It always (actually never) surprises me that the mass media adapt unfiltered the language of one side of this conflict so uncritically while totally rejecting the language of its opponent. One result is that the US media (and the media world that it dominates), by echoing White House and military terminology and categories yet ignoring/obscuring/mocking the way the victims of the American campaign articulate their news and reactions to the day's events, the impression is inevitable that somehow the US/media lexicon and accompanying narrative are "universal", normal, unmarked, unrelated to the creepy machiavellianism of the psy-warriors and military-industrial-political complex spin professionals who are in fact its principal authors.

WMD is one of the cynical lexemes of the US-controlled discourse on evil others. It's deceptive and an ideological ploy.

In part this is because the development and historical deployment of such weapons is entirely in the domain of "good guy" Western powers. In part, too, because the hysterically obsessive concern with a few little fire-crackers (WMD) said to be owned or under development by US "enemies" disappears into insignificance when compared to the globe-spanning super-integrated systems for delivering ordnance and waging war at Imperial will. A multi-trillion dollar system for projecting hyper lethal force anywhere in the world at short notice is a truly frightening thing when compared to what a handful of guys (kept largely incommunicado and completely inhuman by the globeal spy and propaganda systems also controlled by the Empire) can do with scavenged ordnance, a handful of cash, and tahlil on the lips.

Mike Davis seems to have walked into this trap with eyes wide shut. Forget the eye irritation caused by a tiny, insular group rummaging around factories for commercial chemicals; focus on the world crushing system whose irresistable squeezing sometimes causes things to blow up under the compression of its own making.

that's really funny.

Have them make cheap cars with all the features of a good car bomb. Lots of truck space, remote detonators, dashboard Mohammed, Allah-OnStar.

I like the earlier post about Detroit. The big 3 need to jump on this or the Japanese will beat them to it. Again.

BTW, anyone notice the lack of Chrysler vehicles in any Iraq photos or footage? I find this totally odd since not too long ago the US military bought at least 5,000 Chrysler Pacificas for the "Coalition and Iraqi" forces in Iraq. Would you like a little pork with your bread and bullets?

Beherend,

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the point of your letter was. Did you even read the article?

OK yeah gee, I guess you're opposed to the war. The big bad "globe-spanning super-integrated systems for delivering ordnance and waging war at Imperial will" as you called it. Not sure you needed to use 14 words to say it, but hey that's great. I'm opposed to the war too -- and I'm an American.

But this article's main point was the inability of the troop "surge" to prevent these use of these weapons. Did you not see that? Did you think that the author was beating a war drum simply because he didn't use 14 lefty, cliched, preachy words to describe American military power?

What disturbed me most about your comment is your trivializing of the subject matter. Dude! If what this article says is true, 78,000 Iraqis have died in this horrible way. Most of whom were shopping for vegetables or sitting in traffic or praying at a mosque. And you say the author's eloquent, incisive article is a "hysterically obsessive concern with a few little fire-crackers".

The fact that this war was a mistake from the beginning doesn't change the fact that these people are fanatical monsters who are happy to murder children. Did you think that the author was beating a war drum by daring mentioning the genuine horror of chlorine car bombs? Weapons like these are what are slaughtering Iraqis wholesale nowadays. What if one exploded in your neighborhood? Would you be out in the street protesting the "hysterically obsessive concern with a few little firecrackers"?

Last month, a single truck bomb killed more than 180 people in a Baghdad market. Not a single American soldier was killed. Should the author just ignore the fact that these terrorists targeted civilians only?

I am an American liberal. I opposed the war from the beginning. I am appalled at our government. I want our troops out as soon as possible. I also have relatives who have served there. Do you?

Beherend, your ideological "purity" does nothing but satisfy your own superiority complex. You solve nothing by being so smug. It must be a simple and uncomplicated world in which you live, where the rivers of blood washing the streets of Baghdad every day are simply a backdrop to the rightous struggle against American imperialism.

The sectarian bloodshed is NOT something you should simply dismiss as though it were a figment of the author's imagination -- in fact, it is an unintended consequence of this misbegotten, inept and unjustified war that bears examination. Some of us value articles like these.

The point was that opposition to the war from within a worldview that accepts the lexicon and categories of the empire is still an essential part of the empire. Your reference to "fanatical monsters" on one side of the conflict but not the other suggests that you belong to that category. There are two fanatical parties at work. Don't help the empire remain invisible to its own citizens by ignoring its fanaticism. Don't allow it to drive the narrative. There's nothing smug or leftist about having a non-Amerocentric base for a critique. Unless you accept American exceptionalism as either fact or useful ideology.

Non- amerocentric? American execptionalism?

Empire? America is a country based on INDIVIDUAL freedom of choice and opinion. That allows for opinions out of mainstream to trive. The EMPIRE is not suppressing anyone. If you feel oppressed for being different be happy.It is your right to be different. Stop spewing 14 word sentences of venom.

Terrorist started this war with us. Religous fanatics hate us, (not U.S., us) because we like freedom. We like individualism. We accept different moral compasses than our own and DO NOT impose our own views. We are not impreialistic. They are murderous monsters. I no longer have peace do to THEM. They will kills us here on our soil if we don't fight. They now kill innocents on their own soil because they fear spread of individual thinking.

Maybe the mistake was we went after Iraq instead of after Iran. The only reason to leave Iraq is to move next door. Maybe the mistake is thinking they don't want to harm us. Clinton was peaceable and sought justice. They just wanted us dead. Bush brought war to them. They want us dead. If we lay down and surrender they will cheer as they slaughter us.

Wow it seems I have more to say than I thought? Sorry for the long letter. Meant to simply ask why you believe the US is an EMPIRE? Why are we the evil and not the murderers?