Monday, December 01, 2003

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

Back to work today. Back to the daily grind; and yet, nothing to complain about, not when I think about what our troops are putting up with.

The majority of the press continues to slobber all over aWol for slinking into and out of Iraq for Thanksgiving. As I said before, it was the right thing to do, but already I've seen Bush gladhanding it with the troops way too many times this weekend. Contrast his super-double-top-secret-lights-out-middle-of-the-night photo-op with Hillary Clinton's pre-scheduled, daylight, multi-day, multi-location visit to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Who's the brave one, again?

And you have to wonder about the timing of the latest big attack on US forces, after Bush's visit and a weekend that proved deadly for "soft targets" of coalition intelligence officers, diplomats and aid workers. Could it be a message to BushCo?

My favorite administration moment from this past weekend came during an interview with Rummy. Asked if all the coordinated attacks would cause them to change policies he answered - of course - "no." While the question and answer were specifically around "policy," you just know that Rummy meant "no" about changing anything. No matter the mess that Iraq has become, no matter that Afghanistan has started falling back into Taliban rule in all but the major cities; no policies will change, no strategies will change, no tactics will change.

Nothing will change.

We'll keep (not)seeing troops arrive home in flag draped coffins or in wheelchairs.

We'll keep seeing tax breaks for the rich and for businesses linked to the administration.

We'll keep seeing the wanton dismantling of the societal safety nets built up over the past several generations.

In other words, Rummy was trying to tell us that things are going just swimmingly for those of us who really count, so really, why should they change anything?

Everything is going just fine. Really.

Up is down. War is Peace.

Slavery is Freedom.

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