Remora

Limited Inc has been quiet about the Middle East for a while. Since despair is the only rational response to the confluence of American inanity and Sharon's wet dream of a frontier war, we've been driven into internal exile on this one.

Still, even in the sea of distant bloodshed, there are humorous points to be made. LI has particularly liked the new patriotic strategy of the American press. As Quick Dick Cheney makes his grand tour of the world, '002 (get your t shirts now!) the NYT in particular has been interlarding every article with assurances that the unanimous hostility of both Arabs and Europeans to Bush's potential cavalry op in the badlands of Iraq conceals unamimous agreement with every burp and growl of the Heimat's foreign policy. This is truly a unique defense. We have to go way back to the Soviet-German peace treaty to find rhetoric that peculiar in the foreign policy sphere. Not that circular logic doesn't have a good and honorable place in our hearts. Remember the old Freudian argument that any objection to Freud's theory is really 'resistance" to the theory. And resistance stems from (hey presto) the unconscious id. Which proves there is an Id, which proves that Freud's theory is legitimate. QED. We all agreed with Freud, then, and we agreed more the more we disagreed.

Alas, there is another phrase of Freud's that occurs to LI: the reality principle. The reality principle seems to be breaking into the Heimat lovefest. Witness this last report from Saudi Arabia:

"American officials said before Mr. Cheney's trip to the Middle East that they thought Arab leaders would eventually acquiesce in an American military campaign against Iraq, even if they made a public show of disapproving of it. But the persistence and calculated nature of Arab response show how Middle East politics has intruded in Mr. Cheney's mission."

Is that the darndest thing? Middle Eastern politics intruding into OUR WAR! Why there ought to be a law.
However, not to fear. The more Bushypoo presses the war with Iraq button, the more he will maintain his ultrapatrotic poll numbers. Life is good for the former cheerleader!