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Week in Review
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here for "Week in Review" subscription services. Welcome to Issue 7 of "Week in Review."
Monday Sneaking up on the administration, the truth demanded some preemptive damage control about the false uranium claim. After another US soldier was killed in Iraq, Secretary Rumsfeld told America to expect more violence and further asked for more young men and women to station the front lines of Empire. Former General Franks echoed Rumsfeld's remarks, indicating the war is far from over: "'I anticipate we'll be involved in Iraq in the future. Whether that means two years or four years, I don't know. We need to not develop an expectation these difficulties will go away in one month or two months or three months,' he said." In his classic mordant fashion, Matt Barganier was confident in Blair's electoral prospects . . . in Hell: Say you're Tony Blair. You've just deposed the Hitler of the year, spared the world certain annihilation, and hit those stuffy Muslims with a dose of Cool Britannia. This is your moment. You should be living it up..... Yet, instead of any gratitude from your subjects, all you get are impudent questions about "forged" this, "dodgy" that, and "sexed-up" the other. Your old socialist buddies on the Continent don't send you cards on May Day anymore and that hurts, but not as much as being a hometown pariah. Of course, you're a one-worlder who despises localism, national sovereignty, and similar superstitions, but until the U.N. names you secretary-general, you're stuck with an electorate that doesn't appreciate your courage and vision. What's a transnational progressive to do? Tuesday The aptly-named "Niger-gate" has caused the administration's WMD case to crumble. The forces who rid the world of these supposed weapons were told their stay in Iraq was extended into at least late Fall. It appears that the soldiers should heed to the maxim: "The gov't means the opposite of what it says." In this case: "You will be home in 30 - 60 days." India was added to the list of countries that have the guts to stand up to the American government; they rescinded on their promise to send up to 17,000 troops to Iraq. The architects of this war have a frightening intellectual history, which incorporates the notion of the "necessary hegemon." Joseph Stromberg explained: Grunberg writes that neo-realists hold that "cooperation and a well-functioning world economy" require "a structure characterized by the dominance of a single actor. Dominance by a hegemonic power constitutes the optimal situation for ensuring and maintaining an open and stable world economy." She quotes David Calleo's observation, in 1987, that US leaders appeared "ensnared in the fantasy of a reborn Pax Britannica."(2) At this point in the fray, the revelers hand out drinks and toast Great Britain and, now, the United States for having been, or being, just such benevolent overlords of the world system. Wednesday Amazingly, there are some conservatives left to challenge the War Party (beyond those at Antiwar.com) -- they are called the "Comittee for the Republic." Lately, American troops in Iraq disagree with their commander in chief, this time concerning the "overextended" military. Bush seems to think all is well – although he is keeping them in Iraq a lot longer – while troops want a bit more help. When you can't get the "intelligence" to support your case, you may need to create your own "office" to "augment" the CIA, NSA, State Dept. and FBI. Rumsfeld et al.'s "Office of Special Plans" did just that, and may be to blame for all the misleading "evidence" used to support the war. Finally, Jason Leopold revealed the problems with the hawks' mercurial justifications: Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who repressed, murdered and tortured his own people. That and that alone was a good enough reason enough to go to war, according to Bush and his cabal of neoconservatives. But that’s only true if Iraq proved to be an “imminent” threat. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Bush may have meant well, but he lied and lied and lied. Thursday Now it's a "guerilla" war. Of course, the best response to armed resistence to occupation is....more troops! One perk of being the lap-dog of the US administration is a Congressional Gold Medal...awarded to Tony Blair, who spoke to a welcoming House and Senate: If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive. Is it "if" anymore, Mr. Blair? Christopher Deliso discovered the root of interventionism: Forget about the banal political realities behind Blair's squirming. We must seek to explain his rationalization in another way. The victory of violent Western intervention today is a logical conclusion of the liberal Wilsonian doctrine of diplomacy. It implies that since specific universal values are (or should be) shared by all people, these values therefore must be extended – by force, if necessary – to all people. The unfolding situation – all war, all the time – is the predictable correlative of an imposed value system which must destroy that which is different.
Friday Hmmm....I will let the headline do the talking: London: MoD Iraq Weapons Expert Found Dead. "Niger-gate" may have been a product of – you guessed it – a neocon hawk in the Bush administration. His name: Robert Joseph. Who? Justin Raimondo knows. Apparently regime-change is a euphamism for "let-the-guy-get-away-and-don't-mention-him-again": "US Official: Latest Saddam Tape Probably Authentic." Want to criticize the president or Rumsfeld? If you are a US soldier, you better keep quiet, says the commander of the coalition forces. Jacob Hornberger explained the reasoning behind Bush's use of those infamous "16 words": The answer is inescapable: The president’s intent was to terrify the American people into believing that Saddam Hussein had the means to explode a nuclear bomb over some American city — either now or in the immediate future. And who can deny that the president was successful in generating the mind-numbing fear that became a principal reason that Americans supported the invasion of Iraq? Hornberger concludes: The president knowingly and intentionally failed to disclose that material fact when he uttered those 16 words in his State of the Union address, and that critical omission was obviously designed to create a false impression within the minds of the American people. As any lawyer will tell you, that’s fraud. ::Previous
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