Letters to the Editor
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Hmmm. Al Qaida ups bounty for death of Swedish cartoonist to $150,000.
The al-Qaida leader upped the reward for Vilks' death to $150,000 if he was "slaughtered like a lamb" and offered $50,000 for the killing of the editor of Nerikes Allehanda, the Swedish paper that printed Vilks' cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog's body on Aug. 19. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/15/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Sweden-Al-Qaida.php
I'd say this is one reason "Opus" got pulled by the Washington Post. It certainly wasn't because of concern for offense, given the same strip's joke about Falwell a couple weeks earlier. Maybe Glenn should write another post about why this kind of stuff isn't of concern. Apparently Al Qaida wasn't paying attention. Heh. -
Gee, Anti-islamist 9/11 protesters beaten in Brussels. Including member of European Parliment.
Riots by Muslim youth - OK
Protests of Islamization by guys in suits - Criminal
But hey, this is meaningless right? Move along, nothing to see here. Heh.
http://www.nowpublic.com/politics/and-shariah-all -
So now our overlords
through the Mouth of Bush, have announced the "Enduring Relationship" they want with Iraq -- read, Permanent Occupation -- as a central location and motor for the so-called Transformation of the Middle East.
All the changes they seek in their campaign of remaking the Middle East to their liking will be generated from and through the forced transformation of Iraq.
Curiously, that's what Saddam all about -- forcing the reluctant and resistant Iraqi peoples into the 20th century, stamping out their backwards and self-destructive cultural and religious tendencies, bringing up-to-date services to the people, developing a Modern Arab tradition, as well as uniting the disparate peoples of his cobbled together land in a secular political construct. An autocracy to be sure, but one based in Arab society and culture, yet divorced, insofar as possible, from the authority of the mosque and the Imams.
Saddam was only partially successful, but his goals were not particularly different than those of the United States government today: rebuild Iraq into a modern, globally integrated exemplar of Middle Eastern Transformation.
To the extent he was successful, however, the transformation of Iraq was at least partially due to his use of force domestically, sometimes very heavy-handed and bloody, but often apparently quite limited and almost benign. Resistance to his rule was crushed to be sure, yet those who went along with his program could be handsomely rewarded, without regard to sect or tribe or ethnicity. His was a secular autocracy, bordering on totalitarianism, not necessarily welcome by all the people, and yet clearly better able to handle the many centrifugal forces of Iraq than the present chaotic occupation by American forces and their mercenary hirelings.
The program in Iraq today appears to be one of destroying most of the secular Saddamist transformation legacy, killing or driving out most of the Saddamist experts and technocrats who worked the previous transformation, setting up a clearly inferior puppet government for native affairs only, subject to the diktats of the occupation forces and the crypto-Imperial Household in DC, and looting whatever treasure from the tattered remnants of Iraq that can be found and transported, particularly oil of course, but certainly not limited to it.
There is no vision of transformation under occupation, in other words, apart from ever more chaos, bloodshed, and destruction. The image we get from all the prattle is one of almost unimaginable horror, to continue indefinitely, permanently, until the Mesopotamian satrapy is "transformed" completely into a smoking ruin and charnel house. Rebuilding, which was always little more than a hastily conceived stage set anyway, was abandoned long ago. The destruction, whether committed by Our Mighty Forces of Liberation or by the actions of shadowy terrorists and/or resistance fighters, continues day after day, relentlessly, and the stacks of Iraqi bodies overflow what's left of the dilapidated morgues.
A million or more of the natives are dead so far, millions upon millions internally displaced or exiled out of the country. Whole cities destroyed, their peoples dispersed or killed. Tens of thousands rounded up and languishing in euphemisitically called Detention Camps. Millions of widows and orphans. Disease and malnourishment rampant. This is a society forced into reversion, decline, and now being forced toward extinction.
It's not the "birth" of anything; it's instead the extermination of everything that went before, the wiping clean of the slate.
And then, perhaps, something new will be allowed to rise from the ruin.
Or maybe not. It's really hard to discern what our overlords are thinking here, or whether they are thinking at all. Once started on their destructive and murderous path, they seem unable to quit, or even contemplate quitting. The concept of "enough" doesn't enter their minds. Nor do they seem to understand that they have the power to end their horror show at any time.
So, if they can't or won't do the right thing, ultimately the People have to take the Power from them. That's happening now, slowly and haltingly, with many missteps and much backsliding. Trepedation is the better part of wisdom for the moment, for Americans are conditioned to acceed to authority, even one as clearly deranged as we have over us now. Breaking free of that conditioning is deeply disorienting and frought with fears of the unknown. But break free we must.
Or we'll find the misery of the Middle East will be nothing but a foretaste of something far worse brought home.
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General Strike November 6th 2007
Which article by Garret Keizer? What month did it appear? I did a search on their web pages and nothing with Garret Keizer and/or General Strike Nov. 6 shows up. Wanna share a bit more information?
It's in the October issue of Harpers, page 9. It's apparently not on the web site yet. There is a lot of discussion of it on this page: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004180.php
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I ... can't ... do ... it ....
I read your columns from this whole week today, Glenn, as recent changes in my employment situation (read "I got a new job") have prevented me from reading daily as is my wont.
I am completely amazed by the short or complete lack of memory of the American public - and particularly the media - in regards to the similarity between this and Westmoreland's trip here in 1967, just a few months before the Tet offensive.
It is my understanding that the US won every major military encounter with the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese forces throughout the entire Vietnamese conflict. In much the same way that we have done in Iraq. Our American troops, in their multi million dollar tanks with night vision goggles and the full force of the American military industrial complex behind them, will always win direct battles with military forces.
But WE ARE NOT FIGHTING MILITARY FORCES. And we are losing every battle that counts. The American people don't want us to stay there. The Iraqi people don't want us to stay there. And Bin Laden (remember Bin Laden? this is supposed to be a song about Bin Laden.) is apparently relaxing in some cozy mountain hideaway in Pakistan with a video camera and CNN. He also apparently has a hard time finding reliable source material for his pathetic rants, so maybe he has the interwebs on a global satellite dial up and is relying on conservapedia for his information.
Every time someone invokes the spectre of George McGovern I keep on hoping and praying that someone will get right up in their face and scream loud enough to break some glasses "MCGOVERN WAS RIGHT YOU ASSHOLE!!" McGovern's platform was successfully dubbed "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion" during the 72 campaign, and nobody wanted to vote for that on those terms. Does it matter that he was right?
The salient points:
- repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws and likewise Draconian measures was necessary for a sound drug policy to emerge in this country. Is that even debatable at this point? Mandatory minimums - is there anyone who thinks these are a good idea for drug policy? That this is having any kind of positive effect on our society or in any way reducing drug use?
- people protesting the Vietnam war, up to and including refusing forced induction into the Armed Services (draft dodging) were completely within their rights, as the war had in fact been foisted upon the American public under completely duplicitous terms. Read the Pentagon Papers. the American military and political establishment knew, from the very beginning, that Vietnam was a fucking mess. They just never bothered to tell anyone that when they were fanning the flames of cold war fear with tales of the domino effect.
- Abortion - well, does anyone really think that it was a sign of political suicide to adopt a pro choice position?
McGovern was right, and people didn't listen, and you know what happened? Nixon.
For all those idiots that are trying to spin Vietnam like it was a PR disaster for the US (which it was) - the disaster wasn't Public Relations. The disaster was much more fundamental than that. The problem isn't that we lost a propaganda war; it's that we won it. There are still some people that believe the original propaganda about the damn war.
I think that is the same part of our population that believes that Saddam attacked us on 9/11.
I dunno - sorry for the rant. I just can't help but feel that this all goes farther back than last week, or to Bush v. Gore, or Clinton's semen stain, or Reagan's arming of Iran, or Carter's stunning paralysis.