Body and Soul

Oprah Winfrey did a show on Iraq yesterday. I didn't see the whole thing, but what I saw was far better than I would have expected (except for the part where she was fawning all over Tom Friedman – Jesus, woman, he's Tom Friedman, not Tom Cruise.)

The focus on the first part was on how thoroughly the world opposes the war. She had CNN reporters doing person-on-the-street interviews in various capitals around the world, and – except in Kuwait -- all the people interviewed were universally against the war, and quite a few had disparaging things to say about Bush. This literally left Oprah trying to be "fair," and saying that she was sure there were some people in other countries who were in favor of the war, and who respected George Bush, but unfortunately the reporters weren't able to find any of them. Oprah may not be politically sophisticated, but she is too decent a person to play the rude "Why should anyone care about the opinion of foreigners?" game that most reporters play, so the criticism from abroad carried weight.
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Everybody Loves A War Thug
On the verge of Bush's brutal war for oil, the U.S. proves its arrogance, and the world is disgusted
By Mark Morford

So let's see if we have this straight. We still don't seem to have this straight:

Because there stands emasculated and completely Cheney-whipped Colin Powell, up in front of the U.N. Security Council and the world's TV cameras, scowling and pounding his fist and making a big show of indignation and showing everyone -- what? Some blurry satellite photos with little red squares? An audiotape of an alleged phone conversation between members of the Iraqi military, proving the existence of some biological agents we probably sold to them? Is he serious?

There is no real evidence. There is no smoking gun. There isn't even a smoking spit wad. There is only, basically, a smoking middle finger.
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UK War Dossier a Sham, Say Experts
British 'intelligence' lifted from academic articles

Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.
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For those that have illusions about the veracity of our fearless leaders, I highly suggest you read this. History is repeating itself.

The disquieted American
Daniel Ellsberg's leaks from inside the Pentagon helped to end the Vietnam war. On the eve of another unpopular war, Chalmers Johnson holds out for an Ellsberg in the Bush administration in this latest essay from the LRB

The subject of Daniel Ellsberg's memoir is the decadence of American democracy. The conditions he began fighting in 1969 are much worse today and far more dangerous to many more people. Yet central casting could not have produced a more perfect foil for the American imperial Presidency than Ellsberg.

An infantry lieutenant in the Marine Corps with genuine battle experience in Vietnam, a PhD in economics from Harvard, and a defence intellectual employed by the Rand Corporation of Santa Monica, with the highest security clearances, Ellsberg is as good as the American system can produce in the way of a male citizen working in the foreign policy apparatus.

His odyssey from Pentagon staff officer to the man who spirited 47 volumes of top secret documents out of the Rand Corporation, copied them, and delivered them to the New York Times and a dozen other newspapers is breathtaking.
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