posted on October 13, 2002 02:30:02 AM new
Just in case anyone has missed the fact that Washington has gone f*cking nuts, Dowd sums it up well.
Texas on the Tigris
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON — This has always been a place where people say the opposite of what they mean. But last week, the capital soared to ominous new Orwellian heights.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton voted to let the president use force in Iraq because she didn't want the president to use force in Iraq.
Giving Mr. Bush bipartisan support, she said, would make his success at the U.N. "more likely, and, therefore, war less likely."
The White House feigned interest in negotiation while planning for annexation without representation.
The Democrats were desperate to put the war behind them, so they put the war in front of them.
They didn't want to seem weak, so they made the president stronger, which makes them weaker.
Mr. Bush said he needed Congressional support to win at the U.N., but he wants to fail at the U.N. so he can install his own MacArthur as viceroy of Iraq. (Poor Tommy Franks may finally have to leave Tampa.)
Mr. Bush says he's in a rush to go to war with Iraq because it's so strong, but he's in a rush to go to war with Iraq because it's so weak.
In his Cincinnati speech, he warned of a menacing Iraqi drone that could fly across the ocean and spray germs or chemicals on us. But Pentagon experts say the drone could not make the trip and would have to be disassembled, shipped over, sneaked in and reassembled.
Mr. Bush said he wanted an independent 9/11 commission to investigate more broadly what went wrong with the government before 9/11. But now he's trying to kill the panel because he already knows just about everything went wrong before 9/11. He doesn't want us to know. Doesn't he know that we already know?
The president's father lamented in his diary in 1991 that his Persian Gulf war didn't have a clean end because "there is no battleship Missouri surrender." Now the son wants to skip the surrender and turn Baghdad into Houston East, putting a branch of the Petroleum Club at the intersection of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Tom Daschle, Dianne Feinstein and other doubters came around on Thursday to the view that Iraq is an urgent threat after the C.I.A. director, George Tenet, sent Congress a memo on Monday stating that Iraq is not an urgent threat.
Mr. Tenet, a Clinton holdover, is desperate to please Mr. Bush. Senators joke that he gives the president intelligence briefings while polishing Mr. Bush's shoes. So the C.I.A. chief was embarrassed to find himself insinuating that W. is hyping his war.
After providing the smoking gun to show that Mr. Bush has no smoking gun, the usually silent top spook was frantically calling reporters on Tuesday night to insist that there's no daylight between him and the president on Iraq.
Let's see: Mr. Tenet says Saddam is unlikely to initiate a chemical or biological attack against us unless we attack him, and Mr. Bush says Saddam is likely to initiate a chemical or biological attack so we must attack him.
The C.I.A. says Saddam will use his nasty weapons against us only if he thinks he has nothing to lose. So the White House leaks its plans about the occupation of Iraq, leaving Saddam nothing to lose.
The president says Iraq is linked to Islamic terrorists so we must attack, while the C.I.A. says that Iraq will link up with Islamic terrorists only if we attack.
Mr. Bush says the war on Iraq will help us in the war on terrorism. But somebody forgot to tell the Osama lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, who says the war on Iraq justifies more terrorist attacks. Mr. Zawahiri's taped message has incited Al Qaeda warriors to new attacks while we're preoccupied with our post-occupation.
When asked if Iraq in 2003 would look like Japan in 1945, Ari Fleischer said no, it would look like Afghanistan in 2002. But Afghanistan is now even more dangerous than the suburbs of Washington. We have lost interest in Afghanistan because we are too busy trying to turn Iraq into Japan.
The Nobel committee gave Jimmy Carter the peace prize as a way of giving W. the war booby prize.
Still, George Bush, the failed Harken oil executive, and Dick Cheney, the inept Halliburton chairman, will finally get their gusher.
One day, the prez was shootin' at a dictator bein' rude, and up from the ground came a bubblin' crude. Oil, that is. Black gold. Baghdad tea.
"When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, "We're a peaceful nation." America's favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of Prime Minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."
"So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is Peace."
posted on October 13, 2002 06:21:00 AM new
While some here may be disappointed at what they perceive to be the 'turn-coats' of their party, I believe those same elected officials have done the right thing.
Why did they vote this way? Who knows. Maybe it's because they're aware that people wanted to know where they stood before they vote in November. Maybe it's because they're politicans and are hearing the voice of the American people. But it very well could be that while they may totally disagree with the Bush administration, in every way, they still love their country and want to present one united front to our enemies. And for that alone, I support them.
posted on October 13, 2002 06:44:23 AM new
This thread was prefaced by the observation, "Just in case anyone has missed the fact that Washington has gone f*cking nuts, Dowd sums it up well.
Your contribution, Linda, is supportive of that notion.
posted on October 13, 2002 11:41:31 AM new
LoL x 10 at Antiquary!!! That's a pretty innovative way to try and test the U.N.'s capabilities. Hillary is a poopy head.
posted on October 13, 2002 04:45:46 PM new
theater of the absurd
NOUN: A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.
That is the only explanation that might make sense. Since the entertainment industry has hit it big with various presentations of reality, the government is moving to a high-brow slapstick routine.
Eventually it will be revealed that the best minds in the nation have worked on a project to determine what foreign and domestic policy positions will attrack the most favorable poll results. A scientifically controlled study concluded that the most accurate source would be a junior high school football team and its cheerleading squad. Their identity is the top security priority in the nation and at least one member of the think tank is always available for consultation through a secure hotline.
But then again that might make too much sense. Listening to the Bush administration and the democratic leadership, the only immediate options are to either laugh or cry. On the whole I think laughter is healthier. More reliable than a cross and clove of garlic anyway.
posted on October 13, 2002 06:06:02 PM new
The tragic bombings in Bali and Finland will be used as an excuse by the Bush administration to retaliate somewhere....let me think where....probably in Saudi Arabia?
posted on October 14, 2002 08:15:10 AM new
I was just thinking....
At this present time and situation, what is the WORST thing Saddam could do to this country?
The conclusion....have nothing!
The US in all its bravado races in bombs, kills and destroys only to find....nothing.
From then on the US would have no credibility in the international community for a hundred years, countries would be embarassed to have been our allies, we would be shunned and left out of future world decisions. Trade would be curtailed.
And Saddam would have the ULTIMATE REVENGE!
.
A Man will spend $2.00 for a $1.00 item he needs.
A Woman will spend $1.00 for a $2.00 item she doesn't need.
"But now we have the draft UN resolution which Presidents Bush and Blair insist the UN must pass. Arms inspection teams, it says, "shall have the right to declare for the purposes of this resolution ... ground and air-transit corridors which shall be enforced by UN security forces or by members of the UN [Security] Council".
"In other words, Washington can order forces of the US (a Security Council member) to "enforce" these "corridors" through Iraq – on the ground – when it wants. US troops would thus be in Iraq. It would be invasion without war; the end of Saddam, "regime change", the whole shebang."
"No Iraqi government – even a Baghdad administration without the odious Saddam – could ever accept such a demand. Nor could Serbia have accepted such a demand from Nato, even without the odious Slobodan. Which is why the Serbs and Nato went to war."
"So here it is again, the same old "we've-got-be-able-to-drive through-your-land" mentality which forced the Serbs into war and which is clearly intended to produce the same from Saddam."
"America wants a war and here's the proof: if the United States truly wished to avoid war, it could demand "unfettered access" for inspectors without this sovereignty-busting paragraph, using it as a second resolution only if the presidential palaces of the Emperor Saddam remained off-limits."
"Saddam can open his country to the inspectors; he can open even his presidential palaces. But if he doesn't accept the use of "Security Council" forces – in other words, US troops – on Iraqi roads, we can go to war. There's also that other paragraph: that "any permanent member of the Security Council may request to be represented on any inspection team." In other words, the Americans can demand that their intelligence men can return to become UN inspectors, to pass on their information to the Israelis (which they did before) and to the US military, which used them as forward air controllers for their aircraft once the inspectors were withdrawn."
"All in all, then, a deal which President Saddam – yes, Saddam the wicked, Saddam the torturer, Saddam the lover of gas warfare – could never, ever accept."
