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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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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) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Sunday, March 14, 2004
'forgetting' 'September 11' The idea that "the terrorists" exist may remain the most idiotic popular idea of the George W. Bush era, but it is getting strong competition from the suggestion that people are forgetting the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "Many of you are beginning to forget [September 11]," guest host and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Silwa told the listeners of the Sean Hannity Show on Friday. Also on Friday macallan of tacitus writes, "Apparently the Darryl Worley song's thematic question has been answered. We have forgotten." "The American people as a whole have virtually forgotten 9-11," Matt Margolis writes in blog entry posted yesterday. Save for those with major medical problems and the very young, nobody in the United States is "beginning to forget," has "forgotten" or has "virtually forgotten" the events of September 11, 2001 because doing so is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE! Every other car has some patriotic symbol and I can guarantee that most people who see American flag bumper stickers are not reminded of the American Revolution. The very fact that we can use terms like "September 11" and everyone knows what you mean is indicative of this. It isn't as if there are a whole of people who hear "September 11" and think, "I don't know what that is about" or "I know they are talking about September 11, 2001 but I just don't remember what happened that day." I doubt that these three really believe people have forgotten so much as they can not understand how people could be knowledgeable about "September 11" and not support George W. Bush in everything he does related to the "war on terror." Maybe they could say, "Americans have forgotten how to be obedient to President Bush." At least person seems to be forgetting about the supposed reasons the U.S. had to invade Iraq. As you may remember, one reason -arguably the most stressed reason- was "weapons of mass destruction." Uncle Sam had "no choice" but to attack Iraq because of them. And yet, over at Blogs for Bush, Mark Noonan says: We didn't have to do it - we could have either turned coward and stayed home, or we could have unleashed our power without limit and simply killed them all; the greatness of America shines in the fact that we neither turned coward, nor just went in to kill - we went in to liberate, succor and build.No weapons of mass destruction have been found and the current line is that it was an intelligence failure or that they could still turn up. In either of those cases, Team Bush sincerely believed that had to invade Iraq to protect the U.S. and within the past week Bush's campaign has called the invasion a defensive act of "defending America." Noonan apparently thinks his candidate would have been willingly to allow many in the U.S. of A. to die a horrible death or is highly dishonest. As far as genocide against Iraqis, yes the United States could have taken that course but the backlash would have been unbelievable. Politically it would make no sense and it could have opened the land of the free up for significant retaliation. It wasn't really a possibility. Killing all those Iraqis also wouldn't have given Bush much room to create a democracy in Iraq, which, according to another reason for the invasion put forward by Bush, would lead to democracy spreading throughout the Middle East. Apparently though Team Bush has (at least officially) given up on that idea, so scratch that from the list. (If you need more proof check out Andrew Buncombe's report in Saturday's Independent about how Uncle Sam has funded groups that were responsible for the brief coup of a democratically elected government in Venezuela two years ago.) Human rights and terrorism have also been used to justify the invasion, but the latter has yet to be demonstrated while the former was ridiculous for all the usual reasons. After all of this, what reasons are we left with for invading Iraq? If there are any, and I suspect there are, they haven't been stated publicly. But, hey it made us feel good about ourselves and that counts for something. *** The tacitus piece linked to above also says, "I am discomfited that we still argue about nuance and policy and engagement and understanding amongst ourselves, while the enemy wastes no time on such activity. They don't particularly worry if we understand them, or sympathize with them, or care for them. They are too busy killing us. All of us." Well "the terrorists" will have to step up the killing, but I see no reason not to follow their model. *** WMDs the home of the brave does not want to be in Iraq? *** Christian Parenti reports in The Nation on "freedom of the press" in Iraq. *** Rosa Prince and Gary Jones of The Mirror and David Rose of The Observer have stories on allegations of abuse at the place I like to call Gittygo Way. *** *** AFP reports that March 13 story that: MORE than a thousand people held a protest in Madrid today to blame this week's bombs in the capital on the government's unpopular decision to support the US war on Iraq.While I suspect there position has less to do with logic than opposition to anything that does not support the glorious "war on terror" that protects, inspires and generally gives us all a reason to live, a number of good obedient blogger patriots have, and it does pain men to say this, correctly ridiculed these protesters. al Qaeda not liking something is not a good argument for not doing something. At the same time, if you try to rule the world, or aid those who do, you should expect a response and not treat it as if it were beyond the pale. And, it should go without saying but probably doesn't, al Qaeda opposing something is not a good argument for doing something, even when it is something you enjoy as much as waging wars that you are not directly involved in. Writing on this topic, Tony Rosen utters words that are beyond funny: Yeah, well, if those bombs were solely for supporting the war in Iraq, how come we've not had anything like that over on our shores? Heck, we WERE the war in Iraq.*** Adrian Croft of Reuters writes: Spain's opposition Socialists have swept to power in a sensational election upset sparked by popular anger over the government's handling of a suspected al Qaeda attack on commuter trains that killed 200 people.Knowing virtually nothing about the contemporary politics of Spain, I won't comment but I did notice that Chris of Blogs for Bush says, "Terrorists succeed in Spain." |