor semen quality, cryptorchidism, impaired fecundity -- they won't have that many children, although the sparse litters will contain people likely to live to be 125, handing down horrible recipes for turkey giblet gravy to the next generation.
In short, there'll be a lot of centenarians about, and the name Gerald Ford will mean absolutely nothing to any of them. You had to have been born in 1960 to have been 14 in 1974, hence even vaguely conscious of the genial interregnum between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, over which Ford presided.
Ah, the 1970s! More precisely, the mid-1970s, an interval -- from Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, to Jan. 23, 1977, when Carter installed Zbigniew Brzezinski as his national security adviser -- when people thought America might head down a different path.
In short, there'll be a lot of centenarians about, and the name Gerald Ford will mean absolutely nothing to any of them. You had to have been born in 1960 to have been 14 in 1974, hence even vaguely conscious of the genial interregnum between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, over which Ford presided.
Ah, the 1970s! More precisely, the mid-1970s, an interval -- from Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, to Jan. 23, 1977, when Carter installed Zbigniew Brzezinski as his national security adviser -- when people thought America might head down a different path.
The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.
I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.
This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.
I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.
This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.
Is Santa real? What about God? Or Mr. Stranger Danger? A 5-year-old's curiosity is a wonder to behold - more than a wonder if you haven't had your coffee yet, or if you're trying to get last-minute Christmas shopping done at Target and your son says he wants to die right now so he can meet God.
To be a parent is to feel the force of this curiosity like a live spring uncoiling with unpredictable energy against the day's agenda and the furthest reaches of the known universe, pushing you into a possible future not yet imagined.
"When did people first realize there was a God?"
This is my great-nephew Jackson, doing curiosity handsprings across the academic discipline of theology and squeezing an open-mouthed pause from his mom, Carmen, my niece - with whom I had a lively chat over the holidays about such matters when she had a moment to relax. This was a conversation of puzzlement and gold, and I've been thinking ever since about childhood and the precious possible.
To be a parent is to feel the force of this curiosity like a live spring uncoiling with unpredictable energy against the day's agenda and the furthest reaches of the known universe, pushing you into a possible future not yet imagined.
"When did people first realize there was a God?"
This is my great-nephew Jackson, doing curiosity handsprings across the academic discipline of theology and squeezing an open-mouthed pause from his mom, Carmen, my niece - with whom I had a lively chat over the holidays about such matters when she had a moment to relax. This was a conversation of puzzlement and gold, and I've been thinking ever since about childhood and the precious possible.
With Jimmy Carter's book a best seller and the Iraq War a top political concern, many Americans may have an interest right now in thinking about Israel and Palestine. I'd like to recommend to anyone with that interest picking up a copy of a short and brilliant book by the British philosopher Ted Honderich called "Right and Wrong and Palestine, 9-11, Iraq, 7-7."
"7-7," for Americans who haven't memorized that number, is the date of the terrorist attack in London's subway. Honderich addresses ethical questions raised by the four topics in his title, but does so after laying out a general understanding of the philosophy of ethics. In fact, it is on page 114 of a 247-page book that he finally gets around to a preliminary discussion of the definition of terrorism and on page 131 that he first touches on the four topics named. The preceding pages may, however, be the most valuable portion of his book.
"7-7," for Americans who haven't memorized that number, is the date of the terrorist attack in London's subway. Honderich addresses ethical questions raised by the four topics in his title, but does so after laying out a general understanding of the philosophy of ethics. In fact, it is on page 114 of a 247-page book that he finally gets around to a preliminary discussion of the definition of terrorism and on page 131 that he first touches on the four topics named. The preceding pages may, however, be the most valuable portion of his book.