Bollettino

The U.S. is gearing up for major war crimes in Fallujah. Apparently, the Bush administration, seeing that the attacks on Kerry for criticizing the Vietnam War have had an outstanding success, has decided to associate their candidate with their very own Iraq My Lai. Thus, pleasing that segment of the American public that values toughness, especially when it comes to squeezing blood from non-white skin. We are all so proud here at LI.

There isn’t a voice in the American press that is crying out against this. Hell, there hasn’t been a voice crying out against the inhuman and criminal methods developed by the Americans to enforce crowd control in the cities they occupy – random strafing by helicopters and drones, bombing that targets civilians, etc. The sham that Americans came into Iraq to establish democracy has long been exploded, at least in Iraqi eyes. The upcoming My Lai is a gamble. Americans believe that the Iraqis, being of a lesser race, valuable only insofar as they supply God’s white people with oil, are eminently enslaveable. Thus, we have put a part time terrorist, ex Baathist executioner up as puppet ruler of the country, to show what we mean by "democracy," and have pulled the strings so that any atrocity committed by the Americans against Iraqis will receive this quisling's seal of approval. This is known officially as loving freedom. However, the bet that the Iraqis spirit is so generally crushed that they can be ground indifferently into the dust has so far not paid off. We imagine that the upcoming My Lai will cause some kind of explosion in Iraq. It will certainly dwarf the video-ed beheadings of Zarqawi in terms of the scale of the homicide. Another bet: as we grind more meat from Iraqi bones, we will hear the oafish president sing more songs of the freedom loving Iraqi, like an offkey Josephine the Singer. It’s the same ageless rhetorical principle that moved the East Germans to call theirs a Democratic Republic.

Meanwhile, the NYT is catching up with events that happened a year and a half ago with a series of articles by Michael Gordon that merely reproduce themes more strikingly adumbrated by LI last year, in May and June. It is a spectacle: the war the NYT actively worked to provoke being reported on a year and a half late. We are waiting with baited breath for their indepth story revealing that men have landed on the moon.

The lead in the Guardian reads:

“This morning, ministers will sit round the cabinet table to hear Mr Blair and the defence secretary Geoff Hoon recommend that some 650 British soldiers should be moved from the south of Iraq to the centre of the country in order to free up American forces for an expected assault on Falluja and other centres of armed Arab resistance. This is a big decision for our country, for a variety of reasons, and it is right that the whole cabinet should be involved in it. Ministers will need to ask themselves very frankly whether the threatened onslaught against Falluja is an operation in which Britain should be involved, especially in the light of the disastrous and bloody attack on the town earlier this year. They will need to ask, too, whether the United States, with 130,000 troops already in the field, and tens of thousands others able to be flown in at short notice, really seeks British support for military reasons or for political ones. They will need to ask what the consequences of this move will be for the redeployed troops, who will now be at much greater risk of injury and death, as well as for the inevitably depleted forces left behind to maintain the peace around Basra.”

LI is being a little harsh on the Americans and their co-conspirators, the Brits. At least the Americans haven’t dropped poison gas on Fallujah, or at least not yet. Surely if that decision is taken, however, the U.S. media, courageous to the last, will investigate it – a year or two years later.

“Sometimes the Quarrel between two Princes is to which of them shall dispossess a third of his Dominions, where neither of them pretend to any Right. Sometimes one Prince quarreleth with another, for Fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a War is entered upon, because the Enemy is too strong, and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our Neighbours want the Things which we have, or have the Things which we want; and we both fight, till they take ours or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable Cause of War to invade a Country after the People have been wasted by Famine, destroyed by Pestilence, or embroiled by Factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into War against our nearest Ally, when one of his Towns lies convenient for us, or a Territory of Land, that would render our Dominions round and compleat. If a Prince sends Forces into a Nation where the People are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to Death, and make Slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous Way of Living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent Practice, when one Prince desires the Assistance of another to secure him against an Invasion, that the Assistant, when he hath driven out the Invader, should seize on the Dominions himself, and kill, imprison or banish the Prince he came to relieve. Alliance by Blood or Marriage, is a frequent Cause of War between Princes; and the nearer the Kindred is, the greater is their Disposition to quarrel: Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud; and Pride and Hunger will ever be at variance. For those Reasons, the Trade of a Soldier is held the most honourable of all others: Because a Soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill in cold Blood as many of his own Species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.”