THE HAPLESS HEGEMON
George W. Bush stumbles toward the precipice

The hapless hegemon stumbles over its own feet as it makes its grand entry onto the world stage. The Americans, the world notes, have none of the finesse of their British predecessors. A clumsy giant, apparently half blind, stumbles into a bottomless quagmire, and the world wonders: will he drag the rest of us down with him?

The complications caused by the Turkish defection, the North Korean eruption, the entreaties of our allies – none of this shows any sign of deterring the Bushies. Not even the fast-softening domestic support for this war, and the President's simultaneous drop in the polls, have so much as slowed them down. That this administration is still hurtling toward war with Iraq at warp speed is the full measure of its utter recklessness, its fanatic irresponsibility, and its unfitness to rule.
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  thanks to thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse

RELEVANT CONTRADICTIONS
In defense of humor, irony, satire, and a Native American perspective on the coming war on Iraq
By Sherman Alexie

The presidency of George W. Bush is also filled with profound and serious contradictions that make me laugh out loud. George W. lost the 2002 election by over 500,000 votes and was still elected president! Ha, ha, ha, ha! At 2:16 a.m. on election night, Fox News announced that George W. had won the Florida vote, thus securing the 271 electoral votes needed to win the presidential election. The other television networks followed suit in a matter of minutes. The individual responsible for recommending that Fox call Florida for Bush was John Ellis, who led the network's decision desk. Ellis is the first cousin of George W. and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Ha, ha, ha, ha! George W. graduated from Yale with a 77 average and was admitted to Harvard Business School based on that stellar academic achievement, but doesn't believe quotas should be used in college admissions. Ha, ha, ha, ha! George W. is the leader of the free world, but he doesn't hold press conferences unless the questions are limited in number and delivered to him in advance. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The White House emphatically states that George W. personally writes many of his speeches. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States and the so-called "axis of evil," Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, are four of the leading practitioners of capital punishment in the world, while France and Germany, our greatest obstacles in the war against Iraq, abolished capital punishment in 1981 and 1949, respectively. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the only country that has used the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and wants to build more of the same! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the freedom-loving country where Americans fought each other over the right to own slaves! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the democratic country that didn't allow women to vote until 1920! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the moral country that accepted Jim Crow laws until 1964. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
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  thanks to Orcinus

Muslim Democracy Foils Bush's Imperial Plans

There is, of course, an enormous irony in this most recent defeat in Turkey, if only because the neo-conservatives are trying to persuade the world that a war on Iraq is the essential first step toward spreading democracy in the Islamic world. "The essence of what we believe in – we in the United States – is that people should be free to determine their own future," Wolfowitz told Turkish reporters last July. "Turkey is proof that democracy can work for Muslims."

As a former senior state department official quipped, "We back democracy all the way. All the way, that is, up to the point that they disagree with us." When it comes to Iraq, democracy may not work well for the neoconservatives.
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Wending our weary way toward war
Breathless media coverage and presidential non sequiturs -- don't believe anything until it's over
by Molly Ivins

As we wend our weary way toward war, dragging the Turks -- whose price will be our betrayal of the Kurds (the fourth time we've double-crossed the Kurds, counting Henry Kissinger's triple-cross only once) -- it reminds me of the end of a bad election. Don't believe anything until it's over.
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The Last One
by Charley Reese

To waste something so precious as a young life is awful to think about. Look at the faces of these young soldiers. Many are barely more than boys, really. Boys always fight wars because it's too strenuous for old geezers. These days, the generals will sit in air-conditioned comfort far from the sound of guns. They will hold their briefings for the press. When the war is over and the young men are buried or packed away in VA hospitals or sent home to try to make a living, the generals will get the book contracts, take off on the lecture circuit and get rich. Some of them might even get gifts of stocks from grateful corporations that profited from the war. When the next war comes, they'll be on television as "Fox News consultants."

And I haven't even mentioned the suffering that will be inflicted on the Iraqis — their young boys, their children, mothers, fathers and grandfathers. You saw how Americans ran terrified from the collapse of the towers in New York. Imagine what it's like to be in a city that is being bombarded with 2,000-pound bombs, cruise missiles, artillery and Gatling guns. Imagine trying to save your children in such a mad inferno. Imagine what it would be like to see your children torn into ragged, bloody chunks of meat by shrapnel, or burned into a twisted piece of charcoal, with wet, yellow intestines leaking out. It's pure hell to be the collateral damage. But sit back and enjoy your war. It's what you want.
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