I can't wait for Justin's field reports on the next pro capitalist rallies!
I'm excited!
Actually this isn't bad for a paleo conservative cocksucker.
WAR PARTY STUMBLES
Their propaganda campaign is pathetic
While war may be inevitable � at least, that's what we're supposed to
believe � the War Party's propaganda campaign is stupefyingly unconvincing.
What was billed as a "Support the Troops" rally at the Alamo was held the
other day, where "about 1,000" participants waved signs proclaiming "God
Supports President Bush." This echoes the President's own remarks, made the
same day, in which he declared it was the will of "the Almighty" to
"liberate the oppressed people of Iraq." Having abandoned the Constitution,
and the foreign policy advice of the Founding Fathers, the President and
his supporters have reverted back to an earlier doctrine: the divine right
of kings.
Meanwhile, Indianpolis, Indiana, where a similar group rallied in support
of mass murder in Iraq, was the scene of a breathtakingly ugly � and
telling � incident, when one chickenhawk confronted counter-demonstrators
from Veterans for Peace:
"Things got contentious at the end of the less-than-hourlong demonstration
when some at the rally confronted a group calling itself Vietnam Veterans
for Peace. 'Go home and eat your wine and cheese, you sissies,' William G.
Rice, 40, yelled at the group of about 20 people as they walked away.
'Cowards.' Rice, a laborer, said that although he had no military
experience, he thought he understood the political situation better than
the veterans. 'I seem to have a better understanding of the price of
freedom than they do,' he said."
Such is the moral blindness inspired by our righteous President � and his
neoconservative amen corner, who lecture us on the glories of bringing
"freedom" and "democracy" to the Middle East � that the men who fought in
the muck and mire of Southeast Asia are now "sissies," while this
good-for-nothing "laborer" who never fought a day in his life has "a better
understanding of freedom than they do."
General Anthony Zinni, retired Marine commander Joseph P. Hoar, and the
most decorated soldier of the Vietnam war era, Colonel David Hackworth �
these are all "cowards," because they challenge the rush to war, while the
manly Rice and his fellow chickenhawks are not only morally superior, but
gifted with a special insight that entitles them to lead.
"First of all, you know, size of protests � it's like deciding, 'Well, I'm
going to decide policy based upon a focus group,'" said the Boy Emperor,
when asked about the effect of the recent anti-war rallies on U.S. policy.
"The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon, in this case, the
security of the people," he said, looking sternly presidential.
Balderdash. This administration doesn't make a move without consulting
focus groups. Karl Rove watches the polls, well, like a hawk, and the news
is not good for the War Party, even in pro-military, staunchly conservative
Alabama. Suddenly, the warmongers themselves are under attack from a
growing anti-war movement � that's us, folks! � and an Associated Press
report on the poll numbers attributes the shift in opinion to domestic
anti-war sentiment as well as last week's dust-up with Turkey over the
terms of their joining the coalition of the bribed:
"These events took a toll on domestic support for military action,
according to polls taken last week by the Gallup Organization and the Pew
Research Center. Both found that while majorities say they support the
basic proposition of disarming Hussein by force, that support is strongly
conditional on obtaining UN approval for any war."
With a large majority of the American people leery of war without UN
approval, or some kind of international backing, Karl Rove must be having
conniptions. This is the reason for the full-scale diplomatic offensive of
the past few weeks, meant to bludgeon the French, the Germans, the Russians
and the Chinese into line � not because the administration cares one whit
about international public opinion, but to buttress Bush's own position at
home. Pollsters attribute American ambivalence over this war to fears of
the aftermath, in which the U.S. will be left alone to bear the postwar
burden of policing and reconstruction. And in deep South states like
Alabama, for instance, there is the knowledge that a great deal of the
burden will fall directly on their shoulders, as the Mobile Register reports:
"Just as in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, however, it's likely that Alabama
people will shoulder a disproportionate role in any new conflict. Although
the ranks of the Alabama National Guard have shrunk in the last decade, its
15,000 members still make it among the largest state reserve forces in the
country. Already, about 4,100 of those troops are on active duty, serving
primarily in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf and stateside on homeland
defense duties. In comparison with other states, 'we would be right at the
top' in the percentage of mobilized personnel, said Norm Arnold, a Guard
spokesman in Montgomery."
So much for the GOP's "southern strategy." If the Trent Lott affair didn't
end it, then this surely will.
Like a veritable sword of Damocles, the threat of a French veto hangs over
the War Party's head and calls into serious question the scheduling of this
supposedly inevitable war. In order to mobilize domestic support, the
President and his war-mad cronies, unilateralists all, have become
multilateralists by necessity. But Chirac has made such an issue of this �
to the cheers of his countrymen � that it would be difficult for him to
explain why he didn't utter the one word that could possibly slow, if not
stop, the American war machine: "Veto!"
As I have pointed out before, once the U.S. made the decision to go to the
UN for a resolution, they stepped in it without much thought of
extrication. That was the first real quagmire of this war. A major
rationale for going to the UN was the argument made not only by Colin
Powell but also by the British, who had their own internal political
troubles to consider. Now Blair has demanded and gotten a campaign for a
second resolution, and if that fails, then all bets are off.
Both the President and his British poodle have talked in apocalyptic terms
about how the day of reckoning with Iraq is upon us, but judgement day may
dawn for Tony Blair in the House of Commons when war breaks out. His own
party � and his own voters � are in open revolt against this rotten war.
Will the anti-war segment of Britain's Labor Party have the courage to
bring down their "own" government?
It could just happen, and in that case we wouldn't even have the British to
use as a fig-leaf for our isolation. Australia, too, is iffy, with Prime
Minister John Howard's pro-invasion position under assault from anti-war
members of Parliament, and large numbers opposed to Australian
participation without UN approval. With the "coalition of the willing"
limited to Israel, Instapundit, Tuvalu and Nauru, will the Bushies embark
on a high-risk long-term military campaign with the majority of Americans
either opposed or skeptical?
For a number of practical and purely military reasons, any invasion plan
set in motion after the Ides of March is liable to cost us, in casualties
and time, neither of which the administration can afford to expend. The
little Napoleons of the neoconservative set are counting on a short war, a
"cakewalk," as leading chickenhawks describe the quick victory scenario. We
are bound to experience, in the next few weeks, a veritable maelstrom of
war propaganda, a cacophony of war cries and lies so extravagant as to
rival any similar past effort.
The great danger of this propaganda technique, with its crudeness and
apparent disregard for objective standards of truth, is that it is bound to
provoke widespread incredulity. In dialectical revenge against the
swaggering excesses of the War Party, the backlash, or "blowback," is
already gathering, and, while anti-war protestors marched in their millions
in Rome, Paris, Barcelona, and London, the strongest reaction may
eventually flare up on American shores.
Add political and cultural turmoil to the toll taken by this war in terms
of troops and treasure. The anti-war movement is, in large part, a youth
movement. Brought up to believe that America is a democratic republic,
today's young Americans see their country becoming an empire abroad and a
police state at home. As the land of the free and the home of the brave
becomes the land of the Patriot Act and the home of the
too-scared-to-protest, the young are standing up to be counted. There is a
premonition of insurrection in the air, not only political but also
cultural, that could make the 1960s � with all its excesses � seem like a
Sunday school picnic.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j022403.html
