Saddam’s former translator gives us another justification for the war:
‘He wrote in a hurry. It was as if he had all these ideas he just wanted to get out and his formal pronouncements weren’t enough.’ To express even the simplest ideas, Saddam used a convoluted style full of subclauses, superfluous adjectives and boring digressions. ‘It was virtually impossible to translate into English because I had to chop up these endless sentences. Let’s just say Saddam was no Naguib Mahfouz.’
The documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War will be shown at house parties nationwide on Sunday. Click here to find a screening near you.
*Two great articles to be read in tandem: David Isenberg on the militarization of civil society, and historian Edmund Morgan on Gore Vidal’s America. Includes this definition of “democracy” from Vidal:
[A] word that appears nowhere in the American Constitution, or, indeed in our lives except as an occasional rhetorical flourish when we are up to mischief in foreign lands.
*The Cato Institute makes itself useful for a change: Jim Powell rebuts neocon plutocrat Conrad Black’s coddling of FDR.
*Justin has more on the Neal Boortz/Libertarian convention fiasco. It’s not too late to write Nancy Neale at convention@hq.LP.org or torchess@austin.rr.com and protest, even if you’re not a Libertarian. In fact, since Boortz’s inclusion seems to be based entirely upon his perceived ability to reach a wider audience, a backlash by non-Libertarians might do some good.
Promoting genocide through mass media is suddenly a war crime. As a free-speech extremist, I’m none too keen on this, so I’ll go ahead and warn Ben Shapiro (bitchin’ new photo, Ben), Ann Coulter, and Rich Lowry to hire an attorney. Maybe Alan Dershowitz?
Laurie Mylroie, darling of National Review and its sorority sister, The American Spectator, officially stands corrected. Of course, Antiwar.com has been warning you about this moonbeam for two years now.
That’s the yin-yang of U.S. imperialism David Brooks celebrates in this asinine op-ed. Tell us more of this schizophrenic hermaphrodite and what it’s doing in Iraq, oh Oracle of Official Conservatism:
[Capt. John Prior] was inside a gas station when a commotion erupted outside. A mob of people was furiously accusing a man of butting in line and stealing gasoline. Prior established that the man was merely a government inspector checking the quality of the fuel. Frazzled and exhausted, Prior took the chance to teach the mob a broader lesson: “The problem is that you people accuse each other without proof! That’s the problem!”
Another soldier, who keeps a Weblog, collects toys and passes them out to Iraqi children. He brought a pile of toys to an orphanage, but the paid staff at the place rushed the pile to grab the toys for themselves — “like sharks in a feeding frenzy,” he writes. He has learned that if he stations himself with an M-16 over the toys, things go smoothly.
We’re the U.S.A., and we’re here to make sure no one cuts in line! And you had better start sharing!
Oh, dear.
