Robert Sterling
The Indecency Of It All
Sun Apr 6 05:30:10 2003
208.152.73.58

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Saddamnit!: The Saddam Video
Robert Sterling
robalini@aol.com

The most telling thing about that video, whether or not it was shot
today or even weeks ago, is that you clearly see Iraqi people waving
automatic rifles within 10 feet of the guy (and it looked even closer
than that to me.) Now, imagine if someone was even within 100 yards
of Shrub with any kind of weapon (or, if you want to stick your
comparison to presidents, Bill Clinton.) I ask you, how would the
Secret Service react?

This tells me that even I have underestimated his popularity. For
all his tyranny, he treats his supporters very well, and they
obviously love him for it. The fact that he has little fear of his
own people (at least compared to American political leaders) speaks
volumes.

*****

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com

The Indecency Of It All

The following conversation took place recently in a courtroom
somewhere in America:
Judge: So what exactly happened?
Defendant: Well, your honor, I killed him.
Judge: And why did you do it?
Defendant: I was afraid that if I didn't kill him, he would kill me.
Judge: Had he threatened to kill you?
Defendant: Well, no, not really.
Judge: Had he ever attacked you in any way?
Defendant: No, your honor.
Judge: Had he ever threatened to physically attack you in any way?
Defendant: No sir.
Judge: Was there something about him physically that intimidated you?
Defendant: No, definitely not. As you can see, I'm a big, brawny guy.
And he was small and relatively weak.
Judge: Well then, did he have friends that threatened or intimidated
you?
Defendant: No, your honor. He didn't really have many friends.
Judge: Did he have any weapons?
Defendant: I was afraid that he might have.
Judge: But did you ever see any weapons? Did he ever threaten you
with any weapons?
Defendant: No, your honor. I sent some friends of mine over to his
house several times to look for them though.
Judge: And ... ?
Defendant: They didn't find anything.
Judge: And when you killed him ...? Were any weapons found at that
time?
Defendant: No sir.
Judge: So he didn't actually have any weapons?
Defendant: Well, I think he kept them well hidden. I know that he
used to have some.
Judge: Used to? When was that?
Defendant: Oh, about fifteen years ago. He had some then for sure.
Judge: For sure? What makes you so sure?
Defendant: Because I sold them to him.
Judge: But I thought you were afraid of him?
Defendant: I was.
Judge: I see. Did he live near you?
Defendant: No. He actually lived all the way on the other side of
town. We never really had occasion to see each other.
Judge: So your paths didn't really cross on a regular basis?
Defendant: No, sir. Our paths didn't really cross at all.
Judge: So this guy never ventured over to your side of town? And he
never threatened you in any way, and never attacked you in any way,
either personally or through a surrogate, and yet you felt threatened
enough by him that you felt justified in killing him? Is that about
right?
Defendant: That is correct, your honor. Like I said, I was afraid
that if I didn't kill him, he would kill me.
Judge: I see here that, according to the police report, you were
found in the victim's home, standing over his dead body.
Defendant: That is correct.
Judge: So he didn't come looking for you -- you went looking for him?
Is that correct?
Defendant: Yes, sir. I wanted to get to him before he got to me.
Judge: I see. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Defendant: Just that a year or two ago, I was assaulted.
Judge: By this same guy?
Defendant: No. By a different guy from a different neighborhood.
That's what I told everyone, anyway.
Judge: And was this other guy a friend of the guy you killed?
Defendant: Oh, no. They hated each other.
Judge: So that assault had nothing to do with you feeling threatened
by this other guy?
Defendant: No, not really.
Judge: Okay, then. This is clearly a case of self defense. You are
free to go, sir.
Defendant: Thank you, your honor.

Did the judge make the right decision in this case? To any reasonable
person, and to the vast majority of the world's people, the answer
obviously is that he did not. But to a significant number of
Americans, he did indeed.

*****

Davesweb on Fox:

I have to pause here briefly to note that my TV is tuned in to Fox
News, as it has been for the last two weeks, and as I type these
words the Fox team is providing some of the "fair and balanced"
coverage that they are famous for.

You may be wondering why I have been making so many references lately
to Fox News. The reason is that it is now my cable news network of
choice -- because if I'm going to watch the news and be lied to, I
want it to be ridiculously obvious that I am being lied to. And I
have found that Fox doesn't really tell any lies that everyone else
on the air isn't telling; they just tell them with a bit more
panache.

I can't really decide what exactly Fox News is. I know that it
definitely isn't an actual news service. That much is obvious. I am
reasonably certain that it is either (a) an Orwellian, 24-hour-a-day,
state-run propaganda broadcast, slickly produced but amateurish in
presentation, or (b) a parody of the other cable `news' services
that, tragically, isn't recognized for its over-the-top comedic
brilliance.

*****

"Unlike many of his Republican critics, Senator Kerry has worn the
uniform, served his country, seen combat, so he'd just as soon skip
their lectures about supporting our troops."

- Kerry Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, responding to Chickenhawks
Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert's criticisms regarding Senator Kerry's
call for regime change in America

***

Kerry Doesn't Shy From Anti-Bush Comment
Fri Apr 4, 2003
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry came
under fire from top congressional Republicans for saying the United
States, like Iraq, needs a regime change. Kerry is not backing down.

"The Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody
who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism," Kerry said
in a telephone interview with The Associated Press Friday. "I refuse
to have my patriotism or right to speak out questioned. I fought for
and earned the right to express my views in this country."

In a speech Wednesday in Peterborough, N.H., Kerry said President
Bush so alienated allies prior to the U.S.-led war against Iraq that
only a new president can rebuild damaged relationships with other
countries.

"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and
Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States," said Kerry,
a decorated Vietnam War veteran and Massachusetts senator.

Those comments drew an angry rebuke from the top Republicans in the
House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said
Kerry's statement amounted to "petty, partisan insults launched
solely for personal political gain" and were inappropriate with U.S.
troops fighting in Iraq.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said that in the midst of war,
the nation should pull together to support the troops and commander
in chief. "Once this war is over, there will be plenty of time for
the next election," he said in a statement.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called Kerry's
words "desperate and inappropriate."

"America before New Hampshire," DeLay said.

Kerry dismissed the criticism Thursday at a meet-the-candidates
dinner in Atlanta, saying, "I don't need any lessons in patriotism or
in caring for America from the likes of Tom DeLay." He rejected the
criticism in stronger terms on Friday.

"If they want to pick a fight, they've picked a fight with the wrong
guy," he said.

Kerry criticized Republicans for their campaign last year against
former Georgia Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an
arm in the Vietnam War. Republican Saxby Chambliss unseated the first-
term Cleland, based in large part on a national GOP campaign that
faulted Senate Democrats for holding up a homeland security bill over
a labor provision and suggested that Democratic lawmakers were not
concerned about national security.

"I watched what they did to Max Cleland last year," Kerry
said. "Shame on them for doing it then and shame on them for trying
to do it now."

Neither Hastert, Frist nor DeLay served in the military.

After speaking to the New York State United Teachers convention in
Washington Friday morning, one of Kerry's Democratic rivals, former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, said he probably would not have used the
words that Kerry did, but, "I have not criticized Senator Kerry for
that, nor am I going to.

"It certainly would be unusual for me to line up with Tom DeLay, and
I don't intend to start now," said Dean, who in recent weeks has
assailed Kerry, suggesting that the lawmaker has waffled on the issue
of the war.

Kerry backed a congressional resolution last fall giving Bush the
authority to use force to oust Saddam, but he repeatedly has
criticized the president for failing to give diplomacy more time.

Leading congressional Democrats generally have avoided criticism of
Bush since U.S.-led forces began attacking Iraq.

On March 17, when Bush announced that military strikes would begin
against Iraq unless Saddam left the country, Senate Minority Leader
Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Bush's diplomatic efforts had
failed "miserably" because he didn't secure a U.N. resolution for the
war.

Daschle's remarks drew a sharp rebuke from Hastert and DeLay. This
week, Daschle said he was satisfied with Bush's strategy.
___

Associated Press Writer Mike Glover in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed
to this report.

*****

World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org

Right-wing ideologue Peggy Noonan welcomes US casualties in Iraq
"Some good" from bloodier war, says Wall Street Journal columnist
By Bill Vann
4 April 2003

"We can take it," is the title of the latest column produced for the
Wall Street Journal editorial pages on March 31 by Peggy Noonan, the
former Republican White House speechwriter. What "we" are supposed to
take, as the piece makes clear, is the killing of US soldiers amidst
the carnage that is being unleashed on the people of Iraq.

Noonan welcomes the prospect of a significant number of American
troops coming home from Iraq in body bags. She speaks not just for
herself, but decisive sections of the ruling elite. They believe that
such a blood sacrifice is the only way to break down public
resistance to Washington's pursuit of US corporate interests around
the world by means of military aggression.

Noonan's specialty is paeans to right-wing Republican politicians and
vilification of their political opponents. Typical of her adulatory
prose was a column assessing Bush's State of the Union address
earlier this year:

"This, truly, is a good man ... there can be no doubting the depth of
his seriousness and the degree to which he attempts to do what he is
convinced is right and to lead his country to toward that vision of
rightness.... There is a profound authenticity to him, and a
fearlessness too. A steady hand on the helm in high seas, a knowledge
of where we must go and why, a resolve to achieve safe harbor."

She concludes by suggesting that Bush became president by means of
divine intervention rather mob violence to halt ballot counting in
Florida.

What she most admires in her fearless helmsman is his determination
to put an end, once and for all, to what has long been known as
the "Vietnam syndrome". This term has been used to describe the
public antipathy to militarism abroad, reinforced by the deaths of
more than 58,000 American soldiers in a failed decade-long
intervention in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, it refers to the reaction within the military,
which saw its public reputation discredited and its ranks torn by
dissension during the Vietnam War. Senior uniformed commanders, most
of whom were junior officers during that war, remain wary of any US
military intervention that does not enjoy strong public support and
include a relatively swift and secure "exit strategy".

Bush senior - for whom Noonan crafted such sound bites as "1,000
points of light" and "Read my lips, no new taxes" - claimed to
have "kicked" the Vietnam syndrome in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But
his critics on the right of the Republican Party - those who now
control the Pentagon and oversee the present aggression in Iraq -
criticized his ending of the ground war after the slaughter of Iraqi
troops fleeing Kuwait and his decision not to conquer Iraq itself.

Noonan laments that the wars fought since Vietnam - the invasions of
Grenada and Panama in the 1980s as well as the first Gulf War and the
interventions in the Balkans in the 1990s - have been quick affairs
with relatively few casualties.

The second war against Iraq will be different; and that, she says, is
a good thing. "There is no chance that it will be easy," she
writes. "Easy means fewer dead and less dread. But ... there I see
some good to be gotten from the long haul."

"The world will be reminded that America still knows how to suffer,"
Noonan argues. "In a country as in an individual, the ability to
withstand pain - the ability to suffer - says a great deal about
character." The willingness of the US to sustain substantial
casualties, she suggests, will serve to intimidate both "our
implacable foes and sometimes doubting friends."

An elevated US death toll will benefit the country's proponents of
unrestrained militarism, she adds: "Deep in the heart of many pro-
invasion thinkers has been a question ... Can we still take it? It
won't be bad for us to see that the answer is yes.'

It will be even more salutary for the military to see its troops
blooded and to lose its fear of casualties. Noonan writes: "Our armed
forces, the professionals, are going to learn that they can do it.
They've wondered too. They are also going to learn how to do their
jobs better, because they're really going to have to do the job. They
are not going to feel when they return that they got all dressed up
and the party was canceled."

Some party. How many flag-draped coffins will be coming home to
Noonan's posh Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan? The old
populist slogan, "a rich man's war, a poor man's fight," has never
been truer than today.

Those who are "really going to have to do the job" of dying on the
battlefield are drawn overwhelmingly from the working class and the
poor. They are for the most part young people who put on a uniform as
their only means of paying for a college education or getting a job.

The overwhelming majority of these "professionals" earn less in a
year than Noonan - as she admitted in a confessional column last
year - got paid for writing one speech extolling the virtues of
deregulation. Her client was the now-bankrupt energy giant Enron,
whose corrupt and socially destructive operations epitomized the
criminal morality underlying what Noonan describes as the Bush
administration's "vision of rightness".

In Iraq, the same morality is at work. The gangster elements who have
taken charge in Washington decided that they had the military power
to steal an oil-rich country and they are doing it. It is, in the
final analysis, a desperate bid to overcome by means of violence the
insoluble contradictions besetting the world capitalist economy and
the growing social crisis at home. In the process, however, those
political and social layers whose interests Noonan shares and defends
intend to profit handsomely by means of m