Oh, God, I need a drink.
On the bus on the way home the driver was listening to The Press Conference. I couldn’t hear everything, but I heard enough: our president just said that we went to war in Iraq because we told Saddam Hussein in no uncertain terms to disarm, and he didn’t do it.
I’m so sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry.
Billmon points us to criticalviewer’s Cliff Notes. I think I need another drink.
Not sure I understand. If the UN tells someone to disarm, and they don't, we should just turn around and say, "Oops, sorry, misunderstanding - continue the torture"?
Mr. Campbell, you don't drop that fucking gun, I'm gonna shoot you.
Well, the other dimension of stupidity is the fact that there is/was a regional balance of power in the Persian Gulf. Ordering Iraq to unilaterally disarm, regardless of who was in power there, was esentially asking Iraq to kindly offer themselves up for annexation by Iran. If my memory serves, Iraq fought an 8 year war with Iran -- which they very nearly lost until Saddam's military got the idea to use VX gas against the invaders. The U.S. government decided it was better to turn a blind eye to chemical warfare than to allow the Ayatollah to seize the second largest petroleum reserves on Earth, and so.... we let our good buddy Saddam do what he had to do.
Saddam it now seems was bluffing about his possession of chemical weapons all the way up until the bitter end; undoubtedly this bluff was part of his national security strategy to discourage any future Iranian incursions. Considering the way Saudi Arabia and Kuwait fucked Iraq after the end of its war with Iran, I can imagine Saddam being somewhat bitter and deciding he didn't need "a permission slip from the UN" to defend his own country after that.
Yeah, yeah, the obligatory disclaimer: Saddam was a bad man and the Iraqi people are better off without him. (Of course, as far as torture regimes go, he was a pussycat compared to America's new good buddy, Islam Karimov, but I digress.)
I have a serious question. Does anyone else think that the President is overly medicated?
Your comments here reflect exactly my reaction to the press conference, Bush, and America. Some of us saw a boneheaded puppet wander onto a stage last night and blink at questions he hadn't the vaguest answers to. Others saw a reasonable man battling an "aggressive" press. (They liked it better when the press was docile.)
We live in bizarro world. The president has no clothes, but what's freakish is that there are millions who don't only say he's wearing them, but actually see them.
Roy Edroso has clipped the reactions of one such optically blessed individual:
I honestly don’t know what to say to this. Whatever floats your boat? Some people are easily impressed? Jesus fucking Christ, what color is the sky in your world? I need yet another drink? —Oh, but we wouldn’t want to turn into TMFTML. Would we?
(I see, by the way, that Mr. Campbell has yet to answer for his actions. Should I point out that those who act like they’ve got something to hide must be hiding something, or would that belabor the point?)
As I noted on Roy's blog, Simon's commenters (I almost wrote "those people") are writing in the language of religious conversion, not secular politics. The casual anti-intellectualism in that thread is scary, too. I don't know if we're seeing a cynical effort by some to apppropriate the rhetoric of conversion, or semi-genuine reactions, or both; and I couldn't begin to speculate on the number of Americans who feel similarly. (Certainly fairly small even among GWB supporters, I keep telling myself.) But there's something weird there. Mid-21st century dissertation material. Is it time for the next Great Awakening?
Oh, and get me another drink, too, please, while you're up.
Well, a lotta your more snide casual anti-intellectualism tends to come from people with graduate degrees, and it's generally aimed at people with the same degrees who got them to actually learn something and not to burnish their resumes.
Oh, I'm about as anti-intellectual as they come... or is that about as snide... No matter. It does nothing to interfere with my heartfelt belief that Bush was, is, and always will be (as my pal Magdalene The Chicken Bishop once put it) a punk-ass chump.
Anyway, that's not the point. What I really want to know is: Is this the same Glen Campbell that once brought tears to my eyes with his sterling readings of such classic works as "I Knew Jesus BEFORE He Was A Superstar" ?
vũ khí cuối cùng là tình thương.