perfidy

Over the last couple weeks I've grown more anti-war, as I'm sure has become clear. I don't think that my drift towards dovishness has much to do with the so-called setbacks that the press and certain pundits keep ranting about. It's a war. Plans change. Rather, my support for the mission of the war depended, and still depends, on the clarity of the Bush administration's reasons for prosecuting the war. It was about chemical weapons, which we hear rather less about these days. It was about Iraqi links to terrorism, which I've heard very little about ever. (That's not to say that someday Saddam couldn't finance a zodiac and a small nuke to motor up the Chesapeake, it's just that I think other scenarios are more pressing, and likely).

So now it's about regime change? Well, I guess so. Whatever.

Mike, your objections about the Middle East are well founded. I think the conflict with Syria will be a test case for what's to come. Will we manage to come to a diplomatic solution for their chicanery? Or will we have to go kick their ass too? If we do, I think that from the P.O.V. of Middle Eastern nations, it will be proof that the USA can no longer be reasoned with. I understand what Mark Steyn is saying. Thousands have not been slaughtered, as far as we know. But four is not a triumph; it's just a smaller tragedy. I'm with Mike on this one.

Did it strike anybody else funny (as in "not funny") that the same week that the press was crowing about the smartness of our smart weapons, and jizzing over their ability to wipe justthatbuilding off the map without so much as taking Old Widow Qumar's laundry off the line next door, the press was also crowing about the giant killin' potential of the spanky-new Mother Of All Bombs, the biggest, killin'est, bombin'est bomb that ever bombed? Just a little message-drift here, is all I'm saying.

A final note: Not a man jack of us here knows a DAMN thing about what's going on in Iraq. Reports vary wildly, as do assessments. Troop movements are noted, then vanish. Do we hold Basra? Do we not? The American media is as biased in its way as Al Jazeera, and at this point I have stopped watching the news out of sheer frustration.

Heretofore I plan not to do any posting about what is currently happening in Iraq, because I have no way of knowing. There's enough real-time warbloggers out there.

Long live Oceania! Down with Eastasia!