For many
years, I have opposed the war on drugs without being
'anti-police'. I disagree with drugs
laws that run counter to individual liberty, disproportionately hurt minorities, are
inconsistent with how we treat other drugs like tobacco,
and would be much better dealt with through a public health
approach. I'm troubled that even with the country at elevated
levels of alert, the Bush administration launches Operation
Pipedream and busts Pipesforyou.com, while Ken
Lay and other corporate scoundrels haven't been indicted.
But I can still appreciate the police who implement these laws
and I respect that they act out of a sense of duty and patriotism,
including many of my students - who
have been beaten up, stabbed, shot and left for dead in the
line of duty.;
“Television
is merely running the same footage of the same man
stealing a vase over and over,” he joked, adding he
didn't think there were that many vases in Iraq. The
US may be the strongest nation in the world, but they
forget that Iraq is a region that has been described
as the cradle of civilization.
Flippant
remarks cannot replace priceless artefacts that
have disappeared from the National Museum in Baghdad,
or the books of the University of Mosul – one of the
oldest and best universities in the whole of the
Middle East.
The NY Times headline
was Bush Offers Optimism to Cheering Marines, but the last
half of the story quotes a senior administration official as
noting "our task is now changing from managing irrational skepticism to managing irrational exuberance."
Also, "the battle for Baghdad could take some unexpected turns.
'There is still much work to be done, some of which will be very, very
difficult,' General Myers said. "Mr. Rumsfeld adding that
'nothing is over until it's over'."
"The pride the Arabs felt in the initial stages of the invasion, before those legendary 'pockets of resistance' halting the advance of the world's only superpower were revealed as a myth, has been replaced by immense shame and humiliation. The images of US soldiers taking a picnic in the heart of Baghdad will haunt the Arab psyche for generations to come "
"America now rules the world, either directly or by proxy; and there is nothing anyone can do about it," he concludes.
"Nothing, that is, but wait for history to take its course, for Fortune's wheel to turn as it inexorably does, crushing underneath those who once danced on top of it. But not in our lifetime. Yes, there will be more terrorism, and Osama Bin Laden - or at least his infamous voice - was heard once more yesterday, calling for suicide attacks and thus giving more easy justification, as he did on Sept. 11, to America's imperial ambition. Thanks,
Osama, you've done us all about as much good as George W. Bush. Both are two sides of the same coin."
The
images haunt me, which is why I felt like they
should be made part of the discussion of the war,
and why I appreciate that other people don't want
to deal with them. Movie violence is one thing
& it's very different from a real war.
Tougher than it seemed:
Nothing about war is straightforward for the first few days of the Iraq invasion, British and American opinion has been in danger of slipping into a fool's paradise. Buoyed by our sense of technological, political and moral superiority towards Iraq, and precipitated by our culture's preference for short, sharp, scheduled outcomes, we have risked falling prey to a delusion that modern war is easy, cost-free and entertaining, when it is none of these things.
Universal health care.
Rebuilding the nation's schools. Repair of the road and rail networks. Sounds like a Democratic domestic agenda, right? Actually, it's the Bush administration's plan for the re-construction of Iraq. Now, I'm all for rebuilding Iraq when Saddam's gone. But it's ironic that Republicans don't have plans to stop the rise of Americans without health care.
[rest
of comment and response ~ 2.1
million jobs lost during Bush administration]
"Victory means more than knocking down what
existed," said Douglas J. Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy. "It means putting some substitute in place that will help the Iraqis get what they need and be in a position to begin to govern themselves."
Reconstruction
Project: Change
the Iraqi textbooks: The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) is preparing to award education-related contracts worth an estimated $65 million. Creative Associates International of Northwest Washington, considered the front-runner for the contract, heads a coalition that recently won a $16.5 million contract for similar educational reform in Afghanistan.
