Oh Fuck

[liadnan]

I'd managed to convince myself this wasn't really going to happen...

Comments

[memetic-glutton.livejournal.com]

I knew it was coming, but I still feel physically sick.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised, but am still disgusted. And intrigued.

At around this time in 2000, when it became clear that the election was going to be decided in court - and it was therefore an obvious Bush victory -I was thinking, "this is going to be disastrous. The next four years are going to be an awful period for the planet".

I was still flabbergasted, however, to see exactly how bad things went on to get.

The reason I'm intrigued is that I might once again be being overly optimistic about the next four years. And I can't imagine how things could be worse than my expectations without moving into some sort of science-fiction-style apocalypse scenario.

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

You mean we aren't living in Titan?!

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

I'm not intrigued - I'm quietly horrified and trying not to think who's next. Syria? Iran?

[brelson.livejournal.com]

Next in line, I think, might well be America. If Bush is going to do what he wants to do to Syria and Iran he needs to reinstate the draft first, and in order to do that he needs to mount a "hearts and minds" campaign against his own people in order to root out "unpatriotic" sentiment.

Once he's got rid of all dissent, he'll be able to invade other countries, but right now he doesn't have the physical resources or the political standing to do it.

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of that. Maybe because, in my opinion, America has been.... under attack? for some time now. What I find very intriguing is the way Republicans view the world - and US politics. I was watching one program about the elections or the war on terror (can't remember now) and I was shocked by how many people - Republicans - perceived the situation in Iraq as positive proof that Bush was winning the war on terror.

The 'hearts and minds' campaign will not against his own people - his own people already believe in him. It will be against the liberal democrats (who don't define themselves as 'his people', at least according to some people I've talked to).

[brelson.livejournal.com]

Why do you think a lot of Republicans think the situation in Iraq proves that Bush's winning the war on terror? I'm really confused by that one myself.

It's a bit lazy to refer to Orwell, but do you think a part of it is a feeling that Americans have "always" been in Iraq? That the troops there have been minding their own business for ages, and are only now coming under attack from "terrorists", thus proving that Iraq is indeed crawling with them?

The fact that the bounty on Al-Zarqawi's head is the same as the bounty on Osama bin Laden suggests that the Bush administration feels that resisting its occupation force is tantamount to killing thousands of American civilians. Strange!

[ajva.livejournal.com]

The fact that the bounty on Al-Zarqawi's head is the same as the bounty on Osama bin Laden suggests that the Bush administration feels that resisting its occupation force is tantamount to killing thousands of American civilians. Strange!

Um...sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the war, surely Al-Zarqawi could not really be seen as a heroic freedom fighter? I had him down more as a kind of opportunist gangster myself.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

Let's say he's just an opportunistic gangster (although I'd prefer to avoid emotive terms like "freedom fighter" or "opportunistic gangster" - he's basically the leader of a militant group that is violently resisting the US occupation of Iraq). Does he deserve the same status of Osama bin Laden as a result? The world is full of opportunistic gangsters who don't have $25 million bounties on their heads.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

I would agree with you that emotive terms are best avoided, which I suppose was really my beef in the first place. I must confess, I did rather feel that saying al-Zarqawi was "resisting [the US's] occupation force" was perhaps unnecessarily generous to the man's motives, and merited some sort of clarification. I take and freely concede your point about him not having killed as many people. I suspect this is pretty much par for the course in our media-saturated age, though; whoever earns the most publicity is king, no matter what his actual actions. Perhaps it's not entirely surprising that the bounties levied are in proportion to that rather than anything else.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

If the person who earns the most publicity is the person that the government most wants wiped out, then how long do we have to wait until a $25m bounty is placed on the heads of either Shane Ritchie or Simon Cowell? :)

But seriously, as for the motives of al-Zarqawi: they may be quite difficult to discern, but I think it's safe to say that he probably wouldn't be kidnapping Westerners and planning attacks on American military convoys had the invasion of Iraq not happened.

I guess it's almost axiomatic that, whenever you have paramilitary activity, it tends to become intertwined with the underworld before too long - money laundering, illegal industries (drugs etc) and people-trafficking all being part and parcel of the whole thing. Then again, it could be said that "proper" states aren't free from involvement with the seedy underbelly of human society themselves.

[liadnan]

That brilliant and utterly reliable source of news... err. Popbitch has some interesting comments on al-Zarqawi today:
Mysterious Jordanian celebrity executioner Abu
Musab Al Zarqawi is a huge hit with lovers of
Hardline Honeyz. With a $25m price tag on his
head, al Zarqawi shot to fame as the star of
"Sheik Abu Musab Al Zarqawi slaughters an
American infidel with his own hands", a video
showing the death of Iraq hostage Nicholas Berg.
But is Al Zarqawi for real?

A Jordanian of that name did fight in Afganistan
in the 80s and in Kurdish Iraq in the 90s,
with a group called Ansar al-Islam, but no more
was heard of him until Colin Powell's famous
warmongering speech to the UN named him as the
link between Saddam and Osama. Since then Al
Zarqawi has become a mythic bogeyman blamed for
almost every real or imagined terrorist threat.

*Suddenly he was al-Qaeda's bioterrorism expert
and head of terror camps in Saddam-era Iraq; he'd
never previously been linked to either.
* US intelligence experts say Berg's executioner
clearly didn't have a Jordanian accent.
* Iraqi insurgents claimed Al Zarqawi was dead,
and all new captured operatives from Ansar
al-Islam say they've never laid eyes on him.
* CIA said he only had one leg after an operation
in Baghdad, but since the executioner in the
video clearly had two they now say, er, he has
two after all.

So... Al Zarqawi: he's the new Keyser Sose.

frankly,

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

I can't understand it either.

I sometimes wonder if these people read/see/listen different newsreports than the rest of us.

Re: frankly,

[liadnan]

They do. Have you spent much time watching CBS or CNN? Let alone Fox.

Re: frankly,

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

I've never watched Fox, but I sometimes do check CNN. But not that often. Last time I'd checked it it was before the Olympics and they'd managed to be as anti-Greek as Guardian.... I admit to being a little annoyed:)

[sshi.livejournal.com]

my family in the US are getting rather worried about the draft.
to the point where they've already started talking about sending my teenage male cousins to college in Ireland...

[fi.livejournal.com]

I think most of us had.

[susumu.livejournal.com]

Still, you're up 10 quid from Martin.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

My lawyers are going to drag this all the way to the Law Lords.

[liadnan]

I'm your lawyer. You're my bitch. But I guess you're going to need the cash to drink enough to blot all this out, so I'll let you off.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's yours next time we meet. Then you can buy the drinks.

seriously?

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

I expected it - and then kept on feeling horrible all night because if there's one thing that really sucks when you're a pessimist, is being a pessimist who's proven right.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

I'm a pessimist who's been proven right, but at least I don't have to buy anyone any drinks (as I'd promised to do if Kerry had won). I only have to buy myself drinks, and will be doing that quite a lot this evening...

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Drinking is of course the right and proper way to deal with psychological trauma. However my local shop got busted for selling illegal fireworks last night leaving me bereft of beer. Disaster!

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I am horrified. And I can't believe it is going to drag out for some more time.

[liadnan]

I'm now pinning my hopes on the McCain wing of the Republicans in Congress to hold the line. Which is probably a forlorn hope.

I bet money that it would

[red11.livejournal.com]

If the Democrats couldn't open up a lead ahead of the vote they had every chance of losing last night. Perhaps they lost it back at the primaries.

[clodaghfiona.livejournal.com]

canada is looking REALLY nice about now...

I vote for New Zealand, myself

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Politically progressive, English-speaking, didn't join the war, and a long long way from any of the countries in the firing line.

Re: I vote for New Zealand, myself

[clodaghfiona.livejournal.com]

and great accents - not to mention beautiful...lots of sheep...i'm with you!

Re: I vote for New Zealand, myself

[(Anonymous)]

So did I Liadnan, so did I. I really thought Kerry could do it.

Very depressed today.

/Anonymous NY'er who found your blog through Eurotrash