A Level Gaze

A Level Gaze

"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual."
--G.C. Lichtenberg

Thursday, June 26, 2003

God is in the Details

Speaking to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, George W. Bush said

God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.

There seem to be some interesting twists to his theology. The possible explanations of his appending to the two things that "God" had told him to do, something he had himself determined to do are 1) that he believes that anything he is determined to do is the will of "God," 2) that he thinks Abbas is a mindless religious fanatic who can be persuaded of anything, so long as "God" is invoked. Also, it is right if the will of "God" is suspended in favor of preparation for elections to positions of earthly might.

Why do we bother with having federal employees, sinners all, attempting to influence policy when we have the one true Implement of the Almighty for our President? Won't they only stir up the mud of corruption and obscure the Will of the Creator as revealed to the prophet Dubya?

If Abbas (or Sharon) chooses not to help him, won't "God" bear some of the responsibility? Why would He tell W to do something and then make it impossible for it to be accomplished? "God" would never play both sides of an issue, would He?

Or does the will of "God" only go so far as to create good intentions? It's not as though Bush managed to actually get rid of al Qaeda or Saddam, and it's not likely he's going to be able to get any actual peace in the Middle East. Maybe that's all "God" figures Georgie's good for.

Maybe "God" will even give George some hopeful platitudes to say about the millions of dead, injured, starving, and tortured people in the Congo and elsewhere. That is, before he returns his attention to milking his rich contributors for hundreds of millions of dollars so he can smear reputations and utterly degrade the dignity of truth itself en route to another four years of empty rhetoric and naked aggression.

posted by David at 6/26/2003 04:59:00 PM ::

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

At Eschaton, via commenter Tripleg regarding this post, an idea.

In response to Atrios' (correct) assertion:

The only evidence we need to know that the administration is simply in CYA mode is the fact they don't seem very concerned about the "missing" WMD. If they really believed they existed, the hunt for them wouldn't be motivated by a desire to justify the war, it would be motivated by the very legitimate desire to make sure the deadly weapons were not in the hands of evil-doers. Since the administration isn't sounding the alarm along these lines, it's obvious they're unconcerned. They just want to find some scrap of something - a la the ridiculous mobile "labs" - to pacify the media and dupe the public.

Tripleg wrote:

No one but administration insiders know what was in the 8,000 missing pages of the Iraqi report on compliance to the UN, thanks to Powell's interception before it got to the UN security council. It wouldn't be at all surprising to learn that the missing 8,000 pages contained a detailed accounting of the destruction/disposal of Iraq's WMD.

And I thought:

Shit, if anyone finds out that we forced the Iraqis to completely disarm and we attacked them anyway, no other country is ever going to disarm again, ever. Kiss nuclear nonproliferation good-bye, all for the sake of a geopolitical footprint and some quick cash.

If this is found to be true we'll have a permanent global arms race and mutually assured destruction. Even if we don't destroy the planet, more precious resources will be spent on weapons and armies will grow in size and political influence worldwide. Standards of living will plummet, exchanged for everlasting terror.

I feel the duty to exhort any journalist who comes up with evidence that we knew Iraq had destroyed all of its meaningful WMD to keep it to him- or herself. I hope it's not necessary to tell said journalist to bring down Bush and the neocons by every other possible means.

posted by David at 6/03/2003 09:57:00 PM ::

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