Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Razing their hearts and minds... So Billmon announced a casual sabbatical from blogging only to post an excellent analysis of our continued idiocy in Iraq, namely collective punishment against relatives of suspected insurgents.  Somehow, bulldozing houses, leaving families homeless, will win Iraqi hearts and minds.  It's pretty clear that our intelligence there is pathetic, and that most likely, we haven't a clue who the insurgents are, but that's not gonna stop us from trying to showing them who's boss.   (By bulldozing, I also mean blowing 'em up with laser-guided artillery, cause it's so much more impressive).  This policy has obviously worked so incredibly well for the Israelis.  I mean, they have that whole Palestinian issue, just about settled. After having been inconvenienced by the destructions of their homes, businesses, olive orchards, and small children, the Palestinians have come to realize that Israel was just looking out for their best interests and have duly appologized to Israel, getting back on the road of recovery by electing Netenyahu the new president of the PLA, which provides oversight on the jobs program building new settlements in the formerly disputed territories. There's a bit of a discussion in the comments on Billmon's board about the appropriateness of laughing at the patheticness and inhumanity of our Iraq "policy". For better or worse, laughing is a perfectly reasonable response, if merely as a survival technique.  The shit that's being done in our name is truly awful, in the full magnitude of the word (take your choice, shit or awful).  If laughing helps keep you afloat, go for it, but in the end do something that will possibly rectify the situation.  Laugh and then talk it up. Raise the issues. All roads lead to Nov. 2004. Left i on the news also as an insightful post on this recent manifiestation of our collective punishment approach to the "war on terror", which, itself, is a larger scale example of the same. 1:49:22 AM    comment []

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