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Andrew Sullivan and the The Tea Tantrum Movement

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:18:10 +0000

Back when Andrew Sullivan was a conservative, he sent lots of traffic this way with a number of links. So, I feel a certain sadness with his change of perspective over the last few years.

Andrew wrote a piece titled The Tea Tantrum Movement for The Atlantic. It is his take on the Tea Party protest movement based on an admitted hour or so of on-line research.

He professes to have emerged from his rigorous course of research perplexed, bothered and bewildered.

He describes the movement as “some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don’t feel part of the culture at all”. He calls it “adolescent, unserious hysteria”.

Andrew makes the error that most liberals insist upon, that this is a movement of the Republican Party. Had he looked at the existing documentation of the hundreds of Tea Parties already held, he would have clearly seen that the movement is made up of some very average people, people who have never “run” the country. Perhaps he did look, but chose not to engage his intellect.

He even manages to make a serious historical error. The men who conducted the original Tea Party were NOT illegal immigrants, but Englishmen fed up with having their rights trampled by a distant government.

That is the bone of contention for Americans today. Our government has grown distant and is failing to respect our rights, the rights we have enjoyed from the founding of this nation.

Andrew needed to come up with a few hundred words for his paying gig, so he slapped something on the wall with the hope it would stick. It’s brown, and sticky, and smells. I would have hope for a little more reflection and honesty from a man who I once admired.

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What Happened to George Will?

Chuck Simmins — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:52:28 +0000

In today’s Democrat & Chronicle is a column by George Will that was printed in larger papers yesterday. I read it and my jaw dropped. When did George Will become Andrew Sullivan?

Before Gen. David Petraeus’s report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq’s Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making some hitherto anarchic areas less so. More significant, however, was that the president did not visit Baghdad. This underscored the fact that the surge has failed, as measured by the president’s and Petraeus’s standards of success.

The President has visited Baghdad several times. How is the success of the surge measured by his visit to Anbar rather than to Baghdad? Anbar is a success story and a place that both Iraqis and Americans can take a certain pride in have changed for the better. Baghdad itself is improving and is a far better place than it was six months ago. Yet, in these simple sentences Will somehow concludes that a visit to highlight a success story means the surge has failed.

Will goes on to say

The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time — “breathing space,” the president says — for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq?

Will characterizes Iraqi society as

a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds.

As a historian, Will certainly recognizes that all nations are born with a degree of chaos. Our own United States was “a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds” for generations, not just a handful of years. Just hours ago the Mormon Church released an expression of “profound regret” for the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1847. We cannot forget our Civil War a few years later. In the 1920â€™s more than one black community could attest to the existence of “a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds”.

Measuring Iraqi political reconciliation goes beyond the legislative efforts of the Iraqi national government. It is visible at the local and provincial levels. It is visible in the military and police. It is visible in the lack of a civil war despite all of the outside interference attempting to provoke one.

Will then uses some incorrect statements to bolster his argument.

First, measuring sectarian violence is problematic: The Post reports that a body with a bullet hole in the front of the skull is considered a victim of criminality; a hole in the back of the skull is evidence of sectarian violence. But even if violence is declining, that might be partly because violent sectarian cleansing has separated Sunni and Shiite communities. This homogenization of hostile factions — trained and armed by U.S. forces — may bear poisonous fruit in a full-blown civil war.

Multi-National Force-Iraq corrects the Post and Mr. Will:

Multi-National Force-Iraq defines ethno-sectarian murder as a murder committed by one ethnic/religious person/group directed at a different ethnic/religious person/group, where the primary motivation for the event is based on ethnicity or religious sect.

Ethno-sectarian violence is defined as an event and any associated civilian deaths caused by or during murders/executions, kidnappings, direct fire, indirect fire, and all types of explosive devices identified as being conducted by one ethnic/religious person/group directed at a different ethnic/religious person/group, where the primary motivation for the event is based on ethnicity or religious sect.

In our collection of data, a shot to the front or back of the head is not used to determine ethno-sectarian murder.

The number of ethno-sectarian murders has declined significantly since the height of the sectarian violence in December 2006.

Iraq-wide, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths has decreased by over 55 percent, and it would have decreased much further if it not for the casualties inflicted by barbaric al-Qaeda bombings attempting to reignite sectarian violence.

As for the accusation that sectarian forces are “trained and armed by U.S. forces”. Nonsense! This is merely the echoing of false statements made by the anti-war left. Will has no evidence that this is the case nor does the left.

As one milblogger pointed out, we have no need to arm anyone in Iraq with the vast amounts of arms that Saddam had purchased and stored before our liberation of that nation. Every household in Iraq is entitled to have an AK-47 for self-protection and most seem to have availed themselves of that right.

Will concludes with a repetition of the leftâ€™s claim that “the “gathering danger” of weapons of mass destruction — was fictitious” and writes

That is one reason this war will not be fought, at least not by Americans, to the bitter end. The end of the war will, however, be bitter for Americans, partly because the president’s decision to visit Iraq without visiting its capital confirmed the flimsiness of the fallback rationale for the war — the creation of a unified, pluralist Iraq.

After more than four years of war, two questions persist: Is there an Iraq? Are there Iraqis?

1n 1780, four years after the Declaration of Independence, the United States was still involved in a war for its independence. One of our foremost generals defected to the British in that year and American militias opposing independence ravaged much of the south. In the following year, we adopted a new form of government, and eight years later we adopted a different form of government. Over 100,000 Americans fled the independent United States, many in fear for their lives. Democracy is hard and we should be very careful in holding the Iraqis to a schedule we were unable to meet.

As to the questions he closes with “Is there an Iraq? Are there Iraqis?”, I would suggest that the tens of millions of Iraqi citizens who have voted three times so far would put paid to that scurrilous canard. The thousands of Iraqis in the military and police who have died in the line of duty put paid to that scurrilous canard. And, sadly, the American dead such as Paul Smith, Jason Dunham, Amanda Pinson and Terrence Crowe, who died in the line of duty in this war, put paid to that scurrilous canard. Because, Mr. Will, if there is no Iraq and no nation that calls itself Iraqi, then all these heroes have died in vain.

Hitchens Hates

Chuck Simmins — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:22:07 +0000

I tossed Christopher Hitchens out of the pool of those I respect some time ago, for his mean spirited hatchet jobs on Bob Hope and Sister Teresa. He’s done another, on Pope Benedict, whom he can only refer to by his give name and not his religious one.

Curiously, he does not follow the same naming convention with regard to Byzantine Emperor Manuel II.

First, he cheap shots the title “Pope” by comparing the head of the Roman Catholic Church to that of the Coptic Church. There are well over 1 billion Roman Catholics in the world, and about 225 million Orthodox. In that 220 million are 30 million Copts. Hardly a fair comparison.

Of course, Hitchens repeats the lie that the Catholic Church was spread by violence.

There would have been no established Byzantine or Roman Christianity if the faith had not been spread and maintained and enforced by every kind of violence and cruelty and coercion.

That would be a surprise to the founders of the Church, which in the first 300 years saw the Church spread throughout the Roman Empire despite the most vicious of persecutions. And it would be a surprise to the Crusaders of the first Three Crusades, who, despite Hitchen’s calumny, did not sack Christian Byzantium. It would also be a surprise to Sister Leonella, had she not been murdered for HER beliefs.

In fact, Hitchens accepts the Islamic polemic that the Crusades were about the victimization of Islam. He forgets, or never knew, that the Crusades were launched to recover the Christian territories in the Middle East including the Holy Land which had been conquered, violently, by Islamic invaders.

Hitchens climbs on his atheistic high horse, disparaging the Pope’s perspective that reason and religion are compatible. He criticizes the Pope’s choice of philosophers in his speech. And, in a bizarre statement claims the Church would have destroyed the Reformation without recognizing in the least that the Reformation was faith based. In other words, it appears that he views the Reformation as a good thing so long as it poked a stick in the eye of Rome. His hatred of things Catholic blinds him to the contradiction here.

Rather than address the Moslem reaction to the speech, or the notion that the use of violence to advance faith is wrong, Hitchens concentrates his venom on the Pope and the Church. He purposely ignores the violence happening everywhere Islam borders another set of beliefs. There is a ring of fire around Islam, which its believers have set, and around which the blood of non-believers pools.

Oh, yes, Hitchens is a hateful man and a hate filled man. I wonder if he ever sees goodness in his life, or in the world? Just what sorts of morals and ethics does he respect?

The Loathesome Christopher Hitchens

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:44:43 +0000

The worm who mugged Mother Teresa and Bob Hope turns his filthy thoughts to Iraq, and the issue of news being distributed by the military to Iraqi media. Christopher Hitchens climbs on his high horse and pontificates based upon the New York Times story that I’ve already demonstrated is error filled and slanted. But Chrissy proceeds, none the less, since goodness and right are mere concepts in the real world.

His first charge is that it discredits Iraqi media at a delicate time in their development. Obviously he hasn’t read any Iraqi papers or any Iraqi bloggers. The beauty of the Iraqi media is that each and every outlet has a perspective. Some are very religious, some not. Some pro-American, some not. The Iraqis understand that it is pure fiction to believe that any media outlet has no opinion about the news. The Iraqis know which newspapers and broadcast stations support the United States. They’re not stooopid. And Chrissy overlooks the obvious in the Times. It clearly states that most of the stories were run under the banner of advertisement or editorial opinion. No deception there.

I have to wonder how he just knows that the Pentagon has no budget for media relations in Iraq. Because I read a dozen press releases from there a day, at least. Maybe he ought to call up Centcom and let them know that he doesn’t want to hear any of their news so they should stop making it.

He drags in the recent report that President Bush threatened to bomb Al Jazeera. He finds that thought reprehensible, as I would suspect, he would find the thought of bombing Radio Berlin or Tokyo Rose.

He then drags in the reported deaths of some Iraqi journalists from our fire. Of course, in his view the Brits would have done it better. Yes, the Brits have done so well with their empire, haven’t they? Yes, we can learn a lot from how the Brits ran their empire, creating the IRA, the MauMau, Ghandi, oh, hey, and the American Revolution.

Then he has the gall to suggest that fraud was committed and the American people were lied to. That would be why the program was public knowledge in June, and why both the Washington Post and BBC reported on aspects of it. Big bloody secret, that was!

Finally, he drags the bleeding body of Pat Tillman across the screen, proving to himself at least, that the Pentagon is a bunch of lying, thieving scoundrels. And to cap it off, he MAKES UP a story about Iraq to prove just how awful the Americans are.

I realize that some conservatives see Chrissy as a valued member of the club. I don’t. His greatest delight appears to be in tearing down not creating. He is a classic example of Old Europe, bitter at his betters and unable to construct anything of value from decaying prose.

Is he speaking of himself when he states:

Now any fool is entitled to say that a free Iraqi paper is a mouthpiece…

? His hodgepodge of accusations bolstered by errors and innuendo might have earned him his salary for today’s column, but that’s all it earned him.

Our Government and Our Allies

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 23:59:59 +0000

Just for your information, France, Germany, and the rest of Old Europe: The President of the United States is under no obligation to obtain your approval of any of his appointments. Nor, would we expect you to obtain ours in similar circumstances.

So, butt the hell out!

Gabriel Murray

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 03:30:59 +0000

Hey, let’s get all of Gabriel’s comments today in one place, and make faces at them. In order from last to first:

I also wanted to clarify something: Chuck’s claim that liberals don’t care about brown people was based on a Google search.

Thank you, anonymous: that was a hilariously inane rebuttal. I felt compelled to praise it at my blog, Public Editor.

I’m not surprised that you would turn this into another cheap shot on the UN as a whole. Comparing Egeland to Bundy and Gotti illustrates how extreme your views are, as if it weren’t evident enough from your blog.

>Remember, Egeland was talking about all Americans, not
> just the right.
Actually, he said that most of the citizens of these supposedly stingy
countries wanted to give *more* but that their governments fretted
about spending taxpayer money on humanitarian relief. I don’t think he
attacked the American people at all; that is your perception.

Even if “Hollywood” hasn’t donated a ton to this tragedy, what right
does that give you to charge that liberals don’t care about people of
other colors?

“It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really,” the Norwegian-born
U.N. official told reporters. “Christmastime should remind many
Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become.”
“There are several donors who are less generous than before in a
growing world economy,” he said, adding that politicians in the United
States and Europe “believe that they are really burdening the
taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It’s not
true. They want to give more.”
He mentions the U.S. in the context of Western countries. So why did the U.S. media froth up about a direct attack on the U.S. as being stingy? He then followed up on his comments and said that the U.S. has
been the biggest humanitarian donor.

The reason I say jingoism is that there seems to be some kind of dick contest with regard to tsunami aid, and I don’t think that should be our focus.
I think it’s incredible that based on a Google search you would
conclude that liberals don’t care about “brown people.”

It’s interesting how this “stingy” comment has provoked so much defensiveness and jingoism from a certain faction of Americans, when the original comment was neither directed specifically at the U.S. nor exclusively regarded the tsunami effort. Something tells me you didn’t need an excuse to bring on the jingoism, though.
Oh, and here’s my take on your accusation that liberals don’t care about the tragedy:
http://www.publiceditor.com

This is an incredibly disgusting post. After the tsunami hit and many Americans wanted more than $15 million to be sent as relief, some on the right were claiming that these calls for relief were some kind of obscene politicization of the tragedy (David Brooks, for example). Most people ignored these cheap shots, as they were genuinely concerned about relief, not politics. This post takes the cake as far as politicization of a tragedy. Congratulations, anonymous moron.

Don’tcha just love the guy? Warm, open minded, serious yet with a touch of whimsy. And that smile, why it lights up the room! If only he could find a cure for that nasty itch. You know the one. The kind you don’t talk about, liberalism.

BTW, I said in an e-mail to Gabe that listening to Egeland talk about stinginess and low taxes was like listening to John Gotti talk about preventing drug abuse or listening to Ted Bundy suggest that women take a self-defense course.

Dirtsville, USA

Chuck Simmins — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 02:59:59 +0000

Joanne98, with over a 1,000 posts at Democratic Underground spews this:

Democratic Underground

Since tomorrow is the anniversary of the “excuse” the cowboy uses to attack anybody he wants to. I’m bracing myself for the ongoing images of people in small red state towns exploiting the victims of 9/11.
CNN is already showing people in small town Texas CRYING over New York City’s loses. Well, you know what. You never liked New Yorkers. You hated New Yorkers remember. If you really cared about the victims of 9/11 you would vote for John Kerry because that’s the only thing they want you to do. But NO! Instead you brought the Bush bastard’s convention to ground Zero and thought NYC would be glad to see you.
Instead of getting flowers and candy you got protesters, a half a million of them that said. GO HOME. Do you remember the Evita song…
DON’T CRY FOR ME DIRTSVILLE TEXAS……….
Let’s get this straight, Dirtsville, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN TO YOU and it never will because no self respecting terra-rist would ever attack something so unimportant. It would be like the USA attacking Goatsgrave Yemen. It’s never going to happen.
The bottom line is, you don’t care about NYC or the pain, all you care about is getting Boosh re-elected and fighting a Holy pissing contest with the darkie Muslims. All in the name of Jesus which you’re sure is coming back the day after tomorrow.
Nobody needs this shit, especially the people of NYC who still watch airplanes when they fly overhead. The people in big cities are in more danger than ever thanks to the cowboy’s invasion of Iraq. But that’s something the good people of Dirtsville don’t have to worry about.
So take your flags, your prayers, your rodeos and your country music and stick it. You’re waging war because you want too, because you like it and you’re not fooling anybody. You’re only happy when you have an enemy, if it wasn’t 9/11 it would be something else. Like “libruls”. At least have the decency to admit that.
Put on your public grieving shows tomorrow because you already have them planned but spare us the DRAMA next year. It didn’t happen to you. Get over it.

Via Right Wing News

As a bonafide resident of Dirtsville, I see that Joanne98 just doesn’t get it. She’s the cause, not the effect, for our pride in America. Someone has to pick up the slack.

The problem is that there are far too many Joanne98′s and not enough residents of Dirtsville. To us, the murders of September 11 were more than just a danger to us or a disruption of our lifestyle. They were an attack, a final challenge to America and the way of life that we hold dear. We watch the planes overhead, too. But we’re worrying about more than just our own skins. We’re worried about our families, our neighbors, and a whole lot of people we don’t even know.

So, Joanne98, stay where you are. And when you need us, we’ll be there. Like we always have been.

Berger: Incident Was Honest Mistake

Chuck Simmins — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 03:59:59 +0000

BULLSHIT

This is as simple as you taking a pee in the morning. The wife discovers that you peed in the sink. Honest mistake? Hardly.

Sandy Berger has been doing this classified stuff for a long time. He violated the rules on as many as five occasions. There is ZERO chance that this was a mistake. I don’t care if he snuck the notes and documents out in his socks or walked out with them in plain sight. He knew the rules and violated them intentionally.

Taking a Clue Bat to Molly Ivins

Chuck Simmins — Fri, 21 Feb 2003 01:38:09 +0000

Cheese-eating surrender monkeys, eh?

Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045

Bolded items from here on are my comments.

We have been enjoying a lovely little spate of French-bashing here lately. Jonah Goldberg of National Review, who admits that French-bashing is “shtick” (as it is to many American comedians), has popularized the phrase “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” to describe the French.

It gets a lot less attractive than that. Or funnier, depending on your point of view

George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: “How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it’s never been tried.”

That was certainly amusing. It’s called satire, Molly, one of the tools a writer uses to convey his point and still make his writing interesting.

One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren’t many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Adolf Hitler. By and large, these guys were slaughtered. Hardly a glowing tribute to the courage of the French.

On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny. Ironic, actually. And, I would remind you that their officers, their generals, their civilian leaders who caused them to be slaughtered were

wait for it

FRENCH! Patton said “Don’t be a fool and die for your country. Let the other sonofabitch die for his.” Racking up big numbers for your own troops is shameful, at best, and criminal at worst.

In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly. No one has ever said that individual French troops, officers, and units did not fight bravely. The first Gulf War saw a few Iraqi units fight bravely, too. But what we saw, what we remember, are the other tens of thousands who didn’t.

Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany. Horseshit! The Maginot Line reflects perfectly on the courage of French troops. Who surrendered nearly en masse to the Germans after the mobile French troops had been defeated. No sterling defenses of fortifications, here. And, pray tell, Molly, how does the fact that the United States failed to go to war immediately upon the fall of France have anything to do with anything else? Would you like me to list the aid we provided Britain in that eighteen months, the Americans who fought and died in an undeclared war with Hitler’s Germany in that eighteen months?

One of the great what-ifs of history is: What would have happened if Franklin Roosevelt had lived to the end of his last term? Fantasy alert. Stay tuned for lunacy.

How many wars have been lost in the peace?

For those of you who have not read Paris 1919, I recommend it highly. Roosevelt was anti-colonialist. That system was a great evil, a greater horror even than Nazism or Stalinism. Huh? OK, same old screed, different era. The West was worse than the Nazis or the Communists. Of course, we had to be, we were the West.

If you have read Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, you have some idea. The French were in it up to their necks. The book is about Belgian colonial horrors in the Congo, arguably the worst of the colonial situations. The French did better, the Brits better still. The Belgians might be up there with Hitler, but the French and Brits don’t compare at all.

Instead of insisting on freedom for the colonies of Europe, we let our allies carry on with the system, leaving the British in India and Africa, and the French in Vietnam and Algeria, to everyone’s eventual regret. You twit. The colonies had another generation to add educated people to their population, to build a more modern society. If you think it was bad as it really happened, imagine if they had been “freed” one or two generations earlier. The world was in a mess in 1945. The only undamaged economy was the United States. I daresay we would be living in a Communist world at this point, if your pipe dream had been carried out. No one but us would have been left strong enough to stop the expansion of Communism.

Surrender monkeys? Try Dien Bien Phu. Yes, the French did surrender, didn’t they? After 6,000 French died in a no-hope position. Ever heard of the Foreign Legion? Of the paratroopers, called “paras”? The trouble we could have saved ourselves if we had only paid attention to Dien Bien Phu. Horseshit! Having learned NO lessons from either World War about fixed positions, and completely underestimating their opponent YET AGAIN, the French lost at Dien Bien Phu. Most of the troops there, BTW, Molly, were Foreign Legion WHO ARE NOT, BY LAW, ALLOWED TO BE FRENCH. And there are no lessons we DID NOT learn from this battle. We won every battle we fought in Vietnam. We lost the war in Washington, not in Vietnam.

Then came Algeria. As nasty a war as has ever been fought. If you have seen the film Battle of Algiers, you have some idea. Five generations of pieds noirs, French colonialists, thought it was their country. All you know about it is from a movie? Moron! How long have your people lived in the United States, Molly? A lot less than five generations? How would you feel if the Apaches decided to revolt and throw you out? Algeria was the first Islamic insurgency, and it took place in a state of the Republic of France. Not a colony, not a territory, but an actual part of France. Just like California is to the United States, Molly.

Charles de Gaulle came back into power in 1958, specifically elected to keep Algeria French. I consider de Gaulle’s long, slow, delicate, elephantine withdrawal (de Gaulle even looked like an elephant) one of the single greatest acts of statesmanship in history. Only de Gaulle could have done that. One of the greatest acts of deceit and abandonment of principles in history. de Gaulle did the equivalent of giving New Mexico back to the Apaches. This is the type of French behavior we’re talking about, Molly. No moral fiber, there, just a steady and reliable willingness to SURRENDER!

Those were the years when France learned about terrorism. The plastiquers were all over Paris. The “plastic” bombs, the ones you can stick like Play-Do underneath the ledge of some building, were the popular weapon du jour. It made Israel today look tame. For France, terrorism is “Been there, done that.” Only in your tiny mind does it make Israel look tame. Far more damage, far more bombings, far more deaths in Israel. And the whole “Been there, done that” thing. Molly, that really applies to the French citizens that French government officials turned over to the Nazi during World War Two. They experienced terrorism unlike any YOU have ever seen.

The other night on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, who fought in France and certainly has a right to be critical, chided the French for forgetting all that sacrifice. But I think he got it backward: The French remember too well. They sure don’t show it very often, Molly. Despite OUR sacrifices, they’ve been a very unreliable friend, and more often than not, a thorn in our side.

I was in Paris on Sept. 11, 2001. The reaction was so immediate, so generous, so overwhelming.

Not just the government, but the people kept bringing flowers to the American embassy. They covered the American Cathedral, the American Church, anything they could find that was American.

They didn’t just leave flowers — they wrote notes with them. I read more than 100 of them. Not only did they refer, again and again, to Normandy, to never forgetting, but there were even some in ancient, spidery handwriting referring to WWI: “Lafayette is still with you.” That’s right. Because when he went home, your Revolution threw him in prison.

Look, the French are not a touchy-feely people. They’re more, like, logical. For them to approach total strangers in the streets who look American and hug them is seriously extraordinary. I got patted so much I felt like a Labrador retriever. I wish Andy Rooney had been there. Only you could describe the French as logical. Even they don’t, Molly.

This is where I think the real difference is. We Americans are famously ahistorical. We can barely be bothered to remember what happened last week, or last month, much less last year. Nonsense. We remember the Civil War, the Alamo, the Maine. We remember too well. We remember our friends and our enemies. Is France our friend?

The French are really stuck on history. (Some might claim this is because the French are better educated than we are. I won’t go there.) The French really suck at history. They refuse to learn from it. The repeat the same mistakes over and over. They’re on their Fifth Republic, Molly, we’re still on our first. That alone says that they’re not very good at history.

Does it not occur to anyone that these are very old friends of ours, trying to tell us what they think they know about being hated by weak enemies in the Third World? “What they think they know”. Yeah, that’s right. Tell us about caving in to terror. Tell us about losing, over and over, the same old way. Tell us about your racism and condescending attitude to the Third World. Tell us how to fail, as a world power and as a moral leader. We’re learning from your example, France, so just keep talking.

CLUE BATS! ALERT!

Chuck Simmins — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 01:17:10 +0000

FROM THE DENVER POST.COM
From this point on, my comments are in bold.
WARNING! Gibberish Alert! The column about to be fisked is apparently not written in English.

Tuesday, February 11, 2003 – At the United Nations, they covered “Guernica.” That tells you something. Yeah, what’s happening in front is important. So?

Thousands of pages of intelligence reports and hours of speeches, debates, rallies and demonstrations will have their effects, inching public opinion along by degrees. But nothing moves people like art. It’s subversive. Perhaps I slept through art appreciation? Art is whatever the individual believes it to be. Guernica, for example, is a stern warning about what happens when dictators are allowed to attack other nations.

Politicians know this.

So does Harvy Blanks.Who?

Blanks is an actor who can feel it when the audience sighs knowingly, laughs nervously or sits too quietly. He notices it when someone in the 10th row leans forward to hear him breathe or when a patron nervously tiptoes out of the theater before the end of the first act. He knows it when he’s bombing like a bad night in Dresden. Yeah, he reads his audiance… ummmm, not so well, read on about where he’s performing.

He understands instinctively why it’s easier for our leaders to plunge the world into war if we’re all numbly watching “Joe Millionaire” and “The Bachelorette.” Huh? Gibberish alert! A) It’s not a world war. B) We’re not all watching those shows. C) some of us have been badgering these bery same leaders for months to get off their arses and do something. Hardly a plunge.

If we’re feeling the hair on the back of our neck tingle from the image of U.N. Security Council members talking of invading Baghdad under Picasso’s mural depicting chaos, terror and death, that’s a problem. Evoking what? Fear? My neck hairs tingled, with pride at Secretary Powell’s presentation. The only people who should have had tingly neck hairs are Saddam and his Tikrit thuggocracy.

We might admit to our ambivalence. Better to remain in denial. In other words, many people might admit they don’t give a rat’s ass about Iraq.

“The hardest thing to do is to be honest to yourself,” said Blanks, who plays the part of the eccentric, profane Stool Pigeon in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of “King Hedley II.” “The next hardest thing is to have someone tell you the truth when you don’t want to hear it. Art has a way of exploding our conceits.” Conceited people are artists? Hey, you actors have been telling us for weeks now how stupid we are for not seeing things your way. Why not take your own advice. Maybe you need to hear the truth.
Notice that this actor is appearing in regional theater. Damn, he must be good!

Politics reinforces them. Is that why so many actors profess to be experts on politics?

While politicians carefully parse their words and stay on message, art says the unspeakable. Or, the unnecessary. Staying on message is good. Being off message is acting.

And because it’s only art after all and not life, it catches us off guard. Huh? Oh, sorry, caught me off guard with that bit of nonsense.

“God is a bad mother,” Blanks’ character says in “King Hedley II.” It’s an expression of awe, frustration, alienation, acceptance, understanding, reverence, confrontation. I guess you hadda be there.

It’s a cry from the inner city you can’t help but hear. Yeah, sure, right out of the Old Testament. Must have missed that cry someplace amidst the crack whores and gangsta’s.

Like “Guernica,” it gets inside your head. ECHOOOOOOOOO… echoooooooooo. Yep, it’s inside their heads.

Art may not be entirely rational, or maybe it’s hyper-rational, because unlike politics, it requires people to be objective. Huh? Gibberish alert! Art requires people to be objective. When in hell was that ever the case? Art is about emotions, you said so above. Now it’s about rationality?

“That’s what you have to do with art – you have to take it in and absorb it,” Blanks said. “And there’s something about that process that makes us grow.” I get e-mails for that all the time, but I’m quite satisfied with the size of both my breasts and my penis. Thank you very much.

With luck and good timing, a work of art can cut through the spin and make us see our lives differently, or at least within a broader context. Or, it can cover up that nasty hole in the plaster in the upstairs bath.

“The Quiet American” does this. Where does this come from? Way outa left field, here.

While there’s not much about Iraq that compares with Vietnam in 1952, no one leaving a screening of the movie can feel comfortable about another war.Huh? A movie about a French colony during a guerrilla war makes me feel bad about eliminating Saddam? DON’T THINK SO!

It’s complicated for sure – and it’s fiction – but it resonates long after you leave. That’s the buttered popcorn, silly.

“Art is something that endures beyond our own ignorance,” Blanks said. “You can’t kill it. You may think it’s not having an effect on you, but it is.” Like a virus, see. Say, smallpox, released by Iraqis. You go along all feeling good and stuff, then, BAM, you’re dead. I totally get where you’re coming from, dude.

Even if the effect is only that you feel compelled to debate it. Damn, tricked again. This must be art cause I’m debating it…

“This incident at the U.N., these people who are trying to send us into oblivion,” Blanks said, “Picasso was having an effect on them.” Mr. Actor, sir, you’re working in regional theater in Denver. You already are in oblivion. And, Picasso is still dead.
The effect was that the damn painting was distracting on television. You know, like wearing stripes. It was covered so that the cameras would only see the speechmakers.

They hung the curtain and blocked it out so they could focus on the message: the murky photos of weapons installations in Iraq and the sounds of audio intercepts of Iraqi officials. Yeah, like he said…

“Guernica” was off-message. Distracting. A Coca Cola ad in the background would have been distracting too.

If we saw it, it might “distract” us from “Joe Millionaire” and “The Bachelorette,” and from defining war in simplistic terms like good and evil. It’s not simplistic. Saddam is evil, the definition of evil, Satan’s bum boy. Why can’t you see that? How many Iraqis does he have to gas, rape, torture, kill?

If we saw it, we might be distracted by the unspeakable truth. Lot’s of us speak the truth, everyday. You just wouldn’t know it if you fell over it. You and your toady friends have no conception of the meaning of evil, true, undisguised evil. In your tiny gray world, Saddam and the Tikrit thuggocracy are no different than anyone else. Misunderstood and unappreciated. Forced to do regional theater in Denver… Oops…
And, hey, Mr. Actor, we ALL know you’d kill for a gig like “Joe Millionare” or “The Bachelorette”. So, quit bullshitting us. Your principles end at the stage door, don’t they?

THE YAK OF THE TOWN

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 04 Feb 2003 22:57:20 +0000

From the February 10, 2003 issue of the New Yorker, a column by Hendrik Hertzberg
Caution! This column may cause drowsiness or vomiting. Bold items from this point on are my commentary.

The most tasteless passage in last week’s State of the Union Message came about half an hour into the speech, as President Bush was enumerating his Administration’s successes against Al Qaeda. Three thousand suspected terrorists have been arrested, he said. “And many others have met a different fate,” he went on. “Let’s put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.” Talk about smoking guns. You could almost see the President blowing across the upturned barrel of his Colt .45.And people cheered, Hendrik! We WANT our enemies dead, a greasy splat on the desert of Yemen.

This was not the first Clint Eastwood moment in the history of the modern Presidency. “Go aheadâ€”make my day,” Ronald Reagan said, back in 1985. “Read my lips,” added his Vice-President, George H. W. Bush, in accepting the Republican Presidential nomination in 1988. But they were merely promising to veto tax bills. Their bravado came with a twinkle. Bush the younger was talking about extrajudicial killings. So? In the next paragraph you praise them. Why the smarminess?

Under certain conditionsâ€”when the targets are known terrorists, arrest is not a practical option, and the risk to innocent civilians is smallâ€”such killings can be preferable to permitting escape. But for the President to boast of them so flippantly was not exactly an example of the moral clarity that is supposed to be his specialty. “They are no longer a problem.” This sounded less like Reagan or Bush the elder than likeâ€”Well, let’s put it this way. In a chilling account of Saddam Hussein’s cruelties in the Times a couple of days before the speech, John F. Burns identified one of the dictator’s favorite maxims: “If there is a person, then there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem.” Ah, I see your point. An elected George Bush is morally equivalent to a dictator, Saddam Hussein. NOT! Their common ground seems to be that in a selected instance they spoke in short sentences.

The President’s swagger is the sort of thing that Europeans, especially “old” Europeans, have in mind when they grumble that our President is a callow cowboy. Hendrik, if you can walk the walk, you can talk the talk. The Untied States is the big guy here, and the Axis of Weasels knows it. So they whine about cowboys. They need a little political Viagara, I think. But the difficulty goes beyond the personality of George W. Bush. One cannot spend time in any of the other developed democracies without being struck by the damage the Administration’s wise-guy unilateralism has done, not only on the issue of Iraq but also on strategically marginal topics like the Kyoto environmental agreement, family planning, and the International Criminal Court. Everyone expected this pattern to change after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Huh? September 11 was going to change our position on Kyoto? What alternate reality did you fall out of? In what way would a terrorist attack influence our policies on family planning? Other than, of course, to ensure that the terrorists could never father one. It didn’t. The opportunity presented by Europe’s instinctive solidarityâ€”epitomized by NATO’s decision to invoke, for the first time ever, the provision of its charter declaring that an attack against one is an attack against allâ€”has been wasted. Can’t count, huh, Hendrik? Looks like most of Europe is with us, in the War on Terrorism, and in the coming liberation of Iraq. Only France and Germany are the odd men out. It’s only natural that Europe, absorbed in creating a continental order based on nonviolent shared sovereignty, and the United States, whose unmatched military power confers unmatched responsibility, should view the world differently. Let me know when Europe manages to create continental order, will you? Seems to me what they’re working on is a Greater Framany or Gigantic Germance, and screw the other nations and people of Europe. Some degree of American unilateralism is inescapable. But this Administration seldom bothers to observe the minimal decencies. In other words, we don’t act like the sun rises out of France’s ass. Europeans remain proud of their participation in Afghanistan (just last week, Norwegian F-16s saw action in a battle against a holdout pro-Taliban warlord), but they have been steadily pushed toward seeing the struggle against terrorism as America’s war, not theirs. Oh, and the recent arrests in England, Spain and Italy mean nothing? Only the Germans seem to be releasing terrorists, everybody else is arresting them as fast as they can.

In the days after Bush’s speech there was much discussion of whether he had “made the case.” But the real question, whatever Bush says, is whether there is a case. Huh? In that connection, last week’s most important speech was not the State of the Union. It was the report the day before by Hans Blix, of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and it was not the whitewash that conservative commentators had preÃ«mptively decided it would be. In its drip-drip-drip way, the Blix report is completely consistent with the view that the Iraqi regime is coÃ¶perating only to the minimal extent required to avoid immediate attack and that it has no intention of giving up its murderous ambitions. The closest Blix gets to a conclusionâ€”and it may be close enoughâ€”comes in this sentence: “Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptanceâ€”not even todayâ€”of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.” To put what Blix is saying another way, if the Iraqi regime continues to resist disarmament then it must expect war. Even if one distrusts the Bush Administration, it’s hard to disagree. Yeah, you got that right.

It’s also hard to disagree with the case for leaving the inspection regime in place for a time. As Blix reports, in two months UNMOVIC has built its staff in Iraq from zero to two hundred and sixty. It has eight helicopters and will soon have the use of unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles and U-2 aircraft. The chances of a conclusive discovery, or of a conclusive Iraqi effort to thwart one, are growing. A little more time, especially if it comes with a Security Council resolution unambiguously authorizing force if Iraq does not unambiguously disarm, would mitigate the damage to allied unity, lessen the (largely self-created) isolation of the United States, and create a basis for international burden-sharing in the rebuilding of Iraq. That’s OK. We need another couple of weeks to get all the troops there, anyway. And, with most of Europe, Australia, and the Gulf States solidly behind us, we’re not isolated. In fact, it’s you and your friends in Germance or Framany that are increasingly isolated.

The debate over Iraq has focussed almost entirely on the before and the after. What has hardly been discussed is the war itself. The Administration’s hawks and the op-ed falconers say it will be short and relatively bloodless. But wars seldom unfold as planned. Twelve years ago, Saddam’s forces were massed in an empty desert. Today, though weaker, they are scattered throughout a thickly populated country the size of Germany. A war plan leaked last week to David Martin, of CBS News, calls for up to eight hundred cruise-missile strikes during the first two daysâ€”twice as many as during the forty days of the Gulf War. Martin quotes a Pentagon official as saying, “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad.” The plan is called “Shock and Awe,” and its goal is “the psychological destruction of the enemy’s will to fight.” Or perhaps that is merely the goal of the leak. But any campaign is likely to begin with bombs over Baghdad. Many people will die. And if Iraq’s response to the bombing of its capital city is more like London’s in 1940 or Hanoi’s in 1966 than like Belgrade’s in 1999â€”if its Army’s will is stiffened rather than brokenâ€”then no one can say how much suffering and death might follow. The difference, Hendrik, is that precision bombing is not the same as carpet bombing. If the people of Baghdad see the local secret police blown up and the local school safe, they may draw the conclusion that liberation from Saddam is indeed at hand. And, Hendrik, people die in a war. It can be prevented. Saddam can comply fully and immediately with the United Nations. Or, he and his thuggocracy can flee into exile. Or Saddam can suffer a .45 caliber headache.

The other day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was reminded that his boss is in bed by ten and sleeps like a baby. Powell reportedly replied, “I sleep like a baby, tooâ€”every two hours I wake up screaming.” The President’s serenity is more worrying than the General’s anxiety is comforting. And the storm approaches. A nice story, if true. A little too self serving, though. Besides, it’s Powell’s job to worry. That’s what they pay him for, and all the other Cabinet members. I want my Commander in Chief well rested, confident and sure of himself. And George Bush is.

John Pilger, Lackwit

Chuck Simmins — Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:36:29 +0000

From The Mirror

PILGER: BLAIR IS A COWARD

Jan 29 2003

John Pilger: His most damning verdict on Tony Blair

My comments in bold from this point on

William Russell, the great correspondent who reported the carnage of imperial wars, may have first used the expression “blood on his hands” to describe impeccable politicians who, at a safe distance, order the mass killing of ordinary people. Hmmm… this is the guy Bismark gave the Iron Cross to. Odd, don’t you think? And he was knighted, hardly done for a foe of imperialism. Perhaps his views weren’t quite so clear cut?

In my experience “on his hands” applies especially to those modern political leaders who have had no personal experience of war, like George W Bush, who managed not to serve in Vietnam, and the effete Tony Blair. John, in both your nation and ours, elected civilians control the military. That’s the way it ought to be.

There is about them the essential cowardice of the man who causes death and suffering not by his own hand but through a chain of command that affirms his “authority”. So, in order to have any moral authority, your leaders must do the killing with their own bare hands? I guess that means Saddam is the brave one here, because he has actually killed people with his own hands. No coward there!

In 1946 the judges at Nuremberg who tried the Nazi leaders for war crimes left no doubt about what they regarded as the gravest crimes against humanity.

The most serious was unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state that offered no threat to one’s homeland. Then there was the murder of civilians, for which responsibility rested with the “highest authority”.

Blair is about to commit both these crimes, for which he is being denied even the flimsiest United Nations cover now that the weapons inspectors have found, as one put it, “zilch”.

Like those in the dock at Nuremberg, he has no democratic cover. Other than UN Resolution 1441, and several others that maintain that Iraq is the outlaw regime here.

Using the archaic “royal prerogative” he did not consult parliament or the people when he dispatched 35,000 troops and ships and aircraft to the Gulf; he consulted a foreign power, the Washington regime. First, if you want to get rid of such perogatives, get a written constitution. Second, the term you’re searching for regarding consultation is “ally”. It’s similar in use to “friend” or “companion”.

Unelected in 2000, the Washington regime of George W Bush is now totalitarian, captured by a clique whose fanaticism and ambitions of “endless war” and “full spectrum dominance” are a matter of record. Gee, I seem to remember an election, lots of votes. I also recall another election in Novermber of 2002, and there seems to be this thing called a Congress, elected… What part of all that is totalitarian? The rest of the paragraph seems to be semanticly null.

All the world knows their names: Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Perle, and Powell, the false liberal. Bush’s State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: “I must have war.” He then had it. Bush addressed the elected representatives of the freeist nation on earth. Some of whom lost no time in speaking out against his ideas. I fail to see a valid comparison to Hitler.

To call Blair a mere “poodle” is to allow him distance from the killing of innocent Iraqi men, women and children for which he will share responsibility. As opposed to the killing of innocent Iraqi men, women and children for which Saddam is responsible? I’ve seen the pictures from the gassed villages, have you, Johnnie boy?

He is the embodiment of the most dangerous appeasement humanity has known since the 1930s. The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times, although this distinction ought not to let us forget that they have merely accelerated more than half a century of unrelenting American state terrorism: from the atomic bombs dropped cynically on Japan as a signal of their new power to the dozens of countries invaded, directly or by proxy, to destroy democracy wherever it collided with American “interests”, such as a voracious appetite for the world’s resources, like oil. Pilger, your offering of this sort of bilge puts you in league with the great mass murders of our time, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. You wouldn’t know state terrorism if it bit you in the ass. Your idea of state terrorism is when you get “told off” for speeding on the M1. Why don’t you ask, oh, say, the Bulgarians or the Jews of Baghdad about terrorism?

When you next hear Blair or Straw or Bush talk about “bringing democracy to the people of Iraq”, remember that it was the CIA that installed the Ba’ath Party in Baghdad from which emerged Saddam Hussein. Forty years ago

“That was my favourite coup,” said the CIA man responsible. When you next hear Blair and Bush talking about a “smoking gun” in Iraq, ask why the US government last December confiscated the 12,000 pages of Iraq’s weapons declaration, saying they contained “sensitive information” which needed “a little editing”.

Sensitive indeed. The original Iraqi documents listed 150 American, British and other foreign companies that supplied Iraq with its nuclear, chemical and missile technology, many of them in illegal transactions. In 2000 Peter Hain, then a Foreign Office Minister, blocked a parliamentary request to publish the full list of lawbreaking British companies. He has never explained why. Because most of the companies were French and German, not British and American. And, how, in 2000, was Mr. Hain supposed to release a list that was created in 2002?

As a reporter of many wars I am constantly aware that words on the page like these can seem almost abstract, part of a great chess game unconnected to people’s lives.

The most vivid images I carry make that connection. They are the end result of orders given far away by the likes of Bush and Blair, who never see, or would have the courage to see, the effect of their actions on ordinary lives: the blood on their hands.

Let me give a couple of examples. Waves of B52 bombers will be used in the attack on Iraq. In Vietnam, where more than a million people were killed in the American invasion of the 1960s, I once watched three ladders of bombs curve in the sky, falling from B52s flying in formation, unseen above the clouds.

They dropped about 70 tons of explosives that day in what was known as the “long box” pattern, the military term for carpet bombing. Everything inside a “box” was presumed destroyed.

When I reached a village within the “box”, the street had been replaced by a crater.

I slipped on the severed shank of a buffalo and fell hard into a ditch filled with pieces of limbs and the intact bodies of children thrown into the air by the blast.

The children’s skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. A small leg had been so contorted by the blast that the foot seemed to be growing from a shoulder. I vomited.

I am being purposely graphic. This is what I saw, and often; yet even in that “media war” I never saw images of these grotesque sights on television or in the pages of a newspaper.

I saw them only pinned on the wall of news agency offices in Saigon as a kind of freaks’ gallery.

OK, Vietnam. Fought poorly, but lost only because we abandoned our allies. South Vietnam fell to armored columns crossing the demilitarized zone from the North.
Carpet bombing killed people. Sometimes we dropped bombs around civilians, usually because that’s where the enemy also was. And, you’re the moron that tripped over a water buffalo. What are you madder about, that we accidentally killed children, or that you got dirty? I can’t tell.

SOME years later I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange.

It was banned in the United States, not surprisingly for it contained Dioxin, the deadliest known poison. Hardly… not by a long shot. In fact, little evidence that it is a poison at all.

This terrible chemical weapon, which the cliche-mongers would now call a weapon of mass destruction, was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Oh, crap. Just over a third becomes almost half

Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia. Prove it, Johnnie. Prove that it was the Agent Orange. I was born deformed, and no one sprayed my mom with defoliant. It happens.

You never saw these children on the TV news then; they were too hideous for their pictures, the evidence of a great crime, even to be pinned up on a wall and they are old news now.

That is the true face of war. Will you be shown it by satellite when Iraq is attacked? I doubt it.

I was starkly reminded of the children of Vietnam when I travelled in Iraq two years ago. A paediatrician showed me hospital wards of children similarly deformed: a phenomenon unheard of prior to the Gulf war in 1991. There are such wards in the United Kingdom and United States, too. What does it prove?

She kept a photo album of those who had died, their smiles undimmed on grey little faces. Now and then she would turn away and wipe her eyes.

More than 300 tons of depleted uranium, another weapon of mass destruction, were fired by American aircraft and tanks and possibly by the British.

Many of the rounds were solid uranium which, inhaled or ingested, causes cancer. In a country where dust carries everything, swirling through markets and playgrounds, children are especially vulnerable. This issue has been addressed to death elsewhere. It is totally false. The uranium used is not radioactive, and no more dangerous than the normal enviroment.

For 12 years Iraq has been denied specialist equipment that would allow its engineers to decontaminate its southern battlefields.

It has also been denied equipment and drugs that would identify and treat the cancer which, it is estimated, will affect almost half the population in the south. Under the UN program, Iraq could have bought this materail any time it wanted to. Saddam has chosen not to.

LAST November Jeremy Corbyn MP asked the Junior Defence Minister Adam Ingram what stocks of weapons containing depleted uranium were held by British forces operating in Iraq.

His robotic reply was: “I am withholding details in accordance with Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.”

Let us be clear about what the Bush-Blair attack will do to our fellow human beings in a country already stricken by an embargo run by America and Britain and aimed not at Saddam Hussein but at the civilian population, who are denied even vaccines for the children. Last week the Pentagon in Washington announced matter of factly that it intended to shatter Iraq “physically, emotionally and psychologically” by raining down on its people 800 cruise missiles in two days.

This will be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War.

A military strategist named Harlan Ullman told American television: “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad. The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before.”

The strategy is known as Shock and Awe and Ullman is apparently its proud inventor. He said: “You have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but minutes.”

What will his “Hiroshima effect” actually do to a population of whom almost half are children under the age of 14?

The answer is to be found in a “confidential” UN document, based on World Health Organisation estimates, which says that “as many as 500,000 people could require treatment as a result of direct and indirect injuries”. As many as 500,000, as few as ZERO. Learn some statistics.

A Bush-Blair attack will destroy “a functioning primary health care system” and deny clean water to 39 per cent of the population. There is “likely [to be] an outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions”. Why? We have no plans to target hospitals. And, Johnnie, how many Iraqis have clean water now, before we attack? What evidence do you have that we plan to attack water systems?

It is Washington’s utter disregard for humanity, I believe, together with Blair’s lies that have turned most people in this country against them, including people who have not protested before.

Last weekend Blair said there was no need for the UN weapons inspectors to find a “smoking gun” for Iraq to be attacked. Quite correct. It is Saddam’s responsibility under 1441 and the other resolutions to prove that he has disarmed. He has not.

Compare that with his reassurance in October 2001 that there would be no “wider war” against Iraq unless there was “absolute evidence” of Iraqi complicity in September 11. And there has been no evidence. Things change. So do policies. Or else HM Government would still be enforcing the Munich declaration.

Blair’s deceptions are too numerous to list here. He has lied about the nature and effect of the embargo on Iraq by covering up the fact that Washington, with Britain’s support, is withholding more than $5billion worth of humanitarian supplies approved by the Security Council. Prove it. Saddam is allowed to buy such materials. He has never sold as much oil as he was allowed to, nor purchased as much humanitarian supplies as he could. If the US and Britain won’t sell it to him, there are loads of other sellers. He just plain isn’t buying.

He has lied about Iraq buying aluminium tubes, which he told Parliament were “needed to enrich uranium”. The International Atomic Energy Agency has denied this outright. Bullshit. Here’s the reality:
We believe the tubes were destined for the conventional rocket program,” Mohamed ElBaradei told The Associated Press in an interview. “They could be used for enrichment but they need substantial modification before they could be used.” From HERE. And, the rocket programs are illegal under the UN resolutions, too, so no tubes are allowed.

He has lied about an Iraqi “threat”, which he discovered only following September 11 2001 when Bush made Iraq a gratuitous target of his “war on terror”. Blair’s “Iraq dossier” has been mocked by human rights groups. Then why did Clinton use cruise missles on Iraq? Could it be that Iraq has been seen as a threat since its last act of aggression?
Human rights groups? That support homicide bombing in Israel, cannibalism in the Congo, stoning rape victims?

However, what is wonderful is that across the world the sheer force of public opinion isolates Bush and Blair and their lemming, John Howard in Australia. Like, oh, say, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, and of course, the Kurds who actually live under Saddam?

So few people believe them and support them that The Guardian this week went in search of the few who do – “the hawks”. The paper published a list of celebrity warmongers, some apparently shy at describing their contortion of intellect and morality. It is a small list.

IN CONTRAST the majority of people in the West, including the United States, are now against this gruesome adventure and the numbers grow every day. Polls don’t back you, Johnnie boy.

It is time MPs joined their constituents and reclaimed the true authority of parliament. MPs like Tam Dalyell, Alice Mahon, Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway have stood alone for too long on this issue and there have been too many sham debates manipulated by Downing Street.

If, as Galloway says, a majority of Labour backbenchers are against an attack, let them speak up now.

Blair’s figleaf of a “coalition” is very important to Bush and only the moral power of the British people can bring the troops home without them firing a shot. The moral power of the British people stood alone against Hitler, and they can stand against your kind, too.

The consequences of not speaking out go well beyond an attack on Iraq. Washington will effectively take over the Middle East, ensuring an age of terrorism other than their own. Huh? Is this written in English? Semanticly null

The next American attack is likely to be Iran – the Israelis want this – and their aircraft are already in place in Turkey. Then it may be China’s turn. Again, written in English? Israeli planes in Turkey? Or, American planes? Well, ours have been there for fifty years. Hardly a new development, though you might have just noticed. The Iranians are marching for freedom. Sorry to see that you oppose the legitimate democratic asperations of the Iranian people. And… China? Not wearing your tin foil hat again, Johnnie boy? Why would we attack China?

“Endless war” is Vice-President Cheney’s contribution to our understanding. Huh? Since you’ve demonstrated that you don’t understand…

Bush has said he will use nuclear weapons “if necessary”. On March 26 last Geoffrey Hoon said that other countries “can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons”. As has been policy since the 1940′s. Nothing new here. You nuke us, we nuke you. Johnnie boy, you never paid attention in history, did you?

Such madness is the true enemy. What’s more, it is right here at home and you, the British people, can stop it. Wipe the spittle off, Johnnie boy, and take a Valium. You need a nice nappie.
And when you wake up, take a writing course. A well written paragraph usually consists of more than a couple of sentance fragments. You’re supposed to be the writer, not me.

It’s the Jews, the Jews!

Chuck Simmins — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 22:09:32 +0000

Quoted from HERE in the Gulf News Online.
Former U.S. senator and author Paul Findley has said that the September 11 attacks could have been avoided if the United States government had been fair in its dealings with Palestinians and not blindly supported Israel.
Well, first, he was a Congressman from Illinois. Second, bin Laden said it was about Saudi Arabia.

While visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time to promote his book Silent No More, which aims to rectify the image of Islam in the United States, Findely told a large audience and the media here that in 1990 he advised the Arab Americans to vote for George W. Bush to get fair treatment from the United States but unfortunately when Bush was elected he turned a blind eye to Arab issues.

The assumption being that the only issue that matters to Arabs is Israel. Wrong right from the start.

“The President of the United States is not taking a fair stand with both the Arabs and Israelis. He has ignored the Arabs and is blindly supporting the Israelis. Despite the rejections of the Americans towards the new stand of the U.S. government, the President is running the show without even seeking the support of the people,” Findley said.

Hmmm, then why the dozens of speeches about Iraq, and the War on Terror, and the many, many appearances on new shows by Administration members? And, oddly, too, the polls seem to show he has the support of the American people.

“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this doctrine is that the authority for pre-emptive acts of war lies exclusively with one person who happens to be the President of the United States.

It’s called the Constitution. As a former Congressman, you might have some familiarity with the document. For one thing, it allows you to be the public asswipe you are without fear of retribution from the government.

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American government has started seeking another enemy, which now is Islam.”

Which is why they attacked us first? If you’re worried about preemption, look at what the Islamofascists did.

Elaborating on the Bush administration’s “overreaction” to the September 11 attacks, Findley said: “Their over-reaction has led to racial profiling, detention without charge, the fingerprinting of people and wiretapping which has become a fact of life.”

Oh, have you been detained or fingerprinted? How about recognizing that if you are in this country illegally, you might, just might, get arrested for it? Or if you sell forged documents, or stolen credit cards? Or if you went to Afghanistan and trained with bin Laden?

He observed that Americans by and large continue to remain ignorant of the real world situation.

Crap! Most Americans have a pretty good idea of the world situation. Most of the world could screw up getting out of bed in the morning. That’s why they need our money, our soldiers, our blood shed, so that they can stay free, and stupid.

“They have been misled by the American media, which is controlled by the Jewish lobby. They believe in what they see in the media and do not get to know what’s actually happening in Israel. I must say that people in America should know the truth.”

The Jews! The Jews! Come on, Mr. Congressman, why don’t you just call for the camps and get it over with?

Speaking on Silent No More, Findely said he had spent more than two years on it and published it a month prior to the September attacks.

See the next paragraph, then read this one again.

“I wrote it because I realised that the false image of Islam is the most critical problem standing in the way of reform of Middle East policies. The Americans should know exactly that Islam is a religion of peace, justice, and charity.

ROTFL. The echo you hear is his voice, because his head is so far up his ass…

“Thanks to the media, Americans think that Muslims are a bunch of terrorists which really justifies the brutal treatment of Israel to the innocent Palestinians.”

No, actually it justifies our treatment of a bunch of brutal terrorists. How many Jewish children are blowing themselves up in Palestinian coffee bars?

He also stressed the importance of Arabs to take a greater role in order to correct the image of Islam in the United States.

Yeah, toss out rule by Islamic law. Banish religion from politics. Accept Israel’s right to exist and be secure. Stop murdering your children and raping your women in the name of your God. Then, maybe we’ll start to see Islam in a different light.
Oh, by the way, Congressman, there are a whole shit load of Moslems that aren’t Arabs. Take some of the blood money you’ve received from your Arab buddies and buy a clue!