Ah, the lovely Seattle sunday paper. The sorta conservative Seattle Times merges with the kinda liberal Seattle Post-Intelligencer for one day of the week, sparing everyone on the Puget Sound the inconvienience of actually choosing which paper to read. This would be truly bothersome if all the interesting stories and columns weren't reprinted from better papers. For example, The Washington Post provided this front page headline: "No illegal weapons? Public still backs war in Iraq". That's right, apparantly the horrible WMDs we used to justify a pre-emptive invasion simply don't exist - AND MOST AMERICANS DON'T CARE!!!! Not only that, but the Democrats, the nominal opposition party, don't want to bring up this point- oops! Started veering into some threadrot there, unless you want to count our "two-party-system" as a lie.
Another interesting column, courtesy of the NY Times' Paul Krugman, was simply headlined: "We're no safer from terrorism". Below the headline is this bold quote: "The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a respected British think tank with no discernible anti-Bush animus, declared that al-Qaida is 'more insidious and just as dangerous' as it was before Sept. 11. So much for claims that we had terrorists on the run."
Let's review. The stated objectives of the Iraq War were to eliminate WMDs and weaken the terrorists who were apparently hanging out in Iraq like it was Club Med. Yet, here in reality, the WMDs didn't exist, and while we warred on Iraq, al-Qaida regrouped and reorganized. Because of the war, the terrorists MORE dangerous than ever!
Again, the truly frightening aspect of all this is that most Americans simply don't care. Most Americans seem to think of the war as an unqualified success.....though it's my suspicion that dissatifaction and dissent is more prevalent than the media's been reporting. The gov't has, after all, made it "legal" for them to arrest anybody for any reason, then either hold them indefinitely or put them through a secret trial with secret evidence. That sort of thing tends to make a dissenter think twice before expressing their views, especially to a stranger calling to ask about one's views on the President.
BTW, here's something that couldn't be lied away. Most of you have probably heard about the simulated terror attacks on Monday: biological agents in Chicago, and a dirty bomb here in Seattle. These tests basicly confirmed that, in the event of a terror attack, we'd be fucked. This certainly comes as quite a surprise, lemme tellya. |
. I have nothing much to add, other than that that link is getting forwarded to everyone I know. 'tis a shame they've apparently started work on the movie, though. Because once it's been on telly, it's true, allegedly.