Learning to Live With the Ayatollahs

We should call this the Boomerang War. Bush threw it, but it keeps coming back and hitting us all on the head. A defanged secular dictatorship has been replaced with the anarchy of a deadly civil war between competing bands of religious fanatics. The most likely model now is Iranian-style theocracy as the majority Shiite population has turned to political parties and armed militias groomed, trained and nurtured by the fundamentalist ayatollahs across the Iranian border. Confirmation of this militant Shiite takeover was provided in a confidential memo by White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (posted Wednesday on The New York Times website), stating that Prime Minister Maliki has been either ineffective in opposing or secretly supporting the takeover of Baghdad by fanatical Shiite militias.

Robert Scheer | truthdig

November 30th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

That Hitler’s acts were evil and had to be stopped by military means is disputed by few, but the current portrayals of the era are curiously a-historical. Lost in today’s renditions are the role of U.S. corporations in arming Hitler’s war machine, the place that the draconian peace terms enacted by France, Britain and the U.S. after World War I had in stimulating xenophobia in Germany, and capitalism’s near collapse in the ’30s. Virulent nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism had long and ugly histories in Europe, but U.S. policy, practices and institutions were far from innocent and above reproach.

John Buell | Bangor Daily News

November 29th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

Ten Fallacies About the Violence in Iraq

1. The U.S. is a buffer against more violence. This is perhaps the most resilient conjecture that has no basis in fact.

Iraqis themselves do not believe it. In a State Department poll published in September, huge majorities say the U.S. is directly responsible for the violence. The upsurge of bloodshed in Baghdad seems to confirm the Iraqis’ view, at least by inference. The much-publicized U.S. effort to bring troops to Baghdad to quell sectarian killing has accompanied a period of increased mortality in the city.

John Tirman | AlterNet

November 28th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

The Only Brave Thing to Do

The one way that DOESN’T work is to invade a country and tell the people, “We are here to liberate you!” — when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam’s convoy passed them by? I guess ol’ Saddam was a cruel despot — but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. “Oh no, Mike, they couldn’t do that! Saddam would have had them killed!” Really? You don’t think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don’t think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn’t stop them. When tens of thousands aren’t willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren’t going to be willing participants when you decide you’re going to do the liberating for them.

Michael Moore | MichaelMoore.com

November 27th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

All Praises to the Pause

It is the woman who says: Stop. We have enough firewood and canoes, don’t cut down any more trees. Stop. We have enough meat; don’t kill any more animals. Stop. This war is stupid and using up too many of our resources. Stop. Perkins says that when the Swa are brought to this culture they observe that it is almost completely masculine. That the men have cut down so many trees and built so many excessively tall buildings that the forest itself is dying; they have built roads without end and killed animals without number. When, ask the Swa, are the women going to say Stop?

Alice Walker | In These Times

November 26th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

What is the Point of Iraq Deaths?

My mother used to tell me when I was very young a story about the last American to die on Nov. 11, 1918, at 10:59 in the morning. It was an urban folk tale of that era, doubtless, though indeed there was an American who was the last victim of the war. His death was pointless, that was the sentimental irony of the story. But so was the death of everyone else who died in that absurd, insane mass murder. The “Great Powers” of Europe stumbled into the war because of a toxic mix of arrogance and ignorance and couldn’t find a way out of it. Nothing was settled, the war went into a recess to be renewed 20 years later with even more demonic fury.

Andrew Greeley | Chicago Sun-Times

November 25th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||

In the Shadow of Ho Chi Minh

Now, however, Vietnam is at peace with its neighbors and poses no security threat to the United States. Many of the “boat people” have returned as investors, and successive American presidents have made visits to the second fastest-growing economy in Asia. While Vietnam is still run by its Communist Party, eventually postwar leaders on both sides have accepted that peace is practical.The lesson of Vietnam is not to keep pouring lives and treasure down a dark and poisonous well, but to patiently use a pragmatic mix of diplomacy and trade with even our ideological competitors.

Robert Scheer | Truthdig

November 24th, 2006 || PermaLink || ||


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