Bob's Links and Rants

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Saturday, November 09, 2002

Mr. Hussein has proven to be a vicious adversary, and senior administration officials have mounted a campaign to warn Iraq's military commanders that they will be charged with war crimes if they unleash weapons of mass destruction. This week, Mr. Bush hinted at another concern, that the Iraqi government would purposefully sacrifice its population to stain an American military victory with civilian blood. -- from an abominable NY Times article worthy of the worst of Nazi or Soviet propaganda. The US is planning an unprovoked act of agression against Iraq, and is preparing to blame Iraqis if US forces kill Iraqi civilians, which they undoubtedly will. And the Times just spouts this nonsense as if it were logical and obvious. Hussein a vicious adversary? The "Mother of all battles" in 1991 caused approximately the same number of US casualties as the Somalia campaign against a few disorganized warlords. And several of the casualties were friendly fire. Iraq was formidable and vicious against Iran, but they had the help of US arms and intelligence back then. Our planes have been bombing Iraq regularly for years now, and I don't think any have been shot down. The US is planning on stomping on a country that was crushed in 1991 and has had no opportunity to recover since. This sounds like the Michigan football coach saying "We're not looking past Rice, they've got some great athletes over there" before Michigan fries Rice 56-3. Except we're adding that "If they do try to beat us, not only will we crush them on the field, but we're going to rape their cheerleaders and shoot their coaches after the game."

At the very least, the Times could insert a sentence like this: "War appears imminent now that Mr. Bush's campaign of lies, distortions and intimidation has given him approval from the US Congress and the UN Security Council to proceed with this criminal endeavor."