Several priceless Donnesbury's this week. It is damned depressing being an American right now, represented by a government that is doing everything possible to make Ameirca feared and hated by every county in the world.  I know the right wing thinks this is great.  They yearn for the days when Texas was a slave-holding Republic, beholden to no one.  They just don't seem to get that the world is interconnected on all levels these days.  God, I miss Bill Clinton!

Doonesbury

Doonesbury

4:36:15 PM    

I subscibe to Audible.com's subscription services which enables me to hear show like This American Life, and Fresh Air time-shifted on an MP3 RIO 800 player.  I heard a Fresh Air show from earlier this week where Terry Gross interviewed Youssef F. Ibrahim, an expert on the oil industry and the Middle East.  He stated it plainly.  This war is about oil. He claims Bush's chickenhawks advocated confiscating the oil wells for American oil companies outright, but it was only after much public pressure that they cooked up the "Oil for the Iraqis" cover story.  But make no mistake about it.  All of Bush's energy cornies are gonna get filthy rich in this enterprise.  Youssef F. Ibrahim is group editor at Energy Intelligence, a company that publishes news and provides data and analysis about international energy issues. Ibrahim is also a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ibrahim was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and Tehran Bureau Chief. He also covered energy for The Wall Street Journal.

4:25:28 PM    

I heard this read on NPR this weekend, and thought it worth citing here, although I imagine a number of bloggers have done the same. Here's the most complete citation I have found from the BBC:

Lt Col Tim Collins urged his troops not to kill unnecessarily

British troops waiting to attack Iraq have been told to behave like liberators rather than conquerors.

But they have also been warned some of them may not return from Iraq alive.

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins gave the battlegroup of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish the pep talk as the US deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face action ticked away.

Reporters said the men listened in silence to the address at Fort Blair Mayne desert camp, 20 miles from the Iraqi border.

"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country," he said. ....

No wonder many Americans are anglophiles.  I can't imagine any US commander citing Iraq's ancient glories in a speech to troops.

4:03:54 PM