licentious radio

Wednesday, January 29, 2003
[10:49:01 AM]

The problem with "war as a last resort" is that it doesn't go quite far enough. You have to add "for what". War should not be the last resort to seize Iraq's oil directly, or to put the oil and construction contracts in the hands of American oil companies and Halliburton.

War should also not be a "last resort" for dis-arming Saddam.

Of course, now Saddam is a boogyman, right there with Osama Bin Forgotten. Cuz at any moment, Saddam could slip some bad stuff to Bin Forgotten.

*That's* a good line, because the answers are more complicated than the propaganda.

The first answer is that threat of invasion is promoting that kind of behavior. It wasn't happening before George the Crusader seized power.

The second answer is that deterrence still works pretty good. If Bin Forgotten used some chemical weapon with Saddam's name on it -- VX, say -- the whole world would support taking Saddam out. So Saddam has incentive *not* to do the wrong thing -- until Dumb George threatens to strike first.

The third answer is that there are plenty of low-tech ways to terrorize the world. Bin Forgotten didn't need Saddam to fly airliners into buildings. Do you think in all the world there is not a single terrorist who could pilot a large plane in take-off? Why not steal a loaded cargo plane from JFK, and fly it straight into a building in NYC? The good news is that there aren't many terrorists around. One of the keys to reducing terrorism, is not creating more terrorists -- by killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, for example.

Basically, if Saddam is a dire threat today, it's *because* of Bush.

[10:23:54 AM]
"The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack." Well, Saddam *might* think that nasty weapons would make potential invaders think twice. Certainly Little George only started being polite to North Korea when North Korea claimed to have nukes. Israel has attacked Iraq before, and has nuclear weapons.

The US and Soviet Union had all kinds of nasty weapons -- and maintained that they were a deterrent.

Not to say Saddam isn't bad... Just to point out that Bush is a lying dog. Lies, lies, lies. They tell one lie until it's finally exposed, even in the Republican Corporate Media. Then they tell a different lie for awhile, but after a few weeks they can go back to the previously exposed lie, because it is just propaganda, anyway. Remember the once and future Al Qaeda connection, the various lies about Saddam's nuclear program, etc.

Again, not to say Saddam isn't a bad guy. Just to say that Bushists have lost any credibility by lying and having their real motivations exposed. If there *is* an urgent case to remove Saddam, Bush's empire-wanna-bes have done the world a horrible disservice.

[10:13:07 AM]
Maureen Dowd gets gnarly on Dubya's pimply patootie! Suddenly, we're mad for Maureen.

"There was no smoking gun last night. There was merely a smoky allusion."

[The American people] "will understand the Bush rationale for war only if they look at the metaphysical evidence, the perfect storm of imperial schemes and ideological stratagems driving the desire to topple Saddam."

"The Bush team thinks the way to galvanize the public is with fear, by coupling Saddam to 9/11 and building him up into a Hitler who could threaten the world, as the White House chief of staff, Andy Card, told Tim Russert last Sunday, 'with a holocaust.' But their reasons for war predate 9/11. The conservatives have wanted Saddam's head for a dozen years."

Look here. When *Maureen Dowd* pulls out the evidence that Bush is a lying dog about Iraq, things are out of control. It's either send the B-2s in today (oh, I forgot: they're busy in Afghanistan today) or hang it up.

[9:49:12 AM]
Dave Winer [userland.com] on weblogs versus old media reporting:

"Another way to look at it. A old style journalist interviews a couple dozen people for a week, and then produces an article that you can read in five minutes. He includes a few quotes. That's one way to do it. Another way is DIY or Do It Yourself. A news event. I think to myself "Who would know what this means?" I go to their weblog. See what they think. Link to them from my weblog. Then I think of another person. I go to their weblog. Etc etc. This is good because it routes around the soundbite-creating and dumbing-it-down processes. Who cares if the expert said it in a clever way (actually I do care). But what I really want is to know what they really think, not what the editors of the pub want me to hear."