:: Diary of an Aging Protester ::

:: 5.13.2003 ::

Rumi, You Snake
An article in the Independent today discusses how internal fighting between state and defense depts. has resulted in continuing chaos in Iraq. A few choice tidbits emerged that reveal the complexity of jumpstarting democracy in a sanction-, war-ravaged country. One is that several hundred british and US officials are suffering from a stomach virus that has resulted in vomiting; two is that any time any foreign official goes out and about, he/she is protected by an army of Humvees, loaded down with machine guns, also HQ in Baghdad is a former Hussein residence that is far off the beaten path and a known site of terror. Third, more evidence to reveal how Rumi's lies are not an anomaly but in fact essential to how this admin orchestrates its manuevers in the dark.What I've termed Bush's Pack of Liars . While Rumi is full of bluster and pomp stateside, shoving it in everyone's face as to the beauty of his war plan, some officials in Iraq provide an alternative view. And for whatever reason, my own investment in unveiling the BS of this Supreme Ct. gov't, I tend to side with this version.
One source said: "You will never get anyone to admit this but the US Army was two divisions short for the numbers needed to secure the key sites because of Rumsfeld's philosophy of using uniquely light forces. If we had two more divisions now in Baghdad, and a bit beyond, these security problems would probably go away."

What level of hell do you think Rumi would get given his lust for power, desire for destruction, and advocation of violence?
:: posted by Doreen on 10:41 AM [+] ::
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Eating Raoul
An op-ed written by Jay Bookman for the AJC on May 8th seems to bolster many of the reflections of Salaam Pax in his recent entries about the US occupation of Iraq.

While the president notes that "the transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort," administration officials admit that they don't have enough troops in Iraq to maintain order today, and talk in terms of reducing troop levels by 75 percent -- to roughly 30,000 -- by the fall..


While Pentagon officials acknowledge that our military manpower is stretched thin by Iraq and the demands of empire elsewhere, we obstinately refuse to ease that burden by inviting the United Nations to help in policing Iraq..


And while we boast with good reason about the high-tech weaponry fielded by our military, at last report the civilian Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Baghdad doesn't even have working telephones almost a month after we occupied the city.

We are, in other words, a half-hearted empire, pleased with the power and prestige it brings but unwilling to spend the money, time and manpower to manage it. And half-hearted empires have a very short life expectancy.

I didn't think that this admin had the salt to stand by its promises of supporting the growth of a liberated peoples, but to be so blatantly dishonest about one's intentions is on the level of duplicity that Saddam himself wouldn't even adhere to. What I'm saying is that Saddam's nastiness was never cloaked in the rhetoric of compassionate conservatism that this admin seems to use to bully its way into any political situation that will reap vast sums of rewards for the few, not the many. Yesterday I was deflated while speaking to my sister who for all her smarts has absorbed the condescending attitude that Rumsfeld has been promoting, the one that views Iraqis as infants who are taking their first baby steps into a bright new world called democracy. And I just thought she is representative of the 70% of these pollsters who support what this admin. has done. there is little ability to be critical because there is no reason, only acceptance. When I asked her about the WMDs not being found, she said, Oh I know. And I said, so we were lied to. Bush should be impeached like Clinton. And she said, What? Are you kidding? And I said, he lied to the American people. None of the sites mentioned have had any trace of weapons, and she said, Well, that's because Saddam had them dismantled when the war started. Now why would he dismantle them and not use them? It doesn't make sense. Or why do anything? the whole army seemed to go awol; I can't imagine they were spending time trying to cover up Saddam's evil doings. For what purpose would that serve? But gaps and fissures don't matter. Any possibility of Bush being duplicitous is defanged by the cowboy humor, the twelve step platitudes.
:: posted by Doreen on 4:07 PM [+] ::
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