Author: Jonathan Schwarz

Billmon:

For someone in my shoes, though, hopelessness can become an excuse for not thinking about unpleasant truths. But there was something about Riverbend’s quiet despair that forced me to think hard about my own moral responsibility as an American for a genocide caused by America — because of a war started in my name, paid for with my taxes.

I’ve opposed this war since it was just a malignant smirk on George Bush’s face. I’ve spoken against it, written against it, marched against it, supported and contributed to politicians I generally despise because I thought (wrongly) that they might do something to stop it. It’s why I took up blogging, why I started this blog.

But the question Riverbend has forced me to ask myself is: Did I do enough? And the only honest answer is no.

The rest.

Dear Pennsylvania,

Please do not reelect this man to the Senate:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

“It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

Thank you.

your friend,
Jon

Short pre-post mini-post: Dennis Perrin’s regular job is trending downward, and as he lines up new stuff he needs to raise a few bucks to justify the time he spends on his site. Unlike some people (e.g., me), Dennis actually is a productive member of society with a family to support, so I hope his regular readers can head over and drop some money in the tip jar. As a bonus, at the same link there are clips from South Park, the Ben Stiller Show, SNL, and Fridays.

Now, back to the regular post.

• • •

Ralph Peters, a columnist for the New York Post, is one of America’s premier frothing lunatics. He famously took a trip to Iraq earlier this year, after which he explained the situation there “is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe.” Also, morale in the Iraqi army has “soared” and there’s been a “surge in the popularity of U.S. troops.” This wonderful news has been kept from us by the secular rootless cosmopolitan media.

Recently Peters wrote an article for something called the “Armed Forces Journal.” (While it calls itself “the leading joint service monthly magazine for officers and leaders in the United States military community,” it’s actually owned by Gannett, not the government.) The article explained what REALLY needs to be done in/to the Middle East: a massive redrawing of every country’s borders based on ethnicity and religion. Peters’ suggested map of the future appears below. Sure, this would require staggering ethnic cleansing, but as Peters says, “ethnic cleansing works.”

Now, when I first read this article I made a prediction to myself: this will be circulating among the mideast’s frothing lunatics for DECADES. This is standard. The frothing lunatics in any society seize upon the statements of the frothing lunatics on the other “side,” and scream incesssantly that these statements represent actual plans with actual power behind them.

GEORGE BUSH: If we don’t stop them, Al Qaeda will create a caliphate across the mideast! After all, that’s what Ayman Zawahiri said they’ll do!

OSAMA BIN LADEN: If we don’t stop them, the crusaders will invade our countries, kill our leaders, and convert us to Christianity! After all, that’s what Ann Coulter said they’ll do!

One amusing results of this is the statements by one side’s frothing lunatics are sometimes far better known in other countries than their own. (E.g, that specific burst of Coulter’s insanity may well be spoken of more often in Saudi Arabia than it is here.)

Certainly this turns out to be the case with Peters. His wee screed was likely read by fewer than ten normal Americans. Meanwhile, among his counterpart frothing lunatics in the mideast…

NEWSWEEK’s Michael Hastings first heard the article being discussed at a dinner party in Amman, Jordan, while he was on his way into Iraq last summer. “I saw it next in a Sunni mosque in Baghdad,” Mike wrote me over the weekend. “The imam had actually printed the map and put it up on the bulletin board with an article in Arabic attached explaining it was the American-Zionist plan to shaft the Sunnis.” A couple of weeks ago, Mike was on the trail of the Kurdish guerrillas of the PKK (branded terrorists by Ankara and Washington), who are fighting to break off a big chunk of southeast Turkey. He found them holed up in the quasi-independent Kurdish portion of Iraq. “They were talking about the same map,” says Hastings.

YES, I WAS OH SO RIGHT.

I love understanding the world, even when this understanding indicates that we’re all going to die.

Zeyad of Healing Iraq:

One problem is that the people dismissing – or in some cases, rabidly attacking – the results of this study, including governmental officials who, arguably, have an interest in doing so, have offered no other alternative or not even a counter estimate. This is called denial. When you have no hard facts to discredit a scientific study, or worse, if you are forced to resort to absurd arguments, such as “the Iraqis are lying,” or “they interviewed insurgents,” or “the timing to publish this study was to affect American elections,” or “I don’t like the results and they don’t fit into my world view, therefore they have to be false,” it is better for you to just shut up. From the short time I have been here, I am realising that some Americans have a hard time accepting facts that fly against their political persuasions.

Now I am aware that the study is being used here by both sides of the argument in the context of domestic American politics, and that pains me. As if it is different for Iraqis whether 50,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of the war or 600,000. The bottom line is that there is a steady increase in civilian deaths, that the health system is rapidly deteriorating, and that things are clearly not going in the right direction. The people who conducted the survey should be commended for attempting to find out, with the limited methods they had available. On the other hand, the people who are attacking them come across as indifferent to the suffering of Iraqis, especially when they have made no obvious effort to provide a more accurate body count. In fact, it looks like they are reluctant to do this.

There’s much more. Read it all.

George Bush on Darfur, May 8, 2006:

About 200,000 people have died from conflict, famine and disease…

Iraq:

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

George Bush on Darfur, May 8, 2006:

…And more than 2 million were forced into camps inside and outside their country, unable to plant crops, or rebuild their villages…

Iraq (July 16, 2004):

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled into Jordan to escape the chaos in their country…

Iraq (February 2, 2005)

Syrian officials say 700,000 Iraqis from various ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds have arrived since the U.S.-led invasion…

Iraq (October 13, 2006):

Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country every day in a “steady, silent exodus”…

Up to 1.6 million Iraqis now live outside their country — mostly in Jordan and Syria, and in increasing numbers in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf states and Europe.

George Bush on Darfur, May 8, 2006:

I’ve called this massive violence an act of genocide, because no other word captures the extent of this tragedy.