“The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties.”
—former White House official Ann Lewis, Senior Advisor for Hillary Clinton for President.
First we had an election landslide against the Republicans, in which the Iraq war was the #1 concern of voters.
Then we had an Iraq Study Group. It was described by the mainstream media as “bipartisan”. Here’s what “bipartisan” actually means:
So, not exactly a bunch of pinko French-speaking peaceniks. Everyone seemed to expect that their report would recommend deeper engagement. Bush said that the report would give the country an “opportunity to find common ground”. But when the actual report was read, it said that the Iraq war is an ongoing disaster and that we should try to pull out:
The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success [...]
Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another.
And the result? The neocons turn on Baker and denounce him, and Bush opts for more troops for the long term fight. Allegedly sane Republican John McCain calls for more troops as well, in Afghanistan too.
Senior military staff are skeptical. There’s also the problem of where to get the actual troops, since the army is described as being at breaking point and in need of additional assistance from the National Guard and Reserves (who, remember, were supposed to be a strategic reserve to deal with crises within the USA).
But the big question I’m left wondering is: what would it take to get Bush and crew to listen? I can understand them ignoring intelligence reports, ignoring testimony from Iraqi defectors, ignoring millions of protesters marching in the streets, and so on. It’s harder to imagine how they can widen their ignorance until they’re even prepared to ignore and denounce their own people.
They say John Kerry is a master of debating skills. I believe it. I know he is, because watching the first presidential debate I actually found myself wanting to believe him, to trust him. He said some great things, and for a moment I actually believed that he might act on his promises.
And then I remembered the well-documented lies and U-turns that have made up his career, and I thought “No, you can’t believe him. I know you want to believe that he really thinks the Iraq war is wrong, I know you want to believe that he’ll pull us out of it…but dammit, that’s only been his clearly articulated position since last week.” Before that, of course, his position was that it was quite legitimate for the USA to invade a country that presented no threat to it, on the grounds that it might one day be a threat. Yes, Kerry felt it was a perfectly acceptable war—he just felt he’d have done a better job of it than Bush.
But that position failed to resonate with anyone who might actually vote for him, so like so many times in the past, Kerry slowly shifted to something more popular. Which is why I can’t let myself believe anything that comes out of his mouth; it’ll be as big a disappointment as Bill “NAFTA and no healthcare” Clinton.
Of course, I’d still have to hold my nose and vote for him, because Bush has been a colossal fuck-up on every level, is promising more of the same, and means it. I’ll take someone who might potentially do almost anything, over someone I know for sure will do the wrong thing. If you have to play Russian Roulette, play it with a revolver, not a shotgun.
But of course, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Every time the DNC supporters accost me in the street, it’s all I can do to avoid subjecting them to a lengthy rant which wouldn’t do any good. And it doesn’t make any difference anyway, because there’s no democracy here, I can’t vote.
President Bill Clinton’s administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, according to classified documents made available for the first time.
Senior officials privately used the word genocide within 16 days of the start of the killings, but chose not to do so publicly because the president had already decided not to intervene.
Intelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president had been told of a planned “final solution to eliminate all Tutsis” before the slaughter reached its peak.
It took Hutu death squads three months from April 6 to murder an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus and at each stage accurate, detailed reports were reaching Washington’s top policymakers.
—Guardian
Republicans explain: Bush’s sleazy business deals are Clinton’s fault.
Human beings eat and drink a lot of strange things. The discharged unfertilized ova of fowl, for example. The eyeballs of sheep. The yellow sticky secretions of small insects. Coffee beans extracted from the droppings of animals. The chemicals excreted by yeast. Fungus dug out of the ground by pigs. And so on.
I thought, suppose there were aliens out there. Suppose they came to earth, seeking not friendship, but gourmet delicacies. Being aliens, they’d probably have even more bizarre feeding habits than us; and things which we find disgusting or inedible, they might find delicious.
So I thought, just suppose the aliens landed. And suppose what they really loved, their favourite food, their nectar of the gods, suppose it was dog shit. The excretions of canines.
I mean, why not? It smells funny, but so does caviare. It’s full of bacteria, but so is yoghurt. We find it inedible, but then, we find eucalyptus leaves inedible, and koalas love them.
So, the aliens land, and they want to gorge themselves on dogshit.
I thought: How would the world’s press handle this one? Would President Clinton invite the aliens to a state banquet? Would it be shown on CNN?
Imagine: Every single pavement would be cleared overnight. Children would be able to play in the park or on the beach. Dog owners would be scouring the ground behind their pets, pooper scoopers and jam jars in hand. People would get involved in the extraterrestrial trade, as middlemen.
Perhaps there’d be a black market. People would walk up to you on street corners and ask you if you wanted to buy any shit. If something was really valuable, you’d say “This is shit”. If it was a priceless antique, you’d say “This is some old shit”, as the well-matured stuff would doubtless be popular with the aliens too, simply because of its scarcity.
People would learn to recognize different varieties of shit. Maybe the aliens would be crazy about labrador, but not at all keen on poodle. People would sniff at pavement scrapings knowledgably before deciding whether to make a bid for them. There’d be magazines like “What Shit” to cater to the specialist collector as well as the volume trader.
So I thought about all this, and I concluded: This’d be a great idea for a low-budget movie. I should at least write a short story about it.
And then later that day I thought again: Mmmmmaybe not.
And the next day I thought: That was the most stupid and puerile idea for a short story you have ever come up with.
And a few weeks later I thought: You should post it anyway.
And then today, I thought: I’ve a nasty feeling this is something I’ve inadvertently half-remembered from an article by Roger Carasso.