Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
In piece appearing in today's The New York Times, dated July 4, that is very much worth reading, Eric Schmitt writes:
An American military planning document calls for air, land and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions — the north, south and west — in a campaign to topple President Saddam Hussein, according to a person familiar with the document.
The document envisions tens of thousands of marines and soldiers probably invading from Kuwait. Hundreds of warplanes based in as many as eight countries, possibly including Turkey and Qatar, would unleash a huge air assault against thousands of targets, including airfields, roadways and fiber-optics communications sites.
If I was still posting to micahth.diaryland.com, I'd label this post "Target Iraq" and, assuming the veracity of this story, be right on the money.
President Bush has made it clear that he plans for the "War on Terror" to be an offensive war and he and his advisors are going ahead with this mindset. They are not encouraging debate amongst the populace or Congress nor is he giving any consideration to laws, such as the War Powers Act, unless they further the war effort. No explanation is given as to how any of these actions are actually going to make the United States safer. It is just assumed that the public understands military actions make them safer, and the public seems to be going along with this assumption.
What we have here is a president who is acting quite a bit like a king and getting away with it because Bush and his advisors have chosen the velvet glove over iron heel. If you aren't caught in criminal activities, aren't Arab or Muslim and don't take controversial political stands the police won't knock down your door or view your library records, at least not now. Despite whatever tools they have, they only plan to use the tools that serve a particular function, which sometimes even amounts to preventing terrorism in the U.S.
But enough of that, how was your Fourth? posted by micah holmquist at 7/05/2002 09:22:00 AM
