licentious radio

Friday, April 11, 2003
[10:10:15 AM]

The dead have disappeared, again. Makes you wonder about the timing of announcements. Hometown newspapers report dead soldiers pretty much right away. We've just had two days without any such announcements.

Is the Pentagon too busy this week to inform next-of-kin?

Or do lists of dead interfere with the story of the week -- jubilation?

[9:52:08 AM]
How many Rachel Corries, Brian Averys, Tom Handolls? How many northern, western, white peace activists can Israeli soldiers murder? If we had video of Corrie's murder, would that have been enough?

[9:31:01 AM]
Myers and Franks have this great war plan. It provides for every contingency.

I wonder about the looting. In the war plan, it must say that on Day 20 we enter Baghdad, on Day 22 we declare victory and let the looting commence.

On which day does the war plan say the looting is over? Is the plan just to let the looting go until there's no loot left? (Gosh, that reminds me of Bush's approach to America.)

Is this a case of not having enough troops on the ground to protect government buildings and embassies?

Note to Bushistas: regime change is about the *regime* not the infrastructure. You're going to need the records and bureaucrats to run the country.

If you're going to run the country, that is. The example of Afghanistan makes you wonder. But Afghanistan wasn't functioning before the invasion. The Taliban had pretty much destroyed everything. The treasury was a pile of cash in a back room over at Omar's place.

[9:18:43 AM]
What the hell was that, anyway?

When the US military left for Iraq, they took with them the flag that had been flying at the Pentagon on the infamous September 11th. Then some officer ordered an Asian-American kid to drape the flag over the face of a statue. ????? And then a tank pulled the statue down.

A manufactured, photo-op crowd of Iraqis filled the lenses of cameras broadcasting the scene. But a wide-angle camera across the way showed there were hardly any Iraqis around -- just enough to fill the lenses of the propaganda machinery.

This was not Germans tearing down the wall, nor was it Russians pulling down statues of their terrorists. It was a pre-meditated propaganda play, using our soldiers -- we're told they're our *beloved* soldiers -- not to root out evil, or even to make the world safe for George Bush's cronies' plundering -- but as some demented kind of nationalist propaganda.

What's with putting a flag over the face of a statue? Some Dim Bulb in the Pentagon was taking a cue from General Ashcroft and his blue draping of Justice?

I say massacreing civilians left and right is one thing, but spare us from cheezy propaganda that even Mussolini would have scoffed at.