LIGHTING THE FUSE
Freeing the Iraqi People to Death
by Peter Matthiessen

The country today is very much concerned about the young Americans in the military whose lives will be endangered in an attack upon Iraq. But in the event of that attack, who in the White House will take responsibility for the never-mentioned yet inevitable slaughter of Iraqi civilians whose sole offense was getting in the way of a regime change?

In our name, a half million human beings are being threatened with death in the next few weeks -- dreadful deaths not unlike those of the victims of 9/11, except that far greater numbers will be burned and crushed and suffocated, and the horror will be painfully intensified by the shrieking of maimed and dying children. Nobody in this closed government, and almost nobody in the compliant mainstream media, is dealing squarely and honestly with this subject.
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  thanks to the bitter shack of resentment

Full U.S. Control Planned for Iraq

The Bush administration plans to take complete, unilateral control of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with an interim administration headed by a yet-to-be named American civilian who would direct the reconstruction of the country and the creation of a "representative" Iraqi government, according to a now-finalized blueprint described by U.S. officials and other sources.
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The Martial Plan
By Paul Krugman

The Marshall Plan was America's finest hour. After World War I, the victors did what victors usually do: they demanded reparations from the vanquished. But after World War II America did something unprecedented: it provided huge amounts of aid, helping both its allies and its defeated enemies rebuild.

It wasn't selfless altruism, of course; it was farsighted, enlightened self-interest. America's leaders understood that fostering prosperity, stability and democracy was as important as building military might in the struggle against Communism.

But one suspects that our current leaders would have jeered at this exercise in "nation-building." And they are certainly following a very different strategy today.
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Morality for sale
Building a coalition against Iraq is costly

  thanks to Body and Soul

When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy

Does the Bible foretell regime change in Iraq? Did God establish Israel's boundaries millennia ago? Is the United Nations a forerunner of a satanic world order?

For millions of Americans, the answer to all those questions is a resounding yes. For many believers in biblical prophecy, the Bush administration's go-it-alone foreign policy, hands-off attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and proposed war on Iraq are not simply actions in the national self-interest or an extension of the war on terrorism, but part of an unfolding divine plan.
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The shell game
By focusing headlines on WMDs that don't exist, attention is drawn away from ongoing catastrophes
by Geov Parrish

The daily headlines this week from the White House, in which steadily harsher rhetoric threatens an invasion that is already underway, are nothing more nor less than a shell game. But then, "Shell game" pretty well defines this entire oil-soaked administration's record to date. There's an awful lot they'd prefer not to talk about, or have you hear about. And, so, they hide things, under an onslaught of information, disinformation, and shells.
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