Powell Speaks with Forked Tongue
Language, not truth, has been the first casualty of the West's war against terrorism
by Terry Jones

It was interesting to hear Colin Powell accuse France and Germany of cowardice in not wanting to go to war. Or, as he put more succinctly, France and Germany 'are afraid of upholding their responsibility to impose the will of the international community'. Powell's speech brings up one of the most outrageous but least examined aspects of this whole war on Iraq business. I am speaking about the appalling collateral damage already being inflicted on the English language.

Perhaps the worst impact is on our vocabulary. 'Cowardice', according to Colin Powell, is the refusal to injure thousands of innocent civilians living in Baghdad in order to promote US oil interests in the Middle East. The corollary is that 'bravery' must be the ability to order the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis without wincing or bringing up your Caesar salad.

I suppose Tony Blair is 'brave' because he is willing to expose the people who voted for him to the threat of terrorist reprisals in return for getting a red carpet whenever he visits the White House, while Chirac is a 'coward' for standing up to the bigoted bullying of the extremist right-wing Republican warmongers who currently run the United States.
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Our man in South Africa speaks:

Dave Eats Truckload of Acid

Or is he? The editorial aside, Dave goes further. Let's go to ScriptingPundit, our new war-blogging site. Dave's completed a First-World techie mission and has just returned home. He muses:

On TV, they had lots of meaningless nonsense about the upcoming war in Iraq. Good interview with Condoleezza Rice. She wants to ask the demonstrators what they want to do about Saddam. I gave this some thought. She'll never get a meaningful answer. The problem is, in the West we raise people on a diet of intellectual garbage, so when we need them to think, you just get garbage back. I heard General Wesley Clark on Meet The Press. Very good. He's running for President, no doubt about that.

Dave, if Condi Rice still wants to ask the demonstrators what they want to do about Saddam, she must be bloody stupid. That you have to think about this and come to the peculiar conclusion that she'll never get a meaningful answer goes a long way to explaining why so many outside of the U.S.A. still hold the French in high regard. If "Nothing" is not meaningful, I don't know what is. Saddam is not doing anything. He has not attacked any of his neighbors. There is no credible evidence he has any links to people able to harm the U.S. in a meaningful way [a way that justifies the deaths of yet more innocent people]. In terms of international law, he has fewer black marks against his name than Israel. The U.S., sponsoring his war against Iran, is largely to blame for the latter, I'm afraid. It’s called appeasement.
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Aid gets priority in secret US plans for new Iraq
Former general tipped to rule after Saddam

Iraq's government-in-waiting held a two-day secret meeting at a Washington military staff college over the weekend with 100 American officials - plus representatives from Britain - discussing plans for post-war reconstruction.

Among those present was believed to have been Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant-general selected by President George Bush to be Iraq's ruler once Saddam Hussein is overthrown.
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Bush Faces Increasingly Poor Image Overseas

The messages from U.S. embassies around the globe have become urgent and disturbing: Many people in the world increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
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