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Current News & Views
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VIDEO INTERVIEW – GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:
"We're going to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran..." (DemocracyNow.org - 3.2.07)
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SELLING YET ANOTHER
PERNICIOUS LIE: Withdrawal from Iraq would prompt ‘Terrorists’ to follow
our troops home
Terrorized
by ‘War
on Terror’:
How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Washington Post,
Sunday, March 25, 2007; B01
(Excerpt)
The "war on
terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush
administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra
since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact
on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the
world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability
to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may
use terrorism against us.
The damage these
three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely
greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the
9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase
itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our
presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare --
political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
But the little secret here may be that
the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors.
Constant reference to a
"war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated
the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies
emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the
public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice
in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without
the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated
existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush
in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a
nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The
sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a
politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at
war."
To
justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately
crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a
self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier
U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact
that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a
status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be
preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America
into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps
also Pakistan.
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Saturday: 128
Iraqis, 3 GIs Killed; 160 Iraqis Wounded
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Sunday: 36
Iraqis Killed, 55 Wounded
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Senior UK
Officer: No 'Smoking Gun' Linking Iran to Iraq Insurgents
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US Disapproval on Iraq Hits Record
Russia
is Europe’s Natural Ally: By Vladimir Putin
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Influential
Bible Kook Hagee Wants War With Iran Now! By Bill Barnwell
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VIDEO DOCUMENTARY: The Doomsday Code – The
apocalyptic movement that drives the religious right
Cartoons
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Patriot Act: Clay Bennett, The Christian Science
Monitor, Boston
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How Torture Works:
Nik Scott, Australia, Curious Moments
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Patience is a Virtue… Adam Zyglis, Buffalo, NY, The Buffalo
News
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Mistakes Accomplished! Robert Ariail, The State, South Carolina
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Help! Hasan Bleibel Al-Mustakbal, Beirut, Lebanon
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Afghan Mission: Patrick Chappatte, the Geneva daily "Le
Temps", Sunday edition of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, weekly cartoon for
the International Herald Tribune.
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Time Flies… Cameron (Cam) Cardow, Canada The Ottawa Citizen
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Happy Birthday, Mr. President: Tab (Thomas Boldt), The Calgary Sun, Alberta,
Canada
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