« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »

Rall you really need to know

by Mark Gisleson

I don't usually weigh in on daily military developments in Iraq, but I'm getting a little sick and tired of the names the Pentagon gives to their new initiatives. Operation Iron Hammer? Give me a break. What's next — Operation Our Dick Is Bigger Than Yours?

It's definitely "boxers or briefs?" season with our press corps. Hot on the heels of the "Mac or PC" MTV/CNN flap, the Washington Post wastes several column inches looking at the issue of the Democratic candidates' hair. Might I suggest they sleuth out the cost of George W's tonsorial sessions? Bowl cuts don't go well with thousand-dollar Italian suits, and I suspect more time and care goes into that Lonestar 'bidness" look than even Al Sharpton's grooming regimen (does he conk, or doesn't he?).

Karl Rove would sleep a lot easier if all his problems were this easy to deal with. For the record, I don't think Bush raped this woman and I certainly don't trust Pravda to tell me about it, but I still think our feckless leader did more rum and coke than Guard duty in his youth. In any event, past indiscretions pretty much pale next to the current litany of war occupation crimes.

* *

The right is desperately trying to spin attention away from Iraq. Tory bloggers are either grasping at irrelevancies (androgyny, yacht clubs, Dennis Kucinich), or attacking the messengers. In particular, they hate Ted Rall. It's not hard to see why if you read Rall's cartoons or blog, but the really choice stuff is the weekly op-ed piece Rall writes. Here are some recent excerpts worth chewing on:

[From a mock Iraqi resistance recruiting letter] Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans.

You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein 's secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi.

November 12

It's high time that victorious Democrats stop being suckered by reckless Republicans into cleaning up their messes. Walking behind the elephant with a pail and a smelly broom might be the right thing to do, but it doesn't earn you any respect after the parade. All Democrats worthy of the name ought to sign a pledge to ignore problems caused by Republican administrations and leave them to their Republican successors. Let the GOP deficit ride, and pass socialized medicine while you're at it. Keep the bloated HomeSec bureaucracy on the payroll, and change its mission to something useful, like making a serious attempt to guard our borders. Run up the deficit like there's no tomorrow. Withdraw our troops; when the Iraqi civil war spreads throughout the region, some smart future Republican president will figure it out.

I can hear you grumbling: but that's irresponsible! Yes. It. Is. But playing the sap to Republican fait accomplis is like paying off your drunken kid's gambling debts. It makes you an enabler of destructive behavior--and that's even worse than throwing your hands up in the air and walking away. Let's give the GOP some tough love.

November 5

As much as I relish the idea of a million angry Americans turning the tawdry Necropublican National Convention into a Seattle WTO-style fiasco, the potential for mayhem is terrifying. As a Manhattanite, I hope that the Republicans will seriously consider moving their convention somewhere else. New York, wounded by the dot-com crash and 9/11 (the latter injury exacerbated when Bush welched on the money he promised to help the city rebuild), continues to suffer from widespread unemployment. The risk of convention-related terrorist attacks should be reason enough to not hold it in a city that paid the highest price on 9/11. A revival of 1968, with cops fouling their batons with the blood of young people, wouldn't do anyone--left or right--any good.

October 29

Trading civil liberties for increased security would be a bad deal, but we've given away our freedoms for nothing. "The bottom line is, America is safer, more secure, and better prepared than we were on Sept. 11, 2001," says White House flack Scott McClellan, but nothing could be further from the truth. The man we blame for 9/11, Osama bin Laden, is still loose; Bush's "dead or alive" pledge has devolved to, as of Oct. 21, "We believe [Pakistani President Musharraf] will help us, if in fact [bin Laden] happens to be in Pakistan...Who knows where he is?" The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq , coupled with Bush's support for Ariel Sharon 's aggressive attacks on Palestine, have increased the supply of anti-American militants willing to die as long as they take a bunch of us with them. The only reason we haven't suffered the next big attack is because They Who Hate Us are still planning it.

October 22

As you might have guessed from the dates, there are quite a few of these sick puppies archived. It's too bad our press corps doesn't have the courage of our cartoonists when it comes to telling it like it most certainly is.

* *

Salon has an AP report on that recently brokered 9/11 Commission - White House deal to allow limited access to White House security reports. The Family Steering Committee, a 9/11 survivors' organization is not pleased. "'All 10 commissioners should have full, unfettered and unrestricted access to all evidence,' the group said in a statement Thursday. It urged the public release of 'the full, official, and final written agreement.'"

That speech from Chandrika Kumaratunga linked to yesterday apparently was an attempt to head off today's announcement by Vidar Helgesen that Norway will not continue to participate in negotiations between Sri Lanka and the Tamil insurgents. Norway, the Jimmy Carter of the First World, apparently has become disillusioned with the lack of progress. [link]

Posted by Steve Perry at November 14, 2003 11:05 AM

« Rusted by tears | Main | The "Friday" Report »