[A-List] Fw: COMPARTY: Fw: Happy Imbeciles at War

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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From: "EdikZ" <edikz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "COMPARTY Mailing List" <comparty@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 5:02 PM
Subject: COMPARTY: Fw: Happy Imbeciles at War



----- Original Message -----
From: "unac-discuss" <unac-discuss@xxxxxxxx>
To: "unac-discuss" <unac-discuss@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:28 PM
Subject: FW: Happy Imbeciles at War






From: Eric J. Schiller [mailto:schiller@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 1:12 PM
Subject: Fwd: Happy Imbeciles at War


HERE IS AN INTERESTING COMMENT ON THE IRAQ WAR BY A U.S. JOURNALIST.

>>===================================
>>
>>Happy Imbeciles At War
>>
>>Massive U.S. military buildup, billions of dollars, a useless enemy,
>>and no one seems to know why
>>
>>By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
>>Friday, January 10, 2003
>>©2003 SF Gate
>>
>>URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
>>f=/g/a/2003/01/10/notes011003.DTL&nl=fix
>>
>>
>>This is not a war. Iraq will not be a war. Do we understand this? We
>>do not seem to understand this. This is heavily corporatized power
>>brokers killing each other for oil and capital. Oh yes it is.
>>
>>Let's be perfectly clear. You cannot have a war when the so-called
>>enemy has done nothing to provoke you and is absolutely no threat to
>>your national safety and has no significant military force and has
>>negligible chance of even setting off a firecracker near your own
>>overwhelming death machines, and whose only weapons of minimal
>>destruction are the rusty short-range warheads and biochemical agents
>>we sold him 20 years ago, and kept selling to him, even after we knew
>>he was gassing his own people.
>>
>>You cannot have a war when there is nothing to fight against, when
>>it's essentially going to be a huge U.S. military stomping/bombing
>>exercise, when, just like Afghanistan, we stand to suffer zero U.S.
>>casualties (except for those we seem to kill ourselves), and we just
>>bomb and bomb and kill and kill and shrug.
>>
>>Let us look closer: The U.S. buildup for war with Iraq is the biggest
>>in decades. The Iraq operation, in the words of Lt. Gen. Thomas
>>McInerney, will be "the most massive precision air campaign in
>>history," because, well, because we can. Because we want to annihilate
>>everything as fast and ruthlessly as possible, simply because the
>>longer such an operation takes and the more expensive and obviously
>>pointless it becomes, the more everyday citizens snap out of it and
>>begin to say, wait, why are we doing this again?
>>
>>Saddam's meager military, let us be reminded, is a tiny quivering
>>fraction of what it was 10 years ago during Desert Storm, and even
>>then it took U.S. forces less than four days to almost completely
>>annihilate it.
>>
>>Now it's even weaker, due to ongoing sanctions and U.N. oversight and
>>a decade of continuous U.S.-led bombing raids on Iraqi targets you
>>never read about. Hell, this time we should have those thousands of
>>pesky Iraqi soldiers and innocent civilians dead and slaughtered in a
>>weekend.
>>
>>This is a Mack truck versus a Pinto. This is an F-16 versus a paper
>>airplane, a Tomahawk missile versus a spit wad. There is no contest.
>>"War" is exactly the wrong term. The U.S. attack on Iraq will be, of
>>course, a massacre. Go team.
>>
>>Now let's say you sense this all to be true. Let's say you have a
>>queasy feeling deep in your gut as you realize no one is talking about
>>exactly why we need to launch a second simultaneous war to go along
>>with the unwinnable assault we're still running in Afghanistan.
>>
>>Remember Afghanistan? Yes, we're still there, warring away. Bombing
>>and attacking and killing. Haven't caught a single al Qaeda leader of
>>note yet. That looks bad for Dubya. Killed a few thousand civilians
>>though. Shrug.
>>
>>So, let's boil it down: Why go to war with Iraq? Can't find Osama, is
>>one reason. That looks bad. Really, really want to steal all that
>>delicious oil for ShrubCo, is another. Saddam is clearly a very bad
>>guy who kills his own people and snickers in America's general
>>direction, is a third. But then again, so are at least a half-dozen
>>other vile tyrants of the world. Volatile, nuke-ready North Korea?
>>Let's open some talks. Feeble, oil-ready Iraq? Let's massacre. Hmm.
>>
>>Perhaps you wonder why no one is asking any of these questions, making
>>similar points.
>>
>>Perhaps you wonder just where in the hell is the spineless major media
>>in all this, as they watch the chicken-hawk Shrubster himself, between
>>golf swings, announce how tens of thousands of American troops are
>>being sent to the Gulf alongside an enormous billion- dollar military
>>buildup and imminent gobs of heaping death raining down upon a paltry
>>oppressed nation and coming up next on CNN, we interview that dumb guy
>>from "Joe Millionaire." Perfect.
>>
>>Perhaps you wonder where is the national TV coverage of all those huge
>>anti-war protests, hundreds of thousands of people, all over the
>>world, from Spain to Berlin to New York to San Francisco.
>>
>>Perhaps you wonder where are all the "serious" journalists, the risk-
>>taking news agencies pointing up the absurdity of it all, the imminent
>>horror, the outrage. Could it be these news agencies are owned by
>>major conservative corporations? Could it be they're all terrified of
>>losing ratings, of saying something unpopular, of invoking Cheney's
>>wrath, of losing advertiser dollars and that ever- precious,
>>ever-dwindling dumbed-down audience? One guess.
>>
>>And besides, who needs a reason for a massacre anymore? This is the
>>age of the preemptive-strike, screw-you Bush regime. Who needs, for
>>example, the Monroe Doctrine, that crusty old rag stating how America
>>will go to war only as a last resort, as a defensive measure, and
>>won't become embroiled in unwinnable foreign wars that are none of our
>>business?
>>
>>Who needs every precedent ever set by international law? Who needs the
>>U.N. Charter? Who needs confused congressional approval? Who needs
>>ethical integrity?
>>
>>
>>Let us become an ever-more-
>>hated rogue nation, attack whomever we want, whenever we want, with no
>>international support and much international disgust. Let us squander,
>>childishly, within months, the generous and compassionate goodwill
>>afforded our country by our international allies in the wake of 9/11.
>>
>>Let us wantonly kill innocent civilians and children and thousands of
>>Iraqi soldiers who, let us repeat, did nothing to provoke us. Shall
>>we? Yes let's. Why? Shhh.
>>
>>Let us be clear. Saddam is not a threat to the U.S., and never has
>>been. He is merely yet another cowardly and murderous thug, much like
>>the countless others, from Marcos to King Fahd to Ariel Sharon, whom
>>the U.S. has added to its payroll when it served our needs, and whom
>>we then backhand when we need economic stimulus, or when the president
>>needs a boost to his approval ratings, or when the corporate pals of
>>the Bush WASP mafia need more billion-dollar petrochemical and defense
>>contracts. Aha. Perhaps this is why.
>>
>>We are, in short, going to attack and massacre Iraq for the oil
>>reserves, to protect America's corporate interests, to feed the gaping
>>maw of the military-industrial complex. Same as it ever was.
>>
>>But let us be perfectly clear: We are most definitely not cranking up
>>the appalling war machine for your sake, or for the country's
>>protection, or for our commendable standing among our humanitarian
>>allies.
>>
>>We are not doing it to defeat terrorism (it will have the exact
>>opposite effect), or to make the streets safer for our children, or
>>because they've found big scary WMDs (they haven't -- not a one) -- or
>>even for Iraq's own good. And to believe we are is, quite simply, to
>>be wholly misinformed and openly, flagrantly, deliberately deceived.
>>
>>Do we understand this? We must, we absolutely must, try and understand
>>this.

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