July 2003

July 25, 2003

Only Another Dead Nigger

A 1999 UNICEF Survey of child and maternal mortality determined that roughly 500,000 children under five years old had been killed by the Anglo-American sanctions regime.

As we know, a few years before that Madame Albright -- apparently chanelling Jehovah -- had said of the grisly toll that "...we think the price is worth it."

Now, if one searched far and wide enough, one might (however unlikely) eventually notice in the mainstream some perplexity at Albright's logic. The sanctions did, after all, strenghthen Saddam's hold over the Iraqi populace. Moreover, the project of debilitating his capacity to transmute so-called "dual use" items (e.g. pencils, water purifiers) into weapons of mass destruction -- the "worth" in Albright's equation -- was, if we can believe Ms. Condoleezza Rice, an abysmal failure.

But the principle -- that "we" have been divinely ordained to kill hundreds of thousands of negroid children in the service of demonising a former State Department employee now on our shit list -- is unassailable.

So the mainstream media's orgasmic reaction to the summary executions of Saddam's sons despite the "collateral damage" death of a 14-year-old child should probably come as no surprise.

While Dubya pontificates that "we" "have no quarrel" with the "brave people of Iraq", it is the most vulnerable sectors of this "brave" populace -- women, the infirm, children -- which have suffered the most.

Eqbal Ahmad once lamented, after the United States' attempted assassination of Qaddafi (an act, according to the Slate "Explainer", of self-defense) succeeded in killing not Qaddafi, but his four-year-old daughter, that, "The poor baby hadn’t done anything." Lord knows how many hundreds of thousands of poor Iraqi children who hadn't done anything will be killed before the "indispensable nation" is finished liberating them. But whatever the price, it will have been worth it. Q.E.D..

July 23, 2003

Wishful Thinking

Conventional wisdom among U.S. military leaders and the mainstream American press seems to be that the killing of Saddam's sons will reduce, and possibly even stop, the guerrilla war in Iraq.

The Independent's Robert Fisk -- who, dare I say, knows a lot more about this sort of thing than the LA Times' Robin Wright -- argues that the opposite is likely to happen:

... there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the American occupation authorities in Iraq and the people whose country they are occupying. The United States believes that the entire resistance to America's proconsulship of Iraq is composed of "remnants" of Saddam's followers, "dead-enders", "bitter-enders" - they have other phrases to describe them. Their theory is that once the Hussein family is decapitated, the resistance will end.

But the guerrillas who are killing US troops every day are also being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement which never had any love for Saddam. Much more importantly, many Iraqis were reluctant to support the resistance for fear that an end to American occupation would mean the return of the ghastly old dictator.

If he and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans.

July 18, 2003

Down the Tubes

While "yellowcakegate" continues to play out on the front page, the other lie about Iraq's alleged nuclear capability has gone, quietly, completely down the tubes.

In late June top Iraqi nuclear scientist Mahdi Shukur Obeidi dug up some centrifuge parts in his garden. The White House, of course, claimed this was proof Saddam Hussein intended to revive his nuclear weapons program once sanctions were lifted, a claim later debunked by a top U.N. weapons inspector.

While Obeidi was harvesting old centrifuge parts and incorrect blueprints on how to make a bomb, he was also telling U.S. officials -- something they've withheld until now -- that the infamous aluminum tubes were not meant for nuclear bomb production. (He also said that since '91 Iraq had not resurrected a nuclear weapons program. But you knew that already.)

For those keeping score at home, the aluminum tube claim goes something like this:

Tubes were for The Bomb:

• One, maybe two CIA analysts, intimidated by Dick Cheney.


• Dick Cheney

Tubes were not for The Bomb:

• US State Department


• US Energy Department


• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)


• David Albright, former IAEA inspector and director of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)


• Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, former head of Iraq's uranium enrichment unit, and a man with no reason to lie about the aluminum tubes.

July 15, 2003

Tricky Dick

The Niger uranium story just won't go away. The Times' Nicholas Kristof, who's been on the "cooked intelligence" beat for months now, says a picture is emerging that:

... the White House, eager to spice up the State of the Union address, recklessly resurrected the discredited Niger tidbit. The Central Intelligence Agency objected, and then it and the National Security Council negotiated a new wording, attributing it all to the Brits.

So who's behind the "spicing up," or, as the Brits would say, the "sexing up" of the SOTU address?

Kristof points the finger at Vice President Cheney, as do the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, who are calling for Cheney's resignation over the matter.

Well, of course it's Cheney. And not just because he was hawkish on Iraq, or that he kicked off the Iraq War 2.0 product launch last fall, or that he was the main pitchman for the bogus aluminum tubes story, or that he told that bullshit on Meet the Press about how Saddam had "reconstituted nuclear weapons."

No, it's also because he's got previous experience lying to get America into war against Iraq.

Speaking of lying...

Actually, I don't know whether to file this under lying, forgetfulness, or just plain idiocy, but check out this whopper from W yesterday:

The larger point is did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in.

WTF?! Perhaps even W has forgotten why we launched this dumb war.

July 08, 2003

Older, Wiser

Many of the twentysomething soldiers interviewed for stories about the growing resistance at the U.S. presence in Iraq seem bewildered as to why they're getting shot at. "We're here to help them!" is the common refrain.

These kids' wives are equally confused. In an amusing (and very sad) piece, Amanda Sanchez, wife of 3rd Infantry Division truck driver PJ, says:

I thought they [the Iraqis] would be more enthusiastic. I mean, who wouldn't want to live like Americans, to live in democracy, to send your children to school? I'm surprised at how naive the Iraqis are. Who wouldn't want to have freedom? It's hard for me to understand that they don't grasp the concept.

Oh, to be young and idealistic!

Meanwhile, 48-year-old Spec. James McNeely has clearly abandoned his heart and is using his head, in what has to be on any "Quotes of the War" Top 10 List:

They're getting tired of us. Wouldn't you be mad if they invaded your country?

July 07, 2003

Capitalism 101

A few recent news items suggest that the country's visionaries may need to take a refresher course on the socio-economic system they hold so dear.

First, our heroes are confident that, "Utilizing highly automated systems and new, higher-bandwidth satellites, military planners expect to be able to still function even after a nuclear attack." Er, supposing that the machines are still able to function, and that the VIPs are able to high-tail it into their bunkers -- but that all the niggers have been killed. Desirable as this outcome may seem on the face of it, it overlooks a few problems.

For who then shall clean up the toilets? Who shall harvest the radioactive crops? Who shall work the assembly lines and the sweatshops? Who shall serve as guineau pigs for Donald H. Rumsfeld's new-fangled weapons? Who shall change the kids' shitty diapers?

Are Dubya and Co. really unaware of the elementary maxim that without labor, resources cannot be transformed into commodities (and that, without niggers there can be no labor)? It would appear so. Oh-by-the-way, even if the owners get up off their dimpled asses and do some fucking work, who shall purchase all their Pokemon crap and $20 compact discs? That's where us proles are supposed to come in -- but we'll all be dead, too.

Second, the U.S. biotech industry is up-in-arms over the EU's decision to require genetically modified foods be clearly labeled as such (they're currently not allowed into the Union at all).

"It's impractical. It will be impossible to monitor, hugely burdensome, and expensive. Rather than facilitating consumer choice, it's more likely to drive food producers to avoid using genetically improved ingredients." This sounds more than a little like hyperbole ("hugely burdensome and expensive" to label a product?). But what happened to the "free market"? What happened to the idea that the market would provide all the information consumers would need to make an informed purchasing decision? It shouldn't need to be monitored. The "invisible hand" should magically affix the label -- along with any other relevant information. No?