Dan Lyons

CONSTITUTION TRICKERY? U.S. (Powell) now says we'll hand over power in Iraq on a timetable, as France/Germany demand. But first we want a Constitution, which he HOPES will be finished in 6 months (no firm deadline). A.Chalabi, our stooge and now head of our puppet Council, says no constitution can be installed in that time./ /Reuters30s
One possibility: Bush-team hopes this will give them an excuse to delay indefinitely any hand-over of power to the Iraqis. (Wm.Pfaff says they want to stay in power until a govt. can be installed that's 'legit' enough to validly privatize the oil industry, as U.S. investors desire./
One doubts that France & Germany will be fooled. If they abstain (they won't veto) in Sec.Council, investors will hang back--because it's clear that U.S. forces cannot make Iraq secure enough./
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GUERILLAS STRONGER: 3 GIs were killed on 1 Oct. Gen. Sanchez said "The guerillas are getting more lethal; as long as we are here [4 years?] we'll have casualties.
I wouldn't be surprised at a major attack."/Reuters2OCT.
Sanchez admits 15-20 attacks on GIs daily, admits about 40 maimed or wounded each week./
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However, the German hospital which takes SERIOUS wounds gets 40-44 patients each day from Iraq (only 10% 'count as combat wounds'???) Most are shrapnel wounds: e.g., amputations, burns./WashPost1Oct/ (Reports from Andrews Air Force base where REALLY SERIOUS wounds go, tell of thousands of patients airlifted in from Iraq!)
These stories don't match! No one is motivated to exaggerate the number of wounded--but Sanchez & crew have strong reason to understate this number!

LETTER TO THOS.FRIEDMAN:
(F's ideas are crazy--but the fervent respect his opinions get make them worth addressing.)
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Your column '2 Servings of Reality..' included a strange blend of realistic and honest reporting about the facts, a totally immoral perspective, and a really foolish continuation of hopes about U.S. & Iraq.
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--the realism: you admit that the invasion was not a war of necessity, but of 'choice'.(WHAT A GREAT EUPHEMISM.) We were not at all threatened by Saddam, but we needed to invade for subtle reasons of Realpolitic..reasons you approve of. You admit that the Bush-team lied blatantly to our people to lure us into the war--you also approve of that.
Now you admit that we are NOT going to get many troops or much money from other nations; whatever help for pacification and reconstruction Iraq gets will have to come from us. You admit that rebuilding (and remaking) would take years and sustained 'marathon' effort. You also admit that Americans typically go only for sprints in such matters, not marathons.
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--the Immorality: To launch an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, inflicting tens of thousands of deaths, maimings and wounds on innocent people--for some vague realpolitic goal, is wickedness of the same type as Nazi aggression, if smaller in scope. And you approve of all this; you are now morally tone-deaf.
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--the stupid hopes you still entertain: you have thought all along that our invasion IF MANAGED CORRECTLY could remake the Middle East magically. Well, of course, there was NEVER A CHANCE it would be managed with such magic correctness by the clowns in the Bush-team--and you should have known that all along.
You still hope that the Democrats will quit nattering about the way the war got started, and the costs it still inflicts on us--and buckle down to help make this insane project 'succeed' !
What sensible Democrats will do is to wait a little longer until a large majority here is yelling BRING 'EM HOME NOW!, and then join in the yelling.
These are facts you are never willing to face: a) Most Americans are very, very childish and ignorant, uninterested in the outside world. (b) most of the politicians they elect (and the bureaucrats these politicians appoint) are also pretty stupid and uninterested.
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The only sensible policy for us now is to pull back from any pretence of 'leading the Free World', or A New American Century--and retreat into Fortress America, spending the tens of billions of dollars that are necessary to brace ourselves for inevitable terrorist attacks in the future. (This will necessitate cutting back on the gross hundreds of billions we shovel to the Pentagon.)
We will bug out of Iraq; the sooner the better; the later, the worse--for ourselves and for the world.

IRAQ NEEDS $70 BN., says King Bremer (to reporters at Pentagon). This WON'T come from U.S., he says. He wants other countries to forgive their debt, the $200 billion Iraq owes them. (bloody likely). Iraq official says they need $100 billion from outside, over the next 5 years.
IF oil exports are restored as they hope, then Iraq will get $5 billion per year,says Bremer..not very helpful./ AFP (F2)network [???] 28S (Before the war, we were told that Iraq oil would pay for reconstruction ! )
From this U.S.-caused disaster area, and from disastrous Afghanistan, U.S. will bug out soon./
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WOULD IRAQ BE WORTH OUR STAYING IN? The Inst. of Internatl Finance report on Iraq was leaked to Reuters. Even if the oil exports are restored (in spite of saboteurs) they expected the financial gap to be $15 billion by the end of 2004./BBCNEWS2oct/ More reason to expect us to bug out pretty soon.
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The UN, World Bnk and IMF agree (pretty authoritative!) that Iraq will need $55 billion over the next four years for reconstruction./Reuters2OCT

YANKS ARE OUTBID for bootleg weapons in Iraq. U.S. foolishly let people loot the huge stores of weapons; now there are MILLIONS of weapons 'out there'. U.S. is trying to buy them back--but we're not offering as much as the rebels are! We offer $1000 for shoulder-missile vs. airplanes; but guerillas are offering $3000. People who hate Saddam don't mind selling to guerillas, who are often just Iraqis who 'hate how the Americans behave'. (Non-rebel Kurds & Shiites are also in the bidding.)/UnitedPressInt.29S/
U.S. asked the people to turn in weapons..very few have been turned in./USATODAY30S
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Where do guerillas get all this money? U.S. has sided (with poodle-dog faithfulness) with Israel, enraging ONE BILLION MUSLIMS who collectively (especially the oil-sultans) have quasi-infinite supply of money. We have tried to cut off wealth of alQaeda, but have failed miserably.

FALSE CHEER [Letter to USATODAY] Max Boot (29S) gives various preposterous reasons for Iraq optimism. The wildest rationalization is this one:
"The 150,000 heavily armed troops in Iraq can capture or kill many hard-core terrrorists who would otherwise be targeting defenseless civilians back home."/
He seems to say that for every terrorist killed there, one fewer will be available for attacking our Homeland. That assumes that there are only a few terrorists available worldwide. But among one billion Muslims, many enraged by our aggression against Muslim countries, there are
likely thousands and thousands of terrorist volunteers now, scattered all over the world, eager to die while killing Americans. We can kill hundreds of terrorists in Iraq; there will be plenty left elsewhere to attack our citizens.
(Our citizens are defenseless partly because the Bush-team won't spend the money to defend them. We can't afford to protect our Homeland, when we're shovelling well over $1 billion each day to the Pentagon--plus $150 billion for the Iraq campaign ! )
Besides, how many terrorists are our heavily-armed troops killing in Iraq? We're killing plenty of people, all right; perhaps 1000 Iraqis die violently each week now from one cause or another. But how many of these victims are terrorists? We have no way of knowing. Many people killed by our trigger-happy troops are innocent civilians; their deaths enrage some of their relatives and friends to join up with the guerillas, increasing the number of terrorists.
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Boot says it's too early to judge our Iraq effort a failure; it took 4 years to pacify Germany after WWII. Does anyone think that the American people will stand still for 4 years while the Bushies expend each week a few GI deaths (with many more maimed or wounded), and billions of dollars ?
A.Chalabi, our chief stooge, says he was told privately by our leaders that we'll pull out by late 2004, after less than 2 years of occupation. (see below)./
Now we've controlled Afghanistan for 2 years; the guerillas there are now stronger than ever. It's not too soon to predict similar failure in Iraq. /
Boot fails completely to put a Happy Face on our Iraq fiasco.

EVEN OUR STOOGE WANTS US OUT! A.Chalabi has been out of Iraq for years, (during which time he was convicted of a fraud-crime in Jordan, where he doesn't dare nowto go). Rumsfeld sent him back to Iraq as our stooge; he is now the head of our puppet Council./
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He just told an interviewer that he wants Americans out of Iraq SOON !

|And he says he was told privately by U.S. that our troops WILL be pulled out by the end of 2004. /INDEPENDENT28S /
Do Bushies dream that 'declaring victory and bugging out' just before the '04 election will work to fool Americans out of seeing that the whole project was (in the apt words of the well-informed Papacy) 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous'? !
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Condoleeza Rice, of Bush team, just told Chalabi to SHUT UP ABOUT OUR EARLY WITHDRAWAL;she said his heretical talk was 'personally embarrassing' to the President./ LATIMES2OCT
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As I've said all along, we will be bugging out, now that we see that we can't (a) take over the Iraqi 'sea of oil' or (b) set up an American-puppet 'democracy' that would 'remake Middle East politics.' (What were the Bushies smoking?)/
We will bug out, so: the sooner the better, the later the worse! (for our GIs). BRING 'EM HOME NOW!

DOWN WITH DEAN! Candidate Howard Dean just said that, if elected, he would NOT CUT MILITARY SPENDING./AssocPress28S./
This spending now amounts to well over $1000 millions per DAY. Every observer agrees that a very high proportion of these billions goes for waste and corruption.(That wasted part is better than the money that actually goes for efficient mass-murder!)
Dean voted against the Invasion--so people think he is against pointless, unjust wars.
Does he dream that the Pentagon will BUY all those diabolical weapons WITHOUT USING THEM ? ! /
With a deficit near $500 billion (that is, money added EACH YEAR to our many-trillion dollar debt!), we're not going to be able to spend on needed domestic programs. But another restriction is more worrying./
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It's only a matter of time before terrorists try another attack on our Homeland. We are vulnerable in dozens of ways,so we can't hope to ward off every attack. But we could take obvious steps to minimize (not eliminate) our vulnerability--for instance, we could inspect more carefully the thousands of huge ship-containers that enter our ports each DAY, to block the smuggling-in of small nukes, of plutonium to use in 'dirty bombs', or of shoulder-missiles to be fired at our airliners./ We could retrofit those airliners to ward off attacking missiles./
We could better protect the dangerous waste-ponds of our 104 n-plants producing electricity. (People living near the plants have been advised to keep anti-radiation pills in their medicine cabinets; this sensible measure, of course, costs our government nothing!)
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We could (for tens of billions) right now institute a war-emergency program to recruit and train more health-care professionals, to detect bioterror attacks and treat the victims--more police to enforce quarantines--more research to develop new vaccines. Already, before the first attack, we have such a nurse-shortage that hospitals are paying $15,000 to $30,000 to lure nurses from other hospitals!/
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Trouble is, these obvious precautions would be very, very expensive. We simply can't afford them as long as the Pentagon drains away these hundreds of billions.
What does the Pentagon budget go for? To keep underpaid and poorly-equipped GIs pointlessly stationed all over the world, to man our silly attempt at 'empire'...also to make weapons: mainly gadgets to hurl huge amounts of explosives at foreigners from a safe distance. None of these expensive measures does ANYTHING to protect our homeland from terrorist attacks! /
Today we are threatened NOT by other nations, but by thousands and thousands of enraged individual terrorists scattered all over the world--even the niftiest method of attacking other nations is irrelevant to protecting our Homeland./
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Historians will wonder how we could have been so stupid as to waste our wealth on bombs and missiles, while leaving our Homeland so open to attack.
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For anyone with foresight enough to worry about Homeland Protection, Dean is out as a candidate. Kucinich's position on war and peace is admirable, but he has little chance to beat Bush. It looks like we're stuck with Clark (who HAS said he'll feel free, if necessary, to cut the Pentagon budget! An ex-general should know where the worst parts are of military waste.)

HELPLESS GIANT: Awesome U.S. force can't protect its allies in Afghanistan.
SEVEN BODYGUARDS of Province-Governor just killed! 290 people have died in last 6 weeks, including 3 GIs./Schools daring to educate girls--a pet peeve of Taliban--have been burned./U.S.-led Afghan policemen have not been able to ward off such attacks./OBSERVER28S/
A bomb exploded just outside the main U.S. HQ in Kabul, killing 7 Afghans and wounding 6 more. (Perhaps the Afghans were trying to dismantle an unexploded Cluster Bomb, to sell the explosive content.)/assocPress3OCT
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(Now that big war between India & Pakistan seems more likely--now that alQaida has called for removal of pro-US dictator--Pakistan will lose what interest it has in sealing off its border with Afghan. to cut off guerillas there.
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Also, it's not likely that Pak. will offer troops to 'die in Iraq in place of GIs'.)
And Turkish PM (U.S. flunkie) worries that he may not get authorization of troops-to-Iraq thru Parliament.

SNIPING INTENSIFIES: between Falujah civilians and GIs. U.S. won't tell how many civilians it kills, but Falujah hospital sees a steady stream of victims:
e.g., a dead 2-yr-old girl and her 3 wounded sisters./ Also a 14-year-old boy./
Yanks killed one of our main supporters; his brother now calls for fierce JIHAD vs. Yanks./
81st Airborne is the U.S. force involved. A former member says, "We were trained to shoot back with everything we have!" /OBSERVER28S/...Not so bright as occupying force trying to pacify a subject population!
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GIs killed 'at least 2' civilians Saturday. First our spokesman said the victims had tried to run through a checkpoint; later the story was changed: the victims had fired on GIs. But wounded survivors said the GIs, unprovoked, shot from ambush, killing 2 men and 2 women./Assoc.Press28s./ It wouldn't be surprising if other Iraqis believe the last version of the incident.
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GIs were fired on in Falujah on Thursday; in response they killed at least 2 of our own policemen, a woman and a 6-year-old child. Smart!/Reuters2Oct

RADICALS, NOT CONSERVATIVES: [Letter to DenverPost]
M.Loxton (letter,28S) perceptively notes that colleges must strike a balance between conservatively preserving traditional human values and liberally encouraging students to 'think outside the box' with new,innovative ideas./
But he is just wrong in considering our political 'conservatives' to be truly conservative. They are bold and daring right-wing radicals, willing to 'wing-it' with dangerous new lunges. /Pres.Reagan experimented disastrously with untested 'supply-side economics'. The Bush-team has experimented with a bold (and crazy) new effort to remake Middle Eastern politics by invading Iraq./
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The only thing Gov. Owens and Mr.Andrews want to conserve is the chance for their wealthy contributors to acquire ever more millions./
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Here are 3 traditional ideas we should make sure our students understand:
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--War is always a wild-card; The Russian, Ottoman and Austrian empires boldly plunged into World War I, which destroyed all three empires! No true conservative would ever go to war unless we were imminently threatened; (we were NOT threatened by Saddam!)
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--Capitalism is never conservative; it's main feature, admitted by friend and foe, is 'creative destruction', elbowing out old ways of economic life to make room for strange new experiments.
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One traditional idea in the Western world is the 'social floor', the idea that we should not let capitalist 'creative destruction' plunge our lower classes into destitution. But our misnamed conservatives are eager to do just that. The results will be bleak indeed./
These truly traditional ideas are NOT the ones that Owens and Andrews want to be promulgated in our colleges.

GARRISON KEILOR: On Saturday featured Natl.PublicRadio's first 'pay-per-view' Rassling Match. On our team were Jesse Ventura and Arnold Swarzenegger; on the other team were several Frenchmen. The referees were 9 black-robed, semi-blind individuals.
In the first round, Sw.& V. applied several ethnic insults and awful-sounding holds, and you heard much French groaning. But then one Frenchman dipped his hands in Escargot-sauce, and smeared it on Jesse's face; Jesse passed out./1st Round to the French; U.S. audience roared with rage./
Second Round: again, much mayhem, until French smeared Sw's face with raw fish eggs. / Our team brought in flame-throwers and Apache Helicopters--then the French wheeled in a nuclear device--people forget they're a nuclear power./
At this point one referee, Anthony Scalia, intervened and awarded the match to the Americans, to thunderous applause. When a Frog protested about unfairness, Jesse growled, "Get over it!"/
Then he fired the awful round: "Without our help, you Frogs would be speaking German today!" Swarzenegger protested, "Daht vouldn't be so bahd!" /Chirac, badly bruised, gasped, "If France didn't rescue you in the Revolutionary War, you Yanks today would be speaking English!"

WHY YELL INTO A GALE? Skeptical relatives ask me, "Why do you yell and flash signs? Do you kid yourself you're going to affect national policy ?! You're yelling into a gale!"
Of course I am, and of course I don't think I'll have ANY effect on national policy. That 'gale' metaphor is apt; for every one person who notes my message, right-wing media like FOX hypnotize a million.
But I'm a born teacher/preacher. All I hope to do is to contact a few people 'on the fence'--mainly women, since so many white male Americans seem to think only with their glands--to influence a few such people to think twice about endorsing murderous folly. This won't change policy, but it might save a few individuals from being swept into such folly. That's all any teacher can hope for./
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By the way, millions of middle-Americans are waking up on their own--not from reading peacnik signs ! They're depressed by the steady flowing of GI blood,every day--and by the tens of billions of dollars leaking from our now-meager treasury.

SARS AS BIOTERROR WEAPON: Experts say U.S. preparations are quite inadequate for a--quite possible--SARS outbreak here . /
There's no reason to think SARS until now has been a bioterror weapon. But it could be. If a martyr-murderer got himself infected and then travelled on a Greyhound bus across the American South--where public health services are vestigial-- he could wreak havoc also among the American rich!
[I'm not tipping off terrorists to a new method of attack. I'm sure that if I can think of it, they've already thought of it. After all, think of the havoc that alQuaeda wrought here with just 19 men armed with box-cutters! And Iraq guerillas just powered with a car-battery the rockets fired at U.S. military poohbahs!]
Unlike other 'advanced' countries, U.S. has wretched public health facilities for poor people. Indeed, we already have a staggering shortage of nurses all over America./
By our refusal to spend the tens of billions of dollars necessary for even minimal protection of our Homeland, we're asking for it.

NO WMDs NEEDED: We all worried that GIs invading Iraq would be attacked by hitech gas or germs. But it turns out the guerillas don't need such advanced weapons. A Baghdad hotel housing U.S. officers was attacked (Reuters28S) by rockets set off by a car battery!/
Yanks are attacked by guerillas using some of the MILLIONS of simple, old-fashioned weapons that are lieing around. Even the weapons we confiscate can't be guarded--so they are redistributed. One attack lasted 8 hours !!--even with our calling in tanks and helicopters--thus murdering more innocent civilians and generating new terrorists./ USATODAY30S

MINDS DON'T MATCH OUR MOUNTAINS / Letter to RockyMountainNews
I was shocked,but not surprised, to read the following data in RMN,28S:
-- our people are rich, compared to those of other states;
--but we are near the bottom in terms of federal grants for health-care for the poor--because we won't put up the required matching money. To be eligible for Medicaid, a person here must have an income lower than [wait for it!] $600 a month! In other words, an unemployed person would lose her medicaid if she got any kind of job! /
(By the way, Pres.Bush--Colorado's choice--now proposes to declare that any aging person ELIGIBLE for medicaid--not any person actually RECEIVING medicaid--will get no federal help in buying prescription drugs. Catch 22.) /
--A comparable state, Minnesota, spends $1 billion a year in offering matching funds for medicaid--but it gets back about $1 billion in matching federal funds./
The Governor's Office says we can't afford to raise our matching funds for Medicaid, because we'd have to cut other programs, or else (unthinkable!) raise taxes--in the short run, until we got the federal money in return.
(With our poor having no access to medical help, terrorists could start an epidemic among our poor which wouldn't be detected until it spread to our fat rich. see SARS, above).
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Right-wing Americans (Colorado is full of them) seem not only to be too selfish to help the poor; they seem to have a positive, unselfish spite against the poor.
(Perhaps they resent the way the poor make explicit their childish selfishness, preferring cocaine and SUVs to the health of children. As Gov.Owens often says, "You know how to best spend your money!")
Colorado has great big mountains--but its Governor, law-makers and many of its people seem to have shrivelled little hearts--AND MINDS.

"YOU LIED; THEY DIED!" the father of a GI killed in Iraq held a news conference to blame Bush for his son's death./ The 'Bring 'em Home' Parents' group now numbers 1300./ A father of 2 GIs in Iraq took out a FULL-PAGE NYTIMES ad to denounce Bush for luring us into war./
Bush's backing has sunk below 50% ./GUARDIAN26S/Fin.Times28S

PARTIAL U.S.WITHDRAWAL SOON? Wm.Pfaff, the respected war analyst, is guessing that U.S. will pull back its vulnerable troops in Iraq (perhaps this year!) to safe bases, far from cities, handing over 'security' to Iraqi forces. 'King' Bremer has already hired back Saddam's feared spies, and now he's welcoming Saddam's Defense Minister (presumably to reconstitute Saddam's army). The resulting Iraq will NOT be a democracy, but much as before, run by generals, tribal leaders, and policemen./
Pentagon says troops will remain at least until end of '04. But if GIs will have no real function, aside from self-protection, why not pull out completely and hand over 'sovereignty' to Iraqi Council & UN? Pfaff guesses that Bush wants us to stay in nominal control until a plausible Iraq govt. can be set up that has enough international legitimacy to validly privatize the OIL INDUSTRY (which has hitherto been run by the government). This would be welcomed by U.S. investors--of course !
/INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE/25S
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Daddy Bush in 1991, it is said, wanted Baath dictators (now subservient to U.S.) to stay in power, but without inflammatory Saddam. It looks like that's what Iraq will end up with./
We went to war based based on the lie that Saddam posed an imminent threat to America. Now we'll pull out by dropping the pretence that we're going to set up a modern, democratic Iraq to set an example for backward Muslim countries./
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But it's not clear just how obedient the new dictators will be to the oil corporations . After all, we rescued Saudi Arabia in '91, even stationed GIs there to protect the Oil Sultans from their own people--you'd think they'd be completely subservient to us. Yet they have been--to say the least--uncooperative in nabbing terrorists who threaten U.S./
And it's not clear that they have set oil prices at the levels the U.S. govt. would prefer.
They seem to be saying, "What have you done for us lately?"

ISRAELI PILOTS REFUSE TO BOMB CIVILIANS: Hawks were outraged when 27 airmen wrote a letter refusing to bomb buildings containing civilians. (Several years ago, some Israeli soldiers refused to fight in Lebanon.) /reuters25s /
Too bad no U.S. pilots have been so queasy about indiscriminate bombs and missiles, about dropping 'cluster bombs'--knowing that many of them fall without exploding; later, children pick up the cute little items and blow themselves up./
US airmen just shot up a Iraq village with missiles; a photo of injured children will likely circulate all over the Muslim world, recruiting more terrorists.

BIOTERROR THREAT: Experts say that Anthrax and food-poisoning are the top bioterror threats (along with smallpox).
We have no detectors nor enough vaccines against anthrax, nor safe enough vaccines for smallpox. "There's plenty of time to develop these safeguards," said an official; "terrorism will be with us for a long time." [How does this show there's plenty of time ?!?]
The biggest problem is lack of hospital facilities, shortages of doctors and nurses./Reuters25S
[Hospitals even now--BEFORE any attack--are paying $15,000 to $30,000 to lure nurses from other hospitals!]
We can't afford any of these luxurious precautions; our finances are stretched paying for the necessities: well over $1000 millions per DAY to Pentagon, and luscious tax-breaks and subsidies for the wealthy.

BAGHDAD POLL: The RockyMtnNews trumpeted the good news: 62% of people in Baghdad say that getting rid of Saddam was 'worth' all their suffering since; 67% say they'll be better off than under Saddam in 5 years. (The NEWS omitted the finding that 47%(vs.33%) say they're worse off right now
than under Saddam !) /USATODAY24S
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Two points vs. such good cheer:
--the logic of guerilla war: if even 10% of Iraqis are anti-U.S., and are willing to help and shelter guerillas, and if not enough pro-Americans are willing to take the risks of 'turning in' the guerillas, then (a) GIs will keep on getting killed, maimed and wounded (dampening U.S. enthusiasm for the project). Also, sabotage against the oil-pipelines and electricity lines will continue, so the return of oil-export-wealth will be delayed. Don't look to polls; look to the level of guerilla activity.
The U.S. media will continue to show U.S. haters screaming against GIs, and childish Americans will turn more against Iraqis.
(It's not clear how many Americans know what '67%' means !)
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--Americans don't much care what Iraqis want..even staunch war-supporters at home admit that there is some decline in REPUBLICAN support for the project. No Congressmen dares to oppose the $60 billion being demanded for Iraq military operations--but there has been plenty of negative chatter about the measly $20 billion for Iraq reconstruction. "Why should we repair schools and roads there when we can't afford to repair them here?"
(Foreigners might retort: "Because you DESTROYED schools & roads in Iraq!" Many Americans would just shrug this off.)
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MARTIANS ON EARTH--FROTHING AGAINST THE FRENCH:
A sensible-looking middle-class woman on an airplane recently said, "I see that 15,000 Frenchmen died in the heat-wave. They deserve it." /And we recall that the cafeteria in our House of Rep. recently relabeled 'french fries' as 'freedom fries'./ In a liquor store, in the 'French Wine' section, a sign said, "This brand of wines is owned by British. Support your allies!"/ In a French restaurant in Boulder, the waiter was reproached for serving French wines--in BOULDER for God's sake!
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What could account for this wave of madness among Americans? Two factors suggest themselves[one semi-permanent, the other new]:
--1) Generally, the outside world is another planet to most Americans. (Very few ever apply for a passport.) They really think that foreigners aren't 'real'; they exist only on TV & in the movies. So they don't fret when our government inflicts suffering on foreigners./
During the Viet War, a good intelligent, Christian friend said casually to me, "We might just have to nuke Peking!" I suggested that we should pour lighter-fluid on his dog and set it afire./
He reacted of course with horror. I said that, since he had just suggested incinerating a good part of the human race, I was checking if he was serious. He wasn't, of course--but he might, without hesitation, vote for a President who would really do it. /
When another good Christian heard about the use of napalm on Viet civilians, she swallowed hard and said, "Well, we have to do things like that to Communists; they won't play fair. If we do kill innocent people, God will make it up to them in the Next Life--we have to do things like that, to fight Godless Communism!" (This man and this woman were both college graduates.) /
And at a church, a pious gentlemen said he didn't mind what we were doing to Viets; after all, life is cheap in the Orient./
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In other words, Americans are not so much vicious as they are incredibly IGNORANT. (And things are getting worse; 3 out of 5 Americans under 26 can't tell you which party controls Congress--so they don't know whom to blame for outrageous laws.) /
However, many typically ignorant Americans feel informed enough to VOTE..that 'arrogance of ignorance' makes them somewhat guilty of the nightmare crimes of our government. That's the semi-permanent problem with Americans.
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(2) In this new Iraq crisis, a distinct problem arises. Americans don't want to admit the plain fact, shown by the Pew polls, that millions of people, in practically every other nation, despise our bombing/invasion of Iraq, describing it as the Pope did, as 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous.' /
So our people focus on the vivid criticisms made by the FRENCH, to pretend that ONLY the French are against us. And they vent their rage mainly against the French. One gentleman suggested we should dig up the bones of all the WWII GIs buried in France and rebury them here in God's land.
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The good news: about 1 in 3 Americans (about 100 million!) stayed sane throughout most of the crisis. (Some even of this elite group weakened at the height of the invasion, wanting to 'support our troops'. But they soon recovered their senses.)
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Americans will soon demand that we 'bug out' of Iraq; every day they are humiliated to hear of more GIs being killed, maimed or wounded. This shows (a) that many 'ungrateful' Iraqis hate our occupying soldiers, and (b) that we are unable to defend our own soldiers, long after the 'main war' ended.[not even our top officers, whose fancy Bagdad hotel just received 3 rockets.]
Besides, they see that this adventure will cost us more than a hundred thousand millions of dollars before it's over. And they see that we're plunging into debt at a mad rate, just at a time when we can't afford to supply prescription drugs for our old people.
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ISOLATIONISM is our only option. Not only are our average citizens totally ignorant of the outside world; our 'elite leaders' are pretty ignorant also. In the year 2000, when we should have known the danger from Arab terrorists, only SIX COLLEGIANS IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY majored in Arabic. On fateful 9/11/01, only SIX FBI agents IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY understood Arabic. The sensible thing for us is to quit aspiring to 'lead the Free World' and spend our attention and our money on bolstering our Homeland defenses against inevitable terrorist attacks.
Our disastrous present policy is this: wild interventionist lunges based on ignorant isolationist thinking.

FLAK ON IRAQ: Wm.Safire (once Nixon's speechwriter) is a predictable flak defending right-wing militarists. After Bush's silly speech to UN (France's Chirac got more applause!), Safire offered these comments (his words in bold):
A resolute (read: pig-headed) President..gave America's answer to those who want to see us fail in Iraq. ( France has no reason to want us to fail..Russia and Israel DO have reason to want us to fail--see blog below on Israel-- '/ American Answer'? More & more Americans think we ARE failing there!)
Turkey will likely offer troops. But will Iraqi Council approve Turkish troops in Iraq? Some of Council claim they can police Iraq with local militias...but that quick-fix notion fits in all too well with the demands of France & Russia that we get out hastily, before making sure that no civil war breaks out or new dictator seizes power.
The Council-members think that WE are FAILING OBVIOUSLY to police Iraq:
Even after spending billions on 'military security':
--WE CAN'T DEFEND OUR TOP POOBAHS! The main U.S. HQ in Baghdad just received 3 rockets!
--we can't defend our own GIs from a few deaths each week, plus a couple of dozen maimed or wounded each week.
--We couldn't defend UN Headquarters from 2 car-bomb attacks. (UN was advised to pull out ALL its personnel from Iraq, but Powell talked them into pulling out only 1/3d for now./UN personnel have gone from 600 to 85, and more cuts are expected.)
--We couldn't defend even the members of our top puppet Council! (One member was recently shot and killed.)
--We can't defend the oil-pipelines and electricity lines to get oil-exports going again. We have to spend $1 billion a year to IMPORT petroleum products into Iraq!
--One thousand Iraqi civilians die violently each week, under our strong protection. We can't protect them from gangsters, guerillas, and trigger-happy GIs.
--We appoint our own 'police-force'--but we can't protect them from guerillas, and, again, trigger-happy US troops!
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'[they're demanding that we get out] before making sure that no civil war breaks out..."
If a civil war breaks out (Shiite vs. Sunni) and GIs get caught in the middle, Americans will demand that we bug out immediately. We will not be able to stop such a civil war.
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'[they want us out before we can assure that no new dictator can take over.'
About a new dictator: that's exactly what Iraq needs right now. But if we want to prevent that, we could pull our troops back acrosss the border into the safety of friendly Kuwait, and threaten to attack again any new dictator-regime.
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First comes the military mopup
--but there is no indication that this mopup will be successful!
We've controlled Afghanistan for TWO YEARS now, and the guerillas there are stronger than ever.
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We should encourage Turkish-Iraqi interaction SO LONG AS IT PAVES THE WAY/TO SETTING AN EXAMPLE/FOR SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITY/ OF TEMPORARY OCCUPATION. /
Note that this is like being 'within walking distance of walking distance of walking distance of public transportation'; this allows for U.S. keeping Iraq OIL under its thumb for an indefinite time. But Americans won't tolerate us staying on and on, with billions spent each week and GIs killed, maimed or wounded every day.
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Let the liberators who sacrificed most decide when to declare victory and go home.
This is a dead giveaway; the Bushies don't see the occupation as a terrible burden we should be glad to share, but as a privilege we don't want to share--i.e., control over Iraq OIL!
By the way, who has 'sacrificed' in this war? NOT the 'chicken-hawks' Cheney, Rumsfeld or Bush, nor the Congressmen who voted for war knowing none of their children would serve..
NOT THE REPUBLICAN WEALTHY REPRESENTED BY SAFIRE: THEY WON'T EVEN GIVE UP THEIR LUSCIOUS TAX BREAKS!
The Iraqi civilians have 'sacrificed' the most--and the Council WHICH WE SELECTED wants to replace the GIs as policemen./
Secondly the GIs have sacrificed; THEY WANT TO GO HOME NOW!
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BELLIGERENT BEGGING! How explain Bush's strange decision to speak to the UN, demanding more help while we keep Iraq still under our thumb? Could his advisors have been so dumb they thought that bizarre performance would actually result in more help from other nations ?!! /
Other nations could understandably retort, "YOU BROKE IT, YOU BOUGHT IT !"/
And they did that, in effect. Very little money has been offered, and very few troops (some Mongolians are being trained.) '..far short of expectations'.
Because of few foreign troops offered, U.S. must call up 15,000 more reserves and national guard--fat chance they'll get many reenlistments! /Reuters26s
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More likely, Bush was really talking to, currying the favor of, his right-wing home-boy support-base; the kind of people who have always wanted to 'get the US out of UN and the UN out of US'./
The Bush-team has been trying to blame the UN for the fact that we have alienated most peoples in the rest of the world.
So it's cheering to know that 82% of Americans 'think it's in our best interest to actively support the UN.' /NYT23S

EXPLAINING SUICIDE BOMBERS: A Poli.Sci/prof at U of Chicago has done a study of all 188 suicide bombings throughout the world, from 1980 to 2001.
Strangely, the biggest number (75) was by the Marxist, anti-religious Tamils in SriLanka.Go figure!
The main theme of the bombings is this: "Some 'liberal democracy' is squatting on our land; we're determined to shove them out." The bombings are not random acts, but parts of organized campaigns--but not by governments./
The bomb-suicides are increasing in number, and they cause half of the deaths from terrorism (even excluding the 3000 killed on 9/11)./
Two usual responses from the attacked regime:
a) heavy military response (e.g., bombing/invasions of Afghanistan/Iraq, Russ attacks on Chechnya) . Such 'blunderbuss' reactions enrage the local populace over killings of innocents, and help recruit more terrorists. (Occupying Iraq in the long run breeds more terrorists.)
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or (b) the attacked regime makes concessions to appease the terrrorists. But this doesn't appease them, and it shows the suicide-bombing technique WORKS--and IT DOES! |
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The least-bad approach is to defend the Homeland against terrrorist bombers--as much as is possible. Israel should get Israelis out of the West Bank, then build the huge wall between the 2 societies. /
America should pull out of Iraq (leave it to UN); we should move toward energy independence, so we don't need troops in Middle East to protect 'our' oil. /And we must control our borders effectively./
So says this scholar,R.A. Pape./NYTIMES22S
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[Lyons'comment:a)Corporations don't WANT us to be energy-independent, so we won't be.
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b)Defending our homeland adequately (not perfectly) would cost tens or hundreds of billions. We can't afford this while we shovel far over $1000 millions per DAY to Pentagon, and offer luscious tax breaks and subsidies to the wealthy. Such indulgences have reduced America to near-bankruptcy, says the FINANCIAL TIMES.
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U.S. just missiled an Iraqi village after (we said) some people from near there fired on GIs. Locals said the attack was completely unjustified. A farmer was photographed in hospital, along with 2 injured children. /AssocPRess24S/
It doesn't really matter whether the attack was justified or not. As the photo is circulated worldwide, word around the Muslim world will be that it was another crude, unjustified attack injuring children.
This will encourage more anti-US feelings, more support for the guerillas.
(It's puzzling how the dramatic photograph got taken, since journalists cannot enter an Iraq hospital without written permission from the Bremer gang! But any orderly can take a photo.)/
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Once again, it turns out that the best defense is NOT a 'good' offense!

CRIMINAL SYSTEM SIMPLIFIED:
Our Grand Inquisitor, Mr.Ashcroft,they say, anoints himself with holy oil before important decisions--my wife suggests that he use (consecrated) PAM spray./
Whatever: Ashcroft has been scolding federal prosecutors for 'letting defendents off too easy' by accepting plea-agreements,etc./
This may be a good occasion to rethink our entire system./
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Our criminal-law system is enormously and pointlessly complex--partly because of our slogan ACTUS NON EST REUS SINE MENS REA: "No criminal responsibility without a criminal 'mind' ", and the resulting excuses (partial or complete) of ignorance, insanity, lack of premeditation, degrees of homicide,etc.
(We do have a few 'strict liability' offenses (e.g., if your factory sends out food-poisoned canned goods, you are punished no matter how much 'due care' you exercised to avoid that)..but legal scholars are scandalized by such exceptions to our general rule.)
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A Chinese friend can't see the point of all those excuses: the victim is just as dead no matter how 'excusable' is the killer. So he approves of the Chinese custom: A kills B on Monday; A is shot by the State on Tuesday./
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For people too queasy for that system, I'm told that Sweden has a much more merciful (but still simple) legal system. The judge and jury decide only "Did he do it?" /
If they say he did, then he is referred to a 'system of public safety'. In that system, a committee of social-scientists and psychologists decide which kind of institution, which 'place of public safety' he belongs in: a prison-like place or a hospital-like place,or a hybrid of both (like our hospitals for the 'criminally insane'.)
After all, judges are complete amateurs in deciding which sentence is appropriate. They don't even follow up on what results their sentences had in protecting public safety (deterrence of other possible offenders, rehabilitating the offender, keeping him locked up if he can't be rehabilitated.)/
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Objection: "Elaborate legal precautions are necessary before you label a person 'GUILTY!' "
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Answer: Quit labelling people Guilty ! Leave that to God ! Convicted people should be labelled 'subject to System of Public Safety'.
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2d Objection: "Part of deterring future would-be criminals is fear of the SHAME of being called "GUILTY!"
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Answer: In our shameless society, this fear is often moderate indeed in a would-be offender. We have never explored empirically the claim that this costly, elaborate'GUILTY' apparatus has much deterrent effect at all. /
We do know that our burdensome, super-elaborate procedures for assuring 'fair' executions (a) do not assure fairness, and (b) do not assure us that capital punishment really deters future would-be killers.
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Third Objection:"An important function of our criminal law is to give the victims' families (and the general public) a satisfying feeling of REVENGE (often described as 'closure') against the offender. This gratifying feeling would be lost if he is no longer denounced as 'guilty', only as 'subject to public-safety system.' !"/
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ANSWER: We should ask if this good feeling is worth all the money and trouble the present system costs. Also, many criminal offenses do not involve definite victims. Also, the feeling of revenge, you'd think, would be less satisfying in the large number of cases where the WRONG GUY was convicted, and the real offender gets away with it.
On the other hand, the desire for revenge may be completely irrational, so it won't matter if they get the right guy--just so SOMEONE suffers. Then the question is: is such base and foolish gratification worth all the extra money/trouble the present system costs?/
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Our system is so swamped we have to use 'shortcuts' which are obviously not fair: either wringing a confession from the suspect (using various tricks and pressures) or pressuring him to plead guilty (perhaps by charging him with half-a-dozen overlapping offense-descriptions, so he'll plead guilty to one.) Thus the district attorney can say he has a good record of maximum convictions per hundred indictments. /
MOST CRIMINAL CASES, I'm told, ARE SETTLED BY CONFESSIONS OR GUILTY PLEAS! So the elaborate system of graduated legal excuses is mainly just a pretence. (Similarly, in the Middle Ages, they bragged that they never executed a criminal unless he confessed--so they just tortured him until he did confess !)

TWO YEARS OF U.S. 'RULE' = AFGHAN NIGHTMARE:
In '01 we bombed hell pointlessly out of Afghanistan (we didn't hit Osama or the one-eyed Mullah Omar! We didn't wipe out Taliban). Afterward, Bush & Blair promised solemnly that we would restore Afghanistan to pristine condition./
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Now Robt. Pilger tells of the horrific conditions in Kabul (the 'showpiece' of our occupation of Afghanistan!) in the GUARDIAN20S./
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However, Americans don't care or inquire, as long as few GIs are killed there.
But more casualties may be coming, as the society unravels and guerillas get bolder.

DUMB INSOLENCE: Loony proposals are not restricted to Republicans; added proof of this came when Dem.Sen.Biden proposed that the people who lent money to Saddam should 'forgive' those debts for the new Iraq. /
He notes correctly that this forgiveness is essential to U.S. 'success' there: "The idea that this new govt. can get up and running, with $600 billion of debt, is preposterous."/AssocPress22S [Others say the debt is $200 billion--but that's still a lot!]
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For 2500 years, from the time of Aristotle, the vestige of international law has said that after a revolution, the new regime should pay the debts contracted by the ousted regime. (Otherwise, who would lend to a regime in a country--i.e., a typical nation--that might face a revolution in the future?) Soviet Russia, I believe, finally paid off the debts incurred by the previous Czars./
The creditor-nations (including Russia and Germany) have said they're willing to POSTPONE any demands for payment until Iraq's oil-exports are going again. But FORGIVING the debts is out of the question./ If your debtor was broke now, but due to inherit billions in a few years, would you be stupid enough to forgive the debt permanently?/
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What about a moral appeal? The U.S., and the Yank-controlled IMF and World Bank, lent hundreds of billions of dollars to shameless dictators in 3d-world govts. who made off with the money--but we are not forgiving the successor governments their debts to us!/
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Why couldn't a future Iraq govt. just welsh on their present debts? Because they will have to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars again, to restore the oil-exports!/ (The U.S. is in the same situation, making it impossible for us to welsh on our trillions of dollars of debt--e.g., by devaluing our currency markedly--because our continuing yearly deficits mean that we have to keep borrowing.) (If our dollar sank in value, then people who lent us 'expensive' dollars would get repaid in 'cheap' dollars..investors would say, "Fair Warning!")/
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Yanks are in a terrible, paradoxical position. We now control a nation which has untold POTENTIAL oil riches. But after twenty years of our anti-Saddam sanctions, the oil-infrastructure is near ruin; what's more, the guerillas now seem easily able to sabotage pipelines and electric lines enough to block any export-money soon; in fact the Americans have to pay $1 billion a year now to IMPORT petroleum products into Iraq!/
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The Bushies thought of borrowing money abroad themselves, [in the name of Iraq (to avoid increasing OUR staggering debt)] , to be paid back when oil-exports are restored. (Some Congressmen say we should advance the new $20 billion for reconstruction only as a LOAN to Iraq.)/
But the $600 billion [$200 bn ?] of present debt discourages potential lenders; also there is the point in International Law that a future sovereign Iraq govt. would NOT be obliged by any contracts signed by the present military occupiers!
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Now the U.S. could advance the Reconstruction money itself, bearing the staggering burden for now--but then it would have to stay in control of Iraq for many years, until we could guarantee that the money is paid back to us! /
And it's quite clear now that we CANNOT stay in power there for long: a growing guerillla insurgency undermines more each week our people's support for this goofy adventure--Americans' BIGGEST objection is against the hundreds of billions of dollars the adventure seems likely to cost in the end, when we are near bankruptcy as a nation.
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Biden is right in saying that the U.S. project in Iraq cannot succeed without foreigners' forgiveness of Iraqi debt/ now Iraqi debt will NOT be forgiven. / Therefore, our Iraq project cannot succeed.
Eventually, even Republicans will see that we'll have to bug out sooner or later (leaving Iraq to its natural state of Autocracy); the sooner the better, the later the worse./
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A wild thought: could the French be trying to save our project? !They insist that SYMBOLIC sovereignty be returned at once to an 'interim' Iraqi governement (the presently functionless Council?) with real power returned to Iraqis later./
Perhaps in Internatl.law such an 'interim' 'sovereign' government could write contracts (with future payment) that would bind the later permanent Iraq sovereign govt (unlike contracts signed by Bremer regime!) Reconstruction would then likely be funded by international money-lenders./
If this were true, the Bushies would be shown as even more stupid than we thought, for REJECTING the French proposal out of hand.
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NOTE: My statements about international law are pure guesses, based on comments in prominent newspapers, like FINANCIAL TIMES. I would welcome comments by anyone who knows something about International Law!
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Several Congressmen have advocated making Iraq BORROW some of the $20 billion we're to give them for reconstruction. Bremer told them that wouldn't work--partly because Iraq now has no legitimate government authorized to sign such loans. One Senator complained that the new Iraq govt. will have to pay $200 billion of Saddam's loans (not $600 billion as Biden said above), yet they couldn't borrow now./AssocPress26s
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European Commission offered only $230 million for Iraq, when need is for many billions! (All the nations' offers total only $2 billion so far.) /Reuters26s

2 DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNS: (summary of NYT article19S):
IRAQ: U.S. officials warn that soon ordinary (enraged) Iraqis--not Saddamites, not foreign infiltrators--might be our main guerilla enemies./
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Bush-team dreams not just of restoring oil-exports, of protecting GIs from attack, but of REMAKING the MiddleEast as a region of possibility and democracy (no longer anti-American) ! (The thought that ignorant American bureaucrats can REMAKE the Middle East in any way at all that they intend is a preposterous fantasy.)/ French Pres.Chirac said he doubted that democracy in Iraq would lead to such a benevolent reform in the region/Reuters20s ][Majority Rule means Shiite rule, which might mean by Theocratic Ayatollahs!] /
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Meanwhile AID workers are being attacked just for helping Americans; "We're easy targets; if they really want to get us, they can."/
In the deadly Sunni 'Triangle' U.S. truck was mined; people nearby cheered; people waved a bloody American shirt. "Death to America! God is great! The US army will collapse here in Iraq!'/US camp in Ramadi is bombarded almost nightly by mortars and artillery./
Things are not so bad in Shiite South and Kurdish North..but in Central Iraq..!/
The GIs in turn are often enraged against ordinary Iraqis. 'FUN: Fire that burns downtown; Uranium bombs; No survivors!" /"I know they hate my guts, but they can't say so, because I have a gun."
GIs are building bridges--but their Iraqi liaison shakes his head: "It's the nature of Iraqis to be proud and nationalistic, more than most people. WE WANT TO EVICT THE AMERICANS."
Highway patrolman (paid by U.S.) says, "I hate them. They don't respect us.They throw us to the ground and put their boots on the back of our heads." WITH SUCH FRIENDS, U.S. NEEDS NO ENEMIES. /
One of our interpreters wears a mask;he's heard there's a bounty on the heads of 'collaborators'./ He does well to worry, when U.S. CAN'T EVEN PROTECT THE MEMBERS OF OUR TOP PUPPET COUNCIL (one member just shot).
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Bushies fantasize that if they ram through a UN Sec.Council resolution somethow endorsing our occupation, other countries will cease to hesitate to contribute troops and billions of dollars, while leaving Iraq completely under our thumb. (We apparently have wangled a majority vote, and France says it will abstain, not veto.) But Sec.Council members say this resolution won't assure such new contributions. /Reuters20s
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AFGHANISTAN--after TWO YEARS under U.S. 'control':
The main roads (e.g., Kabul to Kandahar) are not yet repaired. Also, there are 'pirate-stations' where passing vehicles have to pay off warlords. U.S. does nothing./U.S. base was attacked twice this month. Talibans roam freely, harrassing any native who doesn't grow a beard./Signs of Taliban resurgence are rising./ Some Afghans say U.S. has 'already lost the battle' vs. Taliban in Pashtun South./Thousands of warlords cannot be dislodged./ Training, education of Afghans is low 'beyond words'./
Why fewer GIs killed in Aghanistan? because there are fewer there (10k vs. 127k in Iraq) to serve as targets--and they're mainly huddled safely in Kabul. /
..an increasingly sullen population..They expected much from 'super-Americans' but got little. U.S. has donated only 1/5th of a billion dollars to reconstruction. (vs. $1 billion a day to Pentagon.)
"The Americans doing nothing constructive; but they search homes and arrest people arbitrarily."/
U.S. is building schools, but gives no money for teachers. GIs try to read natives' faces, and don't like what they read. "The children like us--that's about it."
GIs operate without reliable information: 'They're trying to follow trails in the sand on a windy day." They trust 'informants' who often turn in, not guerillas, but their own enemies. A U.S. supporter says, "They have few faithful Afghan friends. That's dangerous for them."

BUSH WITHERS SOME MORE: For first time, MORE AMERICANS THINK WAR WAS NOT WORTH IT! [43% YES, 47% NO]./
'Are we in control in Iraq?[ yes 38%, no 48%] /
/Only 22% think Bush has a clear plan for handling Iraq./
Most do NOT think Iraq campaign is making us safer--nor would SUCCESS in Iraq make us safer! / 51% say Iraq issue is separate from 'war on terror' issue./ [This means that Bushies' MAIN PROPAGANDA LIES are not believed!]/
'Should we spend $87bn more on Iraq?' [yes 26%, NO 66%]./ Most think Iraq will force tradeoffs in domestic spending, and most are unwilling to make those tradeoffs./
'Approve of B's handling of Iraq?' [46% yes, down from 57% in August/ 47% no, up from 33% in August.] /
Most think we should give up power in Iraq to allies if they'll make major contribution to the effort. (But that would mean giving up control of oil! Actually, I suspect most Americans don't give a DAMN about controlling Iraq oil.)/
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B's general job approval still sinking slowly (52%,down from 55% on 3Aug.] /CBSNEWS20S/ GEN.CLARK IS ALREADY EVEN WITH BUSH! (B.47%, C.43%, equal within margin of error./newsweek poll reported in USATODAY22S/
LATER RESULTS: BOTH CLARK AND KERRY ARE AHEAD OF BUSH IN THE POLLS!/USATODAY23S

U.S/ISRAEL--UNREQUITED LOVE?/
It's clear that the Bush-team are hopelessly in love with Sharon's policies, willing to embarrass themselves and further enrage the Muslim world by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Israel not kill or exile Arafat. (This veto immediately provoked a special meeting of the UN General Assembly which passed a similar anti-Israel resolution by a huge vote--emphasizing the 'US/ISRAEL VS. THE WORLD' situation once again.)
But one might ask if Israel is equally in love with U.S. interests in Iraq. Look at what is in Israel's interests, not guessing about the present motivation of its leaders. U.S. is trying desperately to restore Iraq oil-exports, in the face of effective guerilla sabotage: exports which--even with the present dilapidated equipment--would be worth $7 million a day..money the U.S. needs desperately to help pay for the occupation.
Iraq is sitting on a sea of oil, intrinsically cheap to pump. /
Suppose we succeeded somehow in establishing a 'legitimate' , 'sovereign' (puppet) Iraqi government in the near future. While U.S. corporations would benefit enormously--that's the whole point!--a lot of the power from this enormous wealth would have to accrue to the new Iraq puppets, once the U.S. military moves out--just as the corporations must (and willingly do) cut the Saudi rulers in on the trillions involved.
The new government will have to give a central role to the Iraqi Shiite community, which after all number 2 in 3 of the Iraqi people. (If the Shiites can cooperate with the Northern Kurds, the oil-poor central-area Sunnis will be really swamped ! ) This new regime might be closely allied with Iran, which is itself a huge oil producer. (Also, Iran just displayed a tested missile which can reach any part of Israel! Also, there is no question of our INVADING Iran--so the question is, whether Israel/America can find Iranian nuke-plants to bomb them.)
Now, will this new Iraq regime--in some sense Islamist--be friendly to Israel? Hardly. Israel will then be faced with THREE HOSTILE, OIL-WEALTHY neigbors: Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. (Will these nations--S.A. Sunni, Iraq and Iran Shiite--oppose each other? They will have common economic interests, and the ability, together, to control OPEC and thus the world oil market.)
What would benefit Israel is if all 3 nations were splintered into warring factions, and thus rendered impotent. But this situation would be a disaster for U.S. as occupying power in Iraq; our GIs could easily end up caught between warring militias. both hostile to U.S. (as they could end up in Afghanistan). /
It is now being proposed, as a counsel of desperation, that the policing of Iraq be left to the rival militias 'until a central Iraq police-force and army are formed.'/NYT20S
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We have 'run' Afghanistan for 2 years, and it is now almost completely controlled by rival warlords whom we pay off, not control.
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IN SUM: The long-term interests of Israel clash with the interests of U.S. occupation. That's what makes it so strange that the Bushies are so subservient to Sharonista policies!/
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While we're at it, notice that Bushies are trying to buy Russia's help in punishing France. But Russia has a direct interest in our failure in Iraq:
Russia produces very expensive oil, saleable only if the world price of oil is high. Saudi Arabia and (renovated) Iraq could produce floods of very cheap oil..so Russia would be at their mercy./Russia would be prudent to pretend to go along with America, while trying to undermine our regime covertly--just as America undermined Soviet regime in Afghanistan.

FOREIGN TROOPS? Pentagon says (a) we don't need more U.S. troops in Iraq, and (b) we want other countries to send in troops!
So far, Spain, Brazil, Australia, India, Canada, Germany, France, Mexico and Russia [Reuters20S] have said NO.
(U.S. asked Brazil 'informally' (i.e., privately) for troops; but Brazil refused publicly..seemingly wanting to insult America in the process.) /
Still 'maybes': South Korea, Pakistan, Turkey, Japan (the majority of whose populations oppose sending troops).[Japan will probably send,say, 1500 troops--a trivial number--after the election,so the people can't punish the government.] Sen.Kennedy suggests that we're bribing rulers to go against their people's views.
U.S. particularly wants troops from Muslim countries like Turkey and Pakistan, to camouflage seeming 'anti-Islam' character of our occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan. /GUARDIAN19S
The Kurds would object to a lot of Turkish soldiers in Iraq, demand that they be stationed far from the Kurdish section. If Pakistan sends thousands of troops to Iraq, that will give them an excuse not to seal off their border with Afghanistan, not to finish off the Taliban.
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PAKISTAN SAYS: they won't send troops until the UN, plus Muslim countries, plus Iraqis themselves, request Muslim troops. (So our ramming through our resolution in Sec.Council won't be enough.)
TURKEY demands that we first squash Iraqi-Kurdish 'autonomy' before they'll send troops. (not likely: Iraqi Kurds are practically our only allies.)
SOUTH KOREA says merely that sending troops would be 'costly'. (but we're more short of money for this goofy project than we are of troops. And South Koreans are PAGANS, not Muslims.)/reuters23S

JESUS AND MURDER: On the CSU campus the other day, there was a dialogue (which sounded fake) in which the 'pagan student' announced that murder was morally OK. This of course enabled the preacher to make the point that without Jesus, we would all be monsters./
There are 2 problems with this claim:
a) Many people who do NOT accept Jesus as divine are perfectly respectable, decent people who care for others;
b) Among people who DO 'accept' Jesus as their Divine Savior, a surprisingly high minority act like monsters.
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Among 10,000 Fundamentalists, there will be far more murderers than among 10,000 Unitarians. (It's not that religion makes them murderous--though it sometimes does--it's that their sincere-seeming religion does not overcome other social and psychological factors that lead to murder.)
Especially: Fundamentalists are FAR,FAR more likely than Unitarians to approve of murdering THOUSANDS OF FOREIGNERS in pointless wars.
Jesus saw alien Samaritans as His neighbors. People like these might have told Jesus: "THE ONLY GOOD SAMARITAN IS A DEAD SAMARITAN!"
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America is the only 'advanced' country whose population includes a large majority who 'accept' Jesus. Yet U.S. has a uniquely horrendous murder-rate, much higher than 'pagan' countries like Sweden.
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I have known Christians who were wonderfully decent people, and Christians who were not; I have known decent and non-decent pagans./
The relation between religion and conduct is very complex and mysterious.

ANARCHY WORSE THAN TYRANNY: Robert Fisk estimates that 1000 Iraqi civilians are being killed now each week, by each other or by GIs./Independent18S
There is no reason to think any toll like this happened under Saddam's tyranny.
Analogously, under tyrannical Taliban (or under Russian tyranny) in Afghanistan, there were far fewer violent crimes than now, under the fragmented rule of rival warlords (under the token rule of Americans.)
In Yugoslavia, there was far less slaughter under dictator Tito than since his death. Indeed, things in the Balkans were probably more peaceful under the Ottoman Empire. (Things might get horrible if foreign troops were not 'dictatorially' keeping peace in Bosnia and Kosovo.)
In Africa, there is far less slaughter under Zimbabwe's dictator than in chaotic, anarchic Congo.
In Liberia, real big-number slaughter didn't happen under Taylor's tyranny, only when rebels began fighting back.
Under tyranny of Stalin, Russian population did not shrink in numbersas it has since the fall of the Soviet!
Perhaps the Chinese are doing well to keep tyrants in power until the transition to a middle-class-dominated society is complete, as it is now is So.Korea and Taiwan.
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What U.S. should do, paradoxically, (if it must interfere in such internal conflicts), is to BACK THE STRONGEST PARTY to take over, even tyrannically--to prevent the hyper-horror of continuing civil-war-impasse or anarchy./
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In IRAQ, after GulfWarI, it was said that Daddy Bush wanted to keep the dictatorial Baath party in power, but without Saddam. That made sense, in the light of the present analysis./
The Pentagon may be thinking that way again. They just invited Saddam's DEFENSE MINISTER to surrender without penalties (WOW!)--and he did. If Baathists took over again ruthlessly, and squashed criminal gangs and Islamic guerillas, to restore 'security and order', you can bet the world's big corporations would rush to invest in Iraq, with its super-oil-resources!
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The worst part of tyranny is the restriction on 'free press', the tyrant's ability to keep news of his crimes & thefts from the people. But now, given TV dishes, internet communication, and especially little radios--(So.Koreans sent balloons up over N.Korea with tiny radios attached, upsetting N.K. tyrants.)--tyrants may not be able in future to censor news. Then the benefits of tyranny may well outweigh the kind of 'freedom' that is really bloody anarchy.
(InAmerica, the mainstream media is pretty tame. Yet the Bush propaganda on Iraq: "Our fight in Iraq is making for Homeland security from terrorists"--this propaganda is being rejected by Americans!)
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Of course, a nation need not suffer from anarchy OR tyranny. Except for a few years of French/British war, Canada has been peaceful, orderly and relatively free for centuries. Also Britain, United States (except for Revolution and CivilWar cataclysms) and Australia/New Zealand.
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Some may hear in me echoes of Thos. Hobbes. I would approve of a World Empire (perhaps run by sensible Scandinavians!)--especially in the age of Nukes & Germ-Warfare--but not of an 'empire' which the nincompoops in Washington D.C. try to set up!

NOW COUNTING THE WOUNDED: U.S. Gen.Sanchez said there were 46 GIs wounded and 4 killed by guerillas in the last week./Reuters18S/
This explicit counting of the wounded is new; till now, the Pentagon has counted on the fact that Americans don't think about the wounded, assuming that each wound is an easily-mended scratch. But soldiers hit by mines or rifle-grenades are often kept alive by body-armor, but may lose arms or legs. It's interesting that the ratio here is more than 10 maimed/wounded for every one killed./
Also, Sanchez didn't count the wounded/dead from noncombat causes (accidents, friendly fire) which have been as numerous as those casualties from guerilla attack. If these GIs weren't in Iraq, they wouldn't be subject to such high rates of accident/friendly fire--so these casualties also are part of the cost of the war./
If 300 GIs have been killed altogether so far, then perhaps 3000 have been maimed/wounded.
(Some say the number is much higher--Washington Post says thousands of severely ill or wounded U.S. military have been airlifted back to U.S. hospitals.)/
Sanchez said that GIs may be pulled out of the cities (where their crude conduct has enraged many Iraqis), when the local police can take over. But of course the U.S. may decide the local police are 'ready' whenever they face the fact that the GIs have to be withdrawn.
If the U.S. soldiers have to concentrate mainly on self-defense, then the French suggestion to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis 'within months, not years' makes sense, since our troops' presence seems to do no good, only harm to Iraq and ourselves. Perhaps we could pull our troops back into friendly Kuwait, ready to counter any massive--absurdly unlikely--Baathist return.
If the Sunnis and the Shia start a real civil war, Americans would not tolerate our GIs being caught in the middle.
But then, who would control the OIL?! Actually, we're now spending one billion a year to import petrol products into Iraq! Because we can't get the God-damned oil out to sell--still another saboteur explosion on the Northern pipeline this week! (That oil is indeed God-damned.)
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The Bushies know the general outline of French/German terms for giving help in Iraq. Bush said he doesn't expect quick action on any such proposals/Reuters18S/--which suggests the Bush-team doesn't intend to grant those terms, so doesn't expect to get such help./
The increasingly-parrot-like Thos.Friedman launched a vicious attack on the French in NYT, accusing them of wanting U.S. failure in Iraq from sheer spite.
He'd like to encourage Americans to think only the French oppose our policy--whereas most people throughout the world oppose it.
Who could blame France/Germany for saying, "YOU BROKE IT; YOU BOUGHT IT !" ? /
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Robt. Fisk suspects the Bremer gang may be going goofy in pushing secrecy, as our campaign gets in more and more trouble (from guerillas attacking GIs, from GIs attacking innocents, from US accepting friendly surrender from a rather criminal aide to Sassam! /INDEPENDENT20S

SAUDIS GO NUCLEAR?/
Saudi Arabian spokesman just announced they are exploring the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons./FinTimes18S/ Until now, they have relied on U.S. 'nuke umbrella"--"If you attack ally of U.S., we'll nuke you!" But now they don't trust U.S. any more, and they must deal with possible threat from Israel with 200 nukes. For that matter, they might fear U.S. itself, now that we have said (in S'02) that we'll feel free to strike first at any nation that even TRIES to catch up on us in weaponry./
Also, Sharon (Bush's puppet-master) might want S.A. split into little bits, to pose less threat to Israel.
U.S. or Israel could bomb any Saudi plant developing nukes before it could be completed; but Croesus-Rich S.A. could BUY completed nukes (from Russia, China, Pakistan, or maybe North Korea). Then they'd have a '2d-strike deterrent' vs. U.S. or Israel: "You can destroy us; but 'from our grave' we can MAIM you; so you'd have to be crazy to nuke us."
The Bush-team are not just ruining U.S.; they are making the whole world less stable and safe.

WE CAN'T AFFORD THE EMPIRE! /
Unexpectedly, Congressmen are hesitating (before they collapse) to give the Pentagon another $90 billion (strings-free) for the Iraq escapade. $62 billion, they're told, will go for 'military expenses' in Iraq & Afghanistan (perhaps just for next 3.5 months, says Cheney; that's $15 billions per week!). $20 billion would go for Iraq reconstruction (but $75 billions are needed, says White House!) /
On top of that, the honcho of the General Accounting Office says that Iraq will "cost well more than we've been told."/USATODAY18S
Only half of $4 billions per month spent till now have been accounted for, says Sen.Kennedy. He suspects the rest is used for bribes to shady rulers of Muslim countries to get them to send troops./NETSCAPE19S

WESLEY CLARK--ANTI-WAR?

Gen.Clark is going to run as a Democrat--and recently he's criticized the Iraq campaign. So he's being hailed as the antiwar candidate who might win (vs. GordonDean & Kucinick).
Indeed, CLARK IS ALREADY EQUAL TO BUSH ! (b47%/C43%). Attention must be paid!
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However, this web-site

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/clark-antiwar.html

has traced his comments before, during and after the war..he talked glibly out of both sides of his mouth all along./
If he immediately gets millions of dollars in contributions, we'll know that he is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. Why would they support him? Just in case Bush's war has become so unpopular by Nov 04 that there is a risk of a really anti-militarist Democrat winning. He could be assigned to wipe out Gordon Dean and Kucinick, then to lose to Bush./
The good news:
--his being trotted out shows that our 'behind-the-scenes' rulers have lost faith in Bush as able to continue deluding Americans;
--Clark's present critiques of the war will be useful, coming from a military expert who can't be accused of 'anti-american, anti-soldier' leanings.
--Also, he has talked about financing our deficts by cutting PENTAGON BUDGETS! Perhaps he'd never DO that, but he'd be the first mainstream voice (except poor Kucineck!) to even DISCUSS that! A proposal must first become thinkable before it has a chance of acceptance.
--He probably would have a better chance to get elected, if nominated by Dems., than either Dean or Kucinick. He's starting late, but he may suddenly have millions of dollars dumped on his campaign. If he were elected, he'd be a far superior hawk to goofy George and his mad advisors.
--Michael Moore has sort-of endorsed Clark's sincerity. The Clinton crowd back him--a set of more intelligent hawks.
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Sensible Americans, always a minority, are used to voting for Lesser Evils.

FLAMING FALLACY: The Org.for Eur.Coop.&Dev. issued a report on a) how much various nations spent on education, and (b) how their students performed.
American press (e.g., AssocPress18S) rushed to say the report showed we were getting little educational value for great expenditure.
Now pay attention: no country spends more than we on education from kindergarten THROUGH COLLEGE; but our FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD students don't do very well,relatively, and we are below average in numbers GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL.
Ah, but suppose we spend LITTLE on K-12 schools relative to other countries (as has been claimed), but a lot more on COLLEGES [which a) minister to upper-class youth and (b) include subsidies for research that helps corporations] !
The data as reported by Assoc.Press show nothing at all about whether we get value for money from our financing of K-12 schools!
As expected, that right-wing whore the ROCKYMTNNEWS gloated over the OECD report(18S), absurdly concluding that it showed that mere money doesn't guarantee school-excellence--ignoring the coincidence that Colorado spends very little money for K-12 schools, and has a very bad record of student-achievement

POLLS: Bush outranks individual Dem.candidates (from 51 to 53%)/
[Small wonder, when Americans don't even know the Dem.candidates' names yet!]
However: 67% said the Economy will count most in determining their vote;
53%(vs.44%) DIsapprove of Bush's handling of the economy; 49% (vs.42%) think a Dem. would do better./GUARDIAN18S
[And analysts doubt that the unemployment rate--the most important economic issue--will go down much by election-time.]

GENERAL ADMITS GUERILLAS INCLUDE 'ORDINARY IRAQIS': Till now, U.S. spokesmen have claimed that the guerillas--who launched 3 attacks in 90 minutes! and are launching 50 attacks on us each night--are a) Saddamite leftovers or (b) foreigners infiltrating into Iraq (blame Syria!) /
But now our general Sanchez admits that some guerillas (what proportion?) are ordinary Iraqis seeking revenge for crude, arrogant US tactics (AssocPress18S)
A member of our puppet 'Council' has claimed that MOST GIs treat Iraqis with violence and contempt. (And Mideast peoples are enraged by such contempt perhaps more than by violence, which they're used to!) /
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INSURGENCY, NOT JUST OUTSIDE TERRORISTS:
Anonymous Pentagon officials have leaked the story that a (still classified) State Dept. poll of Iraqis shows that resentment of GIs extends beyond the infamous Sunni 'triangle' into the Shiite areas of the South./NYT18S
"To Iraqis, we're now..the guys busting down doors and barging in on their wives & daughters."
Opposition is likely to get worse before it gets better."If infrastructure doesn't improve, and American troops are out there front and center, it's hard to see public mood getting any better."
Defenders of the campaign said (a) bounties on Americans have increased to $5000,showing that it's harder for terrorists to recruit volunteers, and (b) turn-in tips are increasing. (No proof is offered for either optimistic statement; there's no motive for the pessimists to leak lies.)
There is foreign involvement as well as Saddamites--but the support they get from ordinary Iraqis makes it difficult to track them down.
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It's not the GIs' fault; they are lower-class,ill-educated Americans (our elite don't enlist!). These poor souls were never trained to put up with small, smelly foreigners--including women and children--screaming hatred at them in a strange language, ungrateful foreigners tolerating or endorsing daily guerilla-attacks on GIs.
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But the plain fact is, as the respected CATO INSTITUTE said early on, that the longer we stay in Iraq, the more we will be hated. Sooner or later we will have to bug out;
the sooner the better, the later the worse. BRING 'EM HOME NOW!
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To see just how crude & inept our troops are, go to these 2 websites (written by intelligent Iraqis):

RIVERBENDBLOG.BLOGSPOT.COM

DEAR_RAED.BLOGSPOT.COM

SADDAM IS ONLY ONE AMERICA-HATER. ( Letter to ROCKYMTNNEWS)
Jesse Salazar's clever prowar letter (18S) uses vague statements, loosely connected, to make his case invalidly. His main contention is just false: that we had to bomb and invade Iraq, to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.
He notes that Saddam must hate us, because he had reason to hate us. And he had scientists who could develop killing technology--(though it turns out none of these weapons have been found!)
He notes that the 9/11 attackers used very simple means to attack us: 19 men armed with box-cutters. That seems to imply that hi-tech U.S. haters with are not that much more dangerous to us than low-tech haters. And, thanks partly to our assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq, the world is now full of hi-tech and low-tech haters of America. The Pew polls show that Bush has turned the whole world against us. Must we bomb 30 nations or more?
What is to stop some nation, he asks, from giving, say, super-war-germs to terrorists eager to die while attacking America?
Here's news for invincible-feeling Americans: Nothing can stop them! No matter how many NATIONS we bomb, we will not 'live without fear' of INDIVIDUAL terrorists again for many years or decades. /
We could mitigate that fear, by blocking obvious routes of attack, and preparing to heal/repair our nation after those attacks that get through. But this would be very,very expensive--and, wealthy as we are, we have no money to spare for Homeland Protection after squandering over $1000 millions per day on the Pentagon (for nifty bombers and missiles which are absolutely useless in protecting us from terrorists)-- after luscious tax-breaks and subsidies for the wealthy.
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Joseph Wilson, a former top U.S. diplomat in Iraq, says that our aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq has increased the number of rabid America-haters from THOUSANDS to MILLIONS ! /SanJoseMercuryNews15S.

LAWLESS BAGHDAD: The number of violent deaths in Baghdad has more than tripled since before the war./LATIMES16W/
It's not the GIs killing these people, it's Iraqis killing each other; but an occupying force is responsible for maintaining law and order under international law--and we are failing miserably at this.

BLUSTER VS. SYRIA: The Bushies renewed their bluster against Syria (Reuters/17S).
They raised the legitimate issue of volunteer guerillas being allowed to infiltrate into Iraq from Syria, but offered no evidence that this is happening on a significant level.
They also demanded that Syria 'hand over' any chemical or biological weapons it has developed. Any such weapons would be trivial in any threat to another country; they would be developed only to punish attackers against Syria--e.g., U.S forces!/
Threatening to attack Syria is not likely to persuade them to abandon the only kind of weapon they might have that could deter such an attack!

RIGHT-WING READING LIST ( LETTER TO ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS)
Skimming the'Academic Freedom' law proposed by Owens & Andrews (summarized in RMN17S), I noticed the key provision that college reading-lists would be inspected to assure the inclusion of right-wing ideas./
I once had the perfect social philosophy courses for this innovation: back when students could read, I assigned ON LIBERTY, FEDERALIST PAPERS, Adam Smith, Frederick Hayek, Milton Friedman, Chas. Lindblom, and Ayn Rand./
However, arguments for free enterprise are quite complex, and need sophisticated comprehension. A new problem has arisen, now that collegians can't and won't read complex texts./
I've got it ! We'll assign right-wing comic-books.

FAILURE IS ALWAYS 'PR FAILURE':
THE FAILURE: One billion Muslims worldwide were pretty friendly with us in 1999-2000. We spend $1 billion a year on 'PR' propaganda to bolster such favorable attitudes. /
Nevertheless, between then and now, an earthquake of disapproval/rage has happened: for instance, in Morocco, approval of U.S. dropped from 77% to 27%! In Turkey (our 'main ally', says Bush-team), from 50% to 12%. Most worrying: 3 in 4 of the 200 million Indonesians liked us 3 years ago; now it's only 1 in 8! In many Muslim nations, bin Laden is more popular than George Bush.
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THE U.S. TAKE on this failure: we just assume that what's failed is our 'PR' efforts. /USATODAY17S/
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We might instead ask what ACTIONS the U.S. took in that time-interval that may have alienated these populations. Well, we continued to back Israel unconditionally, the country hated most vitriolically by world Muslims; (we just vetoed a UN request for Israel not to kill or exile Arafat!) Bush and Sharon seem to be in bed together--with Sharon on top./
We 'preemptively' bombed hell out of Muslim Afghanistan and Iraq, then invaded these countries and demonstrated absolute contempt for their 'primitive' populations. We're threatening, once again, to wipe out the Muslim regime in Iran. We're sending troops to help a 'Catholic' Phillipine government put down resistance from its Muslim minority. In fact, we seem to have declared war on one billion Muslims worldwide (see piece below, 14S, on USATODAY story of start of WWIII vs. Islam.)
The most brilliant propaganda campaign we could muster will not undo the appearance that we've launched a new Crusade against Islam. We might do well to remember that they eventually WON in the last Crusades!
(Actually, both sides lost--and that is what will likely happen this time.)

"PENTAGON CAN'T AFFORD IT!"/
6 stories are instances of black humor:
--The Pentagon opposed extra family allowances for every family with a member stationed overseas. The Pentagon wanted the allowances restricted only to miitary in Iraq & Afghanistan..(never mind that GI's in South Korea are in far greater danger than those in the Mideast! They could be slaughtered by the thousands in the first few hours of the war the Rumsfeld crowd is trying to pick with North Korea.)
--GIs in Iraq have e-mailed home that they've had to use captured Kalashnikov rifles because their own weapons were defective. They've also said they're not getting enough clean drinking water!
--GIs have bought equipment on their own because the issued equipment was defective.
--Hospitalized GIs around the world have to pay for their own food while hospitalized! (because, after all, they get a daily food allowance already!)
--Pentagon wants to cut Veterans' Health Benefits.
--Pentagon proposed cutting combat pay..even White House balks at this. /INDEPENDENT19S
About the sad details of our soldiers' lives in Iraq, see 'Troops Stretched Thin...' in NATION6oct, cited in TRUTHOUT.ORG
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One father of a man about to be shipped overseas, himself a veteran, said, "Our leaders care for our troops the way Tyson cares about chickens."
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The humor comes when you realize that the Pentagon regularly gets far over a billion dollars each day, independent of any war! Add to that the $90 billion they've already spent after the war in Iraq, and the $90 billion they're demanding now, perhaps just for the remainder of this year. /
And remember that--as Congressmen have been complaining--the Pentagon doesn't really have to account to anyone for how this extra money is being spent!

DECISIVE BATTLE? HARDLY!
The Bush-team and their journalistic acolytes constantly hint that our victory or defeat in Iraq will settle once and for all our conflict with terrorists worldwide. They must be thinking of the old proposal that two armies each name one champion; then if your champion loses, you surrender.
That would be neat; but if we did triumph in Iraq, the world's Muslims would be more humiliated than ever, and their sense of HONOR would demand revenge even more stridently; we'd be even more subject to terrorist attacks than we are now./
But don't worry--we're not going to triumph in Iraq; sooner or later, we'll bug out./
The sooner the better, the later the worse. 42% of Americans now agree we should start now to BRING 'EM HOME!/
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The Bushies (quoted on TVnews18S) are demanding the $90 billion extra on the strength of 'keeping terrorists bottled up' in Iraq. (Remember, mideast expert Joseph Wilson says there are now MILLIONS of America-haters, all over the world.)/
How are we keeping the terrorists'bottled up'? by offering our troops to them as sitting ducks! Such good cheer reminds you of Mark Twain's rueful comment on a fight he was in: "Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him to the ground on top of me!"

90 BILLION MORE: VP Cheney said the $90 billion extra money demanded for 'Iraq' was (a) going for 'military & intelligence', not for reconstruction, and (b) was asked for the remainder of this year, not for 2004!/USATODAY15S/
Cheney also said that 372 GIs had died in the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns, but that was far less than the 3000 killed on 9/11..
As usual, Cheney made no reference to the THOUSANDS of GIs who have been MAIMED OR WOUNDED--and still are being injured,every day--in the 2 campaigns.
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Cheney also said the money cost was far less than that of another attack on U.S.
60% of Americans DISAPPROVE of spending another $90 billion on Iraq. /TorontoStar15S/
He offered no evidence that the money spent on Iraq war would PREVENT another attack on our Homeland! So the 2 comparisons (of U.S. deaths and money spent) were absolutely irrelevant.
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Rumsfeld said '4 1/2 months in Iraq doesn't count as a Quagmire!". However, in AFGHANISTAN, after 2 years under our leadership, the guerillas are stronger than ever!
If we stay in Iraq that long, things will likely be just as bad--then everyone will have to admit it's a Quagmire.
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GASSING OF KURDS: Colin Powell visited the village wiped out by Saddam's chemicals in 1988, to remind people of how awful Saddam was. /VOICE OF AMERICA15S/
Did he recall, one wonders, that U.S. backed Saddam even after we knew of such atrocities?

PREPOSTEROUS: [letter to J.A. Farrell, Washington Bureau Chief of DenverPost:]
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MR.Farrell: Your column MUST-WIN WAR ENTERS YEAR THREE (14s)was confused and
misleading. You say:
"we could back out of Vietnam because they had no nukes or smallpox
germs. This will be tougher;defeat is not an option.
We must stay and win a peace, cure ills and curb old hatreds."
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When you talk about the 3-year war, you must be referring to the misnamed 'war on terror': defending our homeland from terrorist attack.
But when you talk of 'staying, not withdrawing', you must refer to our silly campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. (These, luckily, are NOT MUST-WIN wars.) Confusing these two distinct issues is either ignorant or dishonest.
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We neither must, nor can, win peace in the MiddleEast. Indeed, the thought that WE (clumsy, ignorant America) could make peace in the Mideast is one of our preposterous delusions.
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Get this clear: whether we 'win the peace' or lose it over there--we will almost certainly lose it !--this outcome will have little effect on the threat of Homeland attacks here./
Invading Iraq certainly DID further enrage one billion Muslims, and thus helped recruit thousands more terrorists eager to die attacking the 'Great Satan'. But succeeding or failing in Iraq will not lessen this rage or hamper this recruitment. (If anything, our inevitable 'bugging out' eventually in Iraq might salve Muslim humiliation and lessen terrorist enthusiasm a little.)
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All our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan does to our Homeland Protection project is to divert our attention away from this vital project--(for instance, the FEW Arabic speakers we have are all sent to Iraq, leaving none to detect terrrorist threats elsewhere).
Also, this Mideast involvement diverts tens of billions of dollars away from any adequate Homeland Protection program, which would be very, very expensive.
After the next few terrorist attacks here, even the most Jingoist Republican will see that.
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Mr. Farrell's prompt answer:
Dear Dan. I rode a subway this morning that was as jampacked as the Tokyo
subway. None of us were screened as we entered the station or rode the
train. I don't think that retreating behind the Department of Homeland
Security and praying that the next wave of terrorists screws up is an
answer. And so I believe that we need to get engaged with the world and do
the best we can. And, obviously, I don't share your views about America or
its potential. jack
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LYONS' RESPONSE:
Jack: you think we must get 'engaged with the world' (bomb N.Korea?) and do
the best we can-- praying that We don't screw up!
Getting 'engaged in the world' in that bellicose way will make you even LESS safe on NY subway.
My view about the limits on Americans' interest in & knowledge of the outside world is supported by well-documented evidence. For instance, somewhere between 51% and 70% of Americans still believe it 'somewhat'or 'very' likely that Saddam was directly involved in 9/11 assault--even though the Bushies now admit there is no 'solid' reason to think this--after hinting for months that there was!/USATODAY18S /
Your faith in these American virtues is believing what you know damn well ain't so./Regards.Dan.