Yellowcake, RDX, and Sunscreen
Allow me to persecute Mary Robinson just once more. Note her use of the word “was,” and is “this was not a legitimate war,” which gets me to where I’m going next– away from distractions and non-sequiturs like the significance of who we’re fighting there now, the potential for Iraq to be torn to pieces by Persian and Turkish jackals, or for it to host an Al-Qaeda enclave in its west, within striking range of the world’s oils supply and plotting range of the Capitol South Metro Station. Nor will I speak today of millions of Iraqi refugees held back by Kuwaiti border guards, or crowding the decks of the U.S.S. Blue Ridge as the choppers are rolled off the flight deck and into the Persian Gulf, making room for the next flight from the rooftop of the al-Rasheed. I can imagine all those things, but as I say, they’re mere distractions. The mere consideration of them distracts us from the pursuit of liberal values.
The most urgent debate revolves around what happened over the course of the decade-or-so preceding April 2003, most of which, by my calculation, was known as “the Clinton Administration.” Which suggests that the real objection here is not the truth of the fact asserted–the existence of a number of threats–but the fact that a U.S. president finally had the termity to act on those threats that were universally acknowledged and solemnly declared by our nation’s intelligence agencies. God help him if he had, you know, failed to prevent what anyone capable of reading “My Pet Goat” should have forecast. Retroactively speaking, that is.
Some lingering questions remain about those threats, by the way. The fact that I’m still waiting for Dick Cheney to talk about those supports my personal theory that Karl Rove is substantially less diabolically efficient than the Keyzer Soze figure some have made him out to be.
Of course, maybe all of this is being blown out of proportion by the media’s love for stories that portray the Iraq War’s negative aspects. Already, I can hear you saying it: There he goes again with the media bias. My bad.
So, on the lighter side, did you hear that Kurt Vonnegut is now officially the batty old has-been uncle of American letters?
Vonnegut, 83, has been a strong opponent of Mr Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, but until now has stopped short of defending terrorism.
But in discussing his views with The Weekend Australian, Vonnegut said it was “sweet and honourable” to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.
Remember kids: dissent is ALWAYS patriotic. Got that? Otherwise, I can’t do better here than James Lileks, but hey, who ever can?
Anticipating murder for the glory of God must be an amazing high. Most people understand the emotional motivation that animates these people, but don’t spend much time on it, anymore than they wonder about the joy a child rapist feels when he has the kid in the woods. It’s one thing to consider it; it’s another to luxuriate in your considerations. An amazing high.
Dude. Don’t bogart the Semtex.
If these comments are reported accurately ““ if they didn’t remove the part where he says “nevertheless, they are horrid madmen who willingly slaughter children in the service of a depraved concept of God and human society” ““ then this ought to be a deal-breaker. This ought to be the point where the man is shunned, not feted, and held to account in every subsequent mention of his name and works. As in “Vonnegut, whose early works exposed the madness and nihilism of war, would later support the “˜sweet and honourable’ nature of men who set off nailbombs in public squares in the name of the organization that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11. But this will be regarded as nothing more than a beloved old uncle letting off a fart at a wedding and grinning widely when people turn around.
So it goes. See you in hell, Kurt. Susan Sontag booked you a space.