The US, The UN and Iraq

to stop fighting?

Them's enough to start WW3 by themselves

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Little endearing terms..........make life fun, don't you think? But really, guys we have to get back to politics, I don't want to be responsible for the demise of a good bar brawl.

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absolutely right littlek lysistrada had the same idea in 412 bc

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42 minutes to go now.

at 01.18, I dont think I'll wait up

good night.

tell me tomorrow who is at war with whom

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So, in general women would be less likely to support war, no? Is that a misperception on my part?

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42 minutes to what???

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little k, Let's make giant posters of my avatar and protest the war, up and down the streets of Washington

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SOTUA.

c.i.

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great idea Lola! Now, what would the equivilant be for posters in Iraq, N Korea, etc?

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burkas everywhere (pardon spelling if incorrect)

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mmmm, would it have the same effect?

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Quote:

Dick Cheney, his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz also think Saddam is the perfect lab rat on which to test their new pre-emptive "empire strikes first" national security strategy, which Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Libby first drafted back in 1992, during the Bush 41 administration, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/opinion/29DOWD.html

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creepy.

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ABC News Poll 01/27/03

I'm sure tomorrow there will be a Poll with similar focus. I look forward to comparing the two. I believe that will provide a good gauge of TSOTUA's initial effect.

I also await with interest Powell's presentation to The UN next week.

timber

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After reading Lewis H. Lapham's article in the January issue of Harpers Magazine, I think I will reread Barbara Tuchman's book,THe March of Folly, that he prefaces his piece. The comparison of the Bush administration to the Athenians in Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War is striking to me.

"As stupefied as Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld by the romance of imperial power, they speak from within a dream as old as the walls of Troy, and watching them bestow the favor of their prophecies on the Senate committee (to divine Saddam's plans, Senator Biden had said, 'is like reading the entrails of goats'), it occurred to me that maybe the time had come to reread Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War.Much of the story I'd long forgotten, but I remembered that Athens corrupted its democracy and brought about the ruin of its empire by foolishly attempting the conquest of Sicily, and when I found the relevant chapters (the debate in the Athenian assembly prior to sending a fleet westward into the Ionian Sea), it was as if I were reading the front page of that morning's New York Times or the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance..."

http://www.harpers.org/online/the_road_to_babylon/the_road_to_babylon.php3?pg=1

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What was most striking to me about Thucydides was the constant tale of class warfare combined with demogogic "electioneering." I sometimes fear that those with money (i.e., power and influence) are trying to establish in the US what has never before existed, a ruling oligarchy. Many adminisrations in this country's history have sponsored plutocratic programs, but, so far, the wealthy in this country have never presented a united front of power-seekers and power-weilders. For me, the best lesson from The Pelopeonnesian War was the minatory tale of class strife, and i fear for it here. (By the by, the Hobbes translation is to my mind the classic, and most readable version; those who have since rendered it into "modern english" have, to my taste, made a flat and dull work of it--Hobbes' use of our language in his translation is always good, and sometimes sparkles.)

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Vietnamnurse

Many thanks! That is a brilliant piece by Lapham and I hope more people read it than you and I. I'll quote just the last bit, itself containing a quote from Mark Twain written in 1905 during the American occupation of the Philippines.

Quote:

Objecting to the fraudulent piety of statesmen who don't know what they're saying, Twain wrote a story, "The War Prayer," in which an "aged stranger" enters a church where the congregation has been listening to an heroic sermon about the glory to be won in battle by young patriots armed with the love of God. Motioning the startled minister to stand aside, the aged stranger improvises a bitter peroration that makes clear the true meaning of the prayer:

"O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

The story didn't see the light of print until 1923, thirteen years after Twain's death. The editors to whom he tendered the manuscript thought it "unsuitable" for publication at a moment of high and patriotic feeling.

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Setanta

Yes, oligarchy (though one would have to redefine it in the present to accomodate size and complexity and multi-state connections) is my fear as well. A 'pre-emptive' PR move by the folks who tend to benefit from such an arrangement is to immediately cry out the alarum at any discussion in this area with "Class warfare! fe fi foe! Is this not America?!"

I didn't watch the speech last night but I never watch political speeches now. They are written by committee, inspired or constrained by poll results a la Madison Avenue, have no status as 'promise' or even as 'truth', and they are rehearsed, lit, and filmed with the very same care and techniques as used by the (commie) Hollywood types. It is performance art. I would be more agreeable to the whole thing if, before the show, tomatoes and nickels were handed out to all the assembled.

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"It is performance art"

long on performance, short on art

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"Art" in Government traditionally has been on the short side. By and large, government types are more akin to bricklayers and quarrymen than to architects and sculptors.

timber

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