- As a failed president pins his last hopes for "greatness"
on gulling the public and wagging the dog, both he and his British puppet,
Tony Blair, are scrambling to cobble together an excuse for taking America
and the world into a new war on behalf of Zion. Here is one commentator's
jaundiced view of this latest crusade.
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- Commentary
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- So, they've got the evidence, about the weapons of mass
destruction, but we can't see it just yet. Is it still at the printers?
Is it being held up by a row about how you spell "aflatoxin"?
Perhaps there's a problem with the plot, and the scriptwriters are
refusing to let it go because the character of Tariq Aziz is left in the
air and the relationship between Saddam and the Scud missiles left hopelessly
unresolved.
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- If they know the evidence, why can't they tell us the
main points until we have the dossier? Or at least make a trailer:
"This is a story of a man for whom mass destruction was simply
a hobby--'Soon all my chemical weapons will be in place'--and two men determined
to stop him--'My God, there's enough uranium in there to murder every living
thing in every country affiliated to NATO. And look at this delivery
notice, it says he's getting his last crucial warhead in exactly three
months'-- Together they have 90 days to stop the axis of evil."
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- Or when it comes they might announce: "We
don't have any photos of his weapons of mass destruction just yet--but
we have got drawings. In felt pen."
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- And what a coincidence, that this evidence should promise
to pop up now, just as it becomes clear public opinion is against a war.
It all looks as desperate as a couple coming back from holiday and
incompetently trying to carry out an insurance fiddle. Blair and
Bush are almost kicking each other under the table as they mutter: "They've
definitely got plutonium. Uranium. No, plutonium. Hang on a
minute--I thought we agreed uranium."
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- In a couple of weeks Blair will hold another press conference
and announce he's left the evidence on the Tube. But he has finished
it, honest. Then that night he'll ring Bush and say: "Can
I copy yours?"
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- So for the time being we're left with statements such
as the one by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who said the war must
go ahead because "Saddam has not lived up to his promise to allow
inspectors into the country." He was then asked if the war would still
go ahead if Saddam did allow them into the country, and Fleischer answered:
"The policy of the US is regime change, with or without inspectors."
So if Saddam does admit inspectors, they'll be doing the most pointless
inspecting in the world. You couldn't blame them if they sat in the
shade for a fortnight and sent back a note saying: "He's got
a machine that can turn us all into tadpoles."
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- Which would be at the level of one paper's cut-out guide
to "Iraq's evil arsenal", pride of place going to "Scud
missiles". It admits the accuracy of these things is less than
a mile, so can we really go to war with someone for possessing a large
firework? They might as well include "The Dead Leg. Evil thigh-tingling
weapon that could numb several people in one day". The Scud, we are
told, has a "range of 200 miles, making Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran
and Kuwait possible targets". So either the demand is that Saddam
gets rid of his Scuds, or that he moves Iraq to somewhere more than 200
miles from the nearest country.
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- But the tabloid also mentions nuclear weapons. For,
"if Saddam acquires enriched uranium, he could be just months from
building a warhead". If the Women's Institute acquired enriched
uranium, they could be just months from building a warhead. There
is, however, a fair amount of evidence that Saddam doesn't have the military
power that Blair and Bush claim. Scott Ritter, who led the UN inspections
team, has stated repeatedly that any nuclear potential was destroyed. And
the last bunch of inspectors eventually left because they admitted they
were acting as spies.
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- The other argument for war, that Saddam's evil is proved
by his war against Iran and his treatment of Kurds, is poetic in its hypocrisy.
It's true he did both those things, but we were backing him at the
time. The Americans shot down a civilian Iranian plane, vetoed a United
Nations resolution condemning the attacks on the Kurds and dismissed anyone
who pointed out this barbarism. It's as if Alex Ferguson decided
to bomb Roy Keane, screaming "But this is a man prepared to hack down
his own colleagues" at anyone who suggested he shouldn't.
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- So it could be that because the warmongers are failing
to win public opinion, they're suddenly cobbling together "evidence".
And there will be piles of it. Just like the stories of Germans raping
nuns in 1914 and Iraqis throwing babies out of incubators in 1990, admitted
as lies once those wars were over. There will be grainy film of Saddam
chucking kittens in canals and crackly tape of him threatening to ruin
David Beckham's hair. But the football manager the Americans will
try to copy once the war starts will be Arsène Wenger. Every time
hundreds of civilians are slaughtered by wayward bombs, the US spokesman
will look blank and say: "Well I didn't see that incident so
I really can't comment. But aren't we doing well?"
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- http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/mark_steel/story.jsp?story=330556
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