Month: July 2003

But at least he isn’t a liar. Writing in Reason, Bailey describes one effect of intelligence-tampering:

The American public and the rest of the world will be understandably skeptical when U.S. intelligence agencies next claim there is a looming crisis somewhere. Unfortunately, there might be a real wolf lurking in the future, but after hearing them cry wolf in Iraq, how can we trust our government agencies either to know that for sure or, more darkly, to be telling us the truth?

Somehow, this doesn’t register with him as an indictment of the ongoing war, but whaddaya expect from a liberventionist? My prewar critique of Bailey’s “libertarian foreign policy” can be found here.

According to Ha’aretz, U.S. military honchos are visiting with the Israeli Defense Forces to learn about occupation techniques. Interestingly, these meetings began a full year before the war on Iraq. What country were they planning to occupy then? And for how long?

Would they please explain it to Americans?

From the AP:

Public support for Poland’s role in Iraq appeared to be eroding, with a poll published Monday showing more than half of those surveyed disapproved of sending troops.

A growing number of Poles also feared that Polish participation could lead to attacks at home.

Against the backdrop of daily attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, 68 percent said they feared Poland would become a target if the government sends troops as planned to command a stabilization zone, the independent CBOS polling agency said. That was up a full 15 percent from a survey in June.

And no one’s laughing? A great article on a global delusion:
The Day Irony Failed, by Gary LaMoshi.
The US State Department weighed in on the Makati crisis by backing “the legitimate civilian government of the Philippines”. The US cleverly avoided use of the word “elected”, but any comment on the Philippines from the Bush administration registers big numbers on the irony scale.

Presidents George W Bush and Arroyo (of the Phillipines) each took office of the same day, January 20, 2001, with dubious Supreme Court decisions substituting for electoral mandates. Each of these offspring of former presidents has deployed the “war on terrorism” as a cover for their failures to mend their national economies.

During the fighting over the last presidential election, The Onion ran the following headline:
Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces to U.S.:
Serbian president Vojislav Kostunica deployed more than 30,000 peacekeeping troops to the U.S. Monday, pledging full support to the troubled North American nation as it struggles to establish democracy.
Anyone who doesn’t understand the humor in this should be barred from holding public office.

Paul Wolfowitz is now saying that fighting the war in Iraq is key to fighting the war against terror. In fact , he is now saying, that’s why the American army invaded Iraq- our intelligence was “murky” but surely everyone can see that without invading Iraq, America would face yet another World Trade Center massacre. Apparently what the new intellectual counteroffensive to justify the war consists of is this thought along with the notion that the deaths of the Hussein brothers have cleared the stage for the growth of democracy in Iraq. I remember listening to Sean Hannity last week announcing on his radio show that he was tired of being on the defensive about the Iraqi war and that the White House was coordinating this new attack to change the intellectual battlefield beginning that day. But the death of the Hussein brothers is underscoring the fact that the guerilla war has other sources besides the remnants of the Baathist regime and of course the relationship between that regime and the revolutionary Muslims is and has always been either non-existent or inconsequential. Nor have we heard much from the intellectual bodyguard of the War Party, with the exception of the Fox News crowd.

Ali Abbas, the Iraqi boy who lost both arms and his family during the war, will be transported to London for prostheses. That the artificial limbs and subsequent therapy alone will cost $675,000 brings to mind Henry Hazlitt’s “blessings of destruction”.