The Progressive Response

The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.

John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org). He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.

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Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

THE WAR IN IRAQ IS NOT OVER AND NEITHER ARE THE LIES TO JUSTIFY IT
By Stephen Zunes

A RETURN TO THE UN?
By Phyllis Bennis

IS THE NEOCON AGENDA FOR PAX AMERICANA LOSING STEAM?
By Jim Lobe

QUAGMIRE? WHAT QUAGMIRE?
By Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.)

TIME FOR A NEW REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ
By Ian Williams

IMMIGRATION REFORM KEY TO BORDER SECURITY
By Sean Garcia

FOOD BULLY
By Conn Hallinan

 

II. Letters and Comments

NAÏVE THINKING with response by PAUL LOEB

BUSH AND THE BIG BAD WOLF

I. Updates and Out-takes

THE WAR IN IRAQ IS NOT OVER AND NEITHER ARE THE LIES TO JUSTIFY IT
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor's Note: In his latest piece, FPIF Middle East editor Stephen Zunes provides an annotated refutation of President George W. Bush's nationally televised speech on Sunday, September 7th. The introduction to that report is excerpted below and the full report is available at http://www.fpif.org/papers/lies2003.html .)

President George W. Bush's nationally broadcast speech Sunday evening once again was designed to mislead Congress and the American public into supporting his administration's policies in Iraq. Despite record deficits and draconian cutbacks in government support for health care, housing, education, the environment, and public transportation, the president is asking the American taxpayer to spend an additional $87 billion to support his invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It is disturbing that President Bush has once again tried to link the very real threat to American security from mega-terrorist groups like al Qaeda to phony threats originating in Iraq. Not only does he try to link the terrorism that has grown out of the post-invasion chaos in Iraq to the devastating al Qaeda attacks on the United States two years ago, President Bush has depicted all the current violence against Americans and other foreigners in Iraq as part of this terrorist threat.

Like most Americans, I am deeply distressed at attacks on U.S. soldiers. However, the Fourth Geneva Convention--to which the United States is a signatory--is quite clear that a people under foreign military occupation have the right to militarily engage armed uniformed occupation forces. This is not the same as terrorism, which refers to attacks deliberately targeted against unarmed civilians and is universally recognized as a war crime. It is therefore terribly misleading for President Bush to try to convince the American public that these two phenomena are the same.

President Bush also failed to differentiate between the increasingly disparate elements behind the attacks. Some of the violence may indeed come from those who have some connection with al Qaeda who have infiltrated Iraq since the invasion this spring; some may be supporters of Saddam Hussein's former regime; some may be radical Iraqi Islamists or independent Iraqi nationalists who opposed the old regime but also oppose the U.S. occupation; still others may be foreign fighters who see driving American occupiers from Iraq as an act of pan-Islamic solidarity comparable to driving Soviet occupiers from Afghanistan.

However, President Bush now declares that a successful American-led pacification of the anti-occupation resistance in Iraq would be an "essential victory in the war on terror." In linking the legitimate international struggle against al Qaeda with the illegitimate U.S. occupation of Iraq, it becomes possible for the administration to justify the president's determination to "spend what is necessary" in controlling this oil-rich country and to depict those in the United States and elsewhere who oppose the occupation as being soft of terrorism.

(Stephen Zunes <zunes@usfca.edu> is the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He serves as an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.)

A RETURN TO THE UN?
By Phyllis Bennis

(Editor's Note: The debate over whether and how to get the UN involved in Iraq has now been joined by the Bush administration. In the latest piece in our series of pieces on UN involvement in Iraq, Phyllis Bennis analyzes the Bush administration's most recent proposal. The excerpt below is from her recent global affairs commentary and the complete version is available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0309iraqun.html .)

The recent Bush administration's draft UN resolution proposing a new role for the United Nations in Iraq would be a welcome step if it was done to help improve the lives of Iraqi citizens. But the reassessment is not a reflection of any concern regarding the illegality of the occupation, the lack of legitimacy of the U.S. presence in Iraq, or the impact on Iraqis of Washington's abject failure to provide for even the minimal humanitarian needs of the population. Instead, it reflects a growing concern regarding what the New York Times called the "high cost of occupation" for the U.S. in Iraq--costs both in U.S. soldiers' lives and in dollars.

The current proposal under consideration calls for the creation of a UN-endorsed multilateral military force to join the U.S. occupation force in Iraq. It would function as a separate, parallel force with a separate command structure, but the commander would be an American. U.S. officials make clear their intention that the multilateral force would be accountable to the Pentagon's strategic control. There is a history of this kind of U.S. control of UN peacekeeping operations through imposing a U.S. general or admiral as UN commander. This was U.S. practice during the Clinton administration in Somalia, Haiti, and elsewhere.

But what is unprecedented is that the plan does not envision Washington even sharing authority and decisionmaking with the UN itself or with the governments sending international contingents, let alone ending its occupation and turning over full authority to the UN to oversee a rapid return to Iraqi independence.

What Should Be Done

• Any new UN resolution aimed at providing more legitimacy for the U.S.-UK occupation of Iraq should be opposed. Countries should not send troops or funds to maintain or strengthen or "internationalize" Washington's occupation.
• Oppose Richard Perle's claim that "our main mistake is that we haven't succeeded in working closely with Iraqis before the war so that an Iraqi opposition could have been able to immediately take the matter in hand." Instead, the over-reliance of the Bush administration on the claims of the exiled Iraqi opposition, driven by self-interest and ideological fervor rather than grounded information, is one of the main reasons for the U.S. failure to anticipate the post-war crisis in Iraq.
• Only after the U.S.-UK occupation has ended should the United Nations and a multilateral peacekeeping force return to Iraq. Their mandate should be for a very short and defined period, with the goal of assisting Iraq in reconstruction and overseeing election of a governing authority.
• As belligerent powers who initiated the war, and as occupying powers, the U.S. and the UK are required to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. While their military occupation should be ended immediately, Washington and London remain obligated to pay the continuing costs of Iraq's reconstruction, including the bulk of the cost of UN humanitarian and peacekeeping deployments. The U.S. should immediately make public a realistic estimate for the cost of reconstruction in Iraq. Washington should turn over funds to UN authority, beginning with a direct grant of at least $75 billion (the initial amount spent on waging the war) for reconstruction work. These funds should be raised from an excess profits tax on corporations benefiting from the war and post-war privatization in Iraq, as well as from Pentagon budget lines initially aimed at carrying out war in Iraq.
• The U.S. should use this moment to reverse its longstanding opposition to the creation of a standing UN rapid-reaction military force, beginning with reconstituting the UN Charter-mandated Military Staff Committee.

(Phyllis Bennis <pbennis@compuserve.com> is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and writes regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

IS THE NEOCON AGENDA FOR PAX AMERICANA LOSING STEAM?
By Jim Lobe

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0309neocon.html .)

President George W. Bush's speech to the nation last night was notable in many ways, most critically for marking what appears to be a weakening of the steep unilateralist trajectory on which neoconservative and right-wing hawks set U.S. foreign policy two years ago. Who would have thought it would lose momentum so quickly after Washington's stunning military victory in Iraq in early April and plummet back to earth?

Now, just a week before the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Bush administration appears to have decided that Washington really cannot run Iraq, let alone the entire Middle East, by itself and must rely on others--even the much-despised United Nations--to help out.

Whether the UN will agree to do so--and on what conditions--remains to be determined, but, for the first time in two years, it appears that the administration's more multilaterally inclined, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, may actually be moving into the driver's seat. While the battle for control is far from over, the signs of what is being euphemistically called a "policy adjustment'' have already emerged.

Not only has Powell been given the authority to launch serious negotiations over a new UN Security Council resolution that will almost certainly reduce Washington's control over the political process and reconstruction in Iraq, but even the ultra-unilateralist Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith--whose office was responsible for post-war planning in Iraq--insisted publicly that he has long favored going to the UN for help.

Feith's scarcely credible protests underline the degree to which the hawks, particularly his two superiors, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, have been placed on the defensive. Hailed as strategic geniuses as recently as July, their repeated assurances that everything was going according to plan despite steadily mounting U.S. casualties, a series of disastrous bombings, and skyrocketing estimates of the financial costs of occupation--the latest estimates call for as much as $80 billion next year, or four times the State Department's annual administrative and foreign aid budget--have become the stuff of late-night comedy routines and growing anger in key institutional sectors, particularly the military and Republicans in Congress.

Thus, carefully orchestrated clarion calls by Wolfowitz and his allies in the media to stay the course in Iraq in order to defeat international terrorism once and for all, published at the beginning of the week in the neoconservative Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard, were quickly drowned out by Republican lawmakers returning from the August recess demanding that the administration quickly devise an "exit strategy'' for Iraq and, explicitly evoking the Vietnam War, show them a "light at the end of the tunnel."

"Wolfowitz frankly has very little credibility up here," said one congressional staffer who recalled that the Pentagon's number two man had led the campaign to persuade Congress that Iraq had vast quantities of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and close ties to al Qaeda before the war. He has since admitted that the intelligence on both questions was "murky." Wolfowitz, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, also argued that U.S. troops would be greeted as "liberators" by the Iraqi operation, rather than occupiers. "For him, of all people, to be the point man for arguing that Iraq is now the decisive battlefield in the war on terrorism simply defies common sense," the aide added, noting that Wolfowitz also supervised Feith's post-war planning, which is now seen as an appalling failure.

But while Republican lawmakers, fresh from public meetings with their constituents back home and only one year away from the 2004 elections, expressed growing impatience with the costs in U.S. lives and money of an open-ended occupation, senior military officers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appear to have decided that their civilian bosses represent a major threat to their institution.

(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.)

QUAGMIRE? WHAT QUAGMIRE?
By Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.)

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new policy report available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0309quagmire.html .)

In the months leading up to the recent war in Iraq and in its aftermath, Bush administration officials were forced to continually change their rationale for launching the attack to topple Saddam Hussein. Where they have not wavered, and where they have received consistent support from top Pentagon military commanders, is in their insistence that Iraq is not another Vietnam, not a quagmire. The further the U.S. and the world move from the fall of Baghdad on April 9th, the more it seems that the administration is correct: Iraq is not a quagmire. It is really a black hole.

A quagmire is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as (1) "land with a soft, muddy surface" or (2) "a precarious or difficult situation." In either definition, circumstances are not irreversible. A "soft muddy surface" suggests something more solid somewhere beneath, while "difficult" is not the same as impossible.

But media reports the last week in August have made it very clear that the administration has plunged the U.S. over the lip--what is called the "event horizon"--of the human and financial black hole that is post-war Iraq. The significance of passing the astronomical event horizon is that whatever crosses it, even light, cannot recover or be recovered. It is a one-way trip down a "tunnel" at whose end there is no light, only crushing gravity.

One characteristic of black holes is that they grow in size as they absorb energy from the surrounding cosmos. Iraq has already snuffed out thousands of lives and absorbed tens of billions of dollars. President Bush reiterated that a "substantial commitment of time and resources" still lies ahead.

Yes, Iraq is not a quagmire. But at a time when U.S. budget deficits of $401 billion this year and $480 billion for 2004 are forecast, Iraq looms as an ever-expanding funnel into which human lives, human talent, and monetary resources are being poured, never to be recovered. That, by any measure, defines a veritable black hole.

(Dan Smith <dan@fcnl.org> is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a retired U.S. army colonel and senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)

TIME FOR A NEW REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ
By Ian Williams

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0308iraqgov.html .)

The murderers who set off the truck bomb outside the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, whether they were vengeful Ba'athists or Islamic fundamentalists, were not fighting for freedom of a kind that any of us would recognize.

It is not the first time that there has been a morbid synergy between some of the faith-based warriors in the Pentagon and their fundamentalist sparring partners in the region. They both have a profound disdain for the UN and any concept of international law.

However, while the hard-liners in the Pentagon can see the dangers of the UN to the U.S. (and of course, how could we forget, the British) occupation, the bombers probably could not. Nuance is not their forte.

Their biggest victim, Sergio Vieira de Mello, had been trying to enlarge the UN presence incrementally, without provoking blowback from the right wing of the Pentagon. If his plan were successful, the future Iraqi government would not have the Quisling stigmata of being a regime installed by the invaders. In fact, the UN presence could help ensure an independent, secular, rights-based government in Baghdad.

On a very superficial level, you can see why the murderers may consider the UN as pandering to the American occupation. Kofi Annan did indeed say that the invasion was against the UN Charter, but it was a muted statement for the record rather than a loud, global denunciation. The UN was setting up shop once again in Baghdad, after it had overseen a decade worth of sanctions. However, the secretary general has a lot of company in his diplomatic reticence.

Most of the world has contented itself with skirting the issue of the invasion's legality, in the hope of influencing the course of the reconstruction. The UN has been similarly circumspect--trying to work with the small internationalist wing of the State Department to ameliorate the plight of the Iraqi people but yet trying not to mention "the war," for fear of alienating the Pentagon even more.

Many in the progressive community say that since Washington cooked this particular hot potato, it should hold it, but that would be unfair to the long-suffering Iraqis. While the U.S. and British troops should not have gone in without Security Council mandate, the world now has to deal with the reality that was created. By removing the Ba'athists' tight control of a country filled with lethal weaponry and huge grudges, the security situation on the ground is unstable at best.

But the U.S. troops should be taken off the streets as soon as possible. Their presence as occupiers as well as the casualties inflicted upon the Iraqi people (now estimated between 6-7,000) is far too costly for the Iraqi people. The price the U.S. has to pay for UN peacekeepers doing the job is a much more explicit role for the international community in the administration than the Pentagon has been prepared to allow so far.

It may be too much to expect from the White House to internationalize control of the military in Iraq but it would make a lot of sense to leave reconstruction and civil administration, including justice and policing, to a condominium of the Iraqi Governing Council and the United Nations. A sensible approach would be loosely modeled on Kosovo, where the military command structure was separate from the UN's civilian and administrative side.

It is time to reassure the world and the Iraqis with a firm timetable to end the occupation, and to internationalize the transition to independence and democracy.

(Ian Williams <uswarreport@igc.org> contributes frequently to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) on UN and international affairs.)

IMMIGRATION REFORM KEY TO BORDER SECURITY
By Sean Garcia

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new policy brief from the Interhemispheric Resource Center's Americas Program available in full at http://www.americaspolicy.org/briefs/2003/0308immig.html .)

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, immigration policies and border security became a top priority for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is now responsible for border security under the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP), has taken advantage of the security debate to push forward anti-migrant policies in the name of national defense. Migrants have now been lumped in with terrorists and drug smugglers as a serious threat to national security, and the U.S. Border Patrol--under the leadership of BCBP--is pushing aggressive migrant deterrence policies.

The Border Patrol is beefing up its staffing and stepping up construction of infrastructure along the U.S. southwestern border, under the plans set out by the Southwest Border Strategy from the early 1990s. Plans are underway to complete a triple fencing project in San Diego, California, and numerous fencing plans are being put forward for other stretches of the Arizona border. Most alarming was a proposal set forth in October 2002 to fence off 250 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. While this plan was retracted due to intense public pressure, the Border Patrol continues to submit piecemeal proposals to build parts of this massive fence. All the project documents being submitted cite terrorism as one of the main justifications for these construction projects.

The Southwest Border Strategy is a failed policy that forces migrants into inhospitable stretches of desert, causing hundreds of deaths a year without actually stemming the tide of migrants who successfully enter the United States. The terrorist argument takes advantage of public fears of terrorist attacks to combat the unrelated problem of illegal immigration.

Moreover, while migrants face increased hazards crossing the southwest border due to the heightened security measures, the administration is scapegoating immigrant smugglers as the main cause of deaths along the border. Coyotes, as they are known, thrive under increased security. Since most border crossers cannot reach the United States on their own now, they are forced to rely on professional smugglers who are familiar with Border Patrol operations and patrol routes. The demand for coyote services is growing rapidly as migrants seek ways to elude the reinforced security that the U.S. is putting into place.

The Bush administration must face the reality that the only true solution to gaining control over the southwest border is to create legal mechanisms to allow workers from the south to enter the United States. The nation needs a comprehensive immigration reform package that addresses the demand for workers at home and that treats workers who come to the U.S. in search of a better life in a humane fashion.

(Sean Garcia <sgarcia@lawg.org> is a Senior Associate, with the Latin America Working Group and analyst for the IRC Americas Program (online at www.americaspolicy.org).)

FOOD BULLY
By Conn Hallinan

(Editor's Note: With the WTO meeting in Cancun this week, the issue of farm trade is at the top of the agenda. While much of the debate involves subsidies to Northern farmers, another aspect of the debate is discussed by Conn Hallinan in the excerpt below from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0308iraqgov.html .)

The decision by the Bush administration to sue the European Union (EU) over its five-year moratorium on genetically modified (GM) foods has all the earmarks of a "shock and awe" campaign targeted at prying open a major potential market. But the suit before the World Trade Organization (WTO) may be aimed less at the EU than at developing nations, which are far more vulnerable to strong-arm tactics.

Take the case of the reluctant Egyptians.

Egypt had originally joined the suit, along with Argentina and Canada, but, in the face of a domestic backlash over the safety of GM food crops, withdrew. However, it filed a separate complaint on an EU ban against its GM drought-resistant cotton, joining, at least in spirit, the U.S. action. Besides responding to popular sentiment, the Egyptians were also nervous over the confrontational tone of the U.S. suit. "The way (the complaint) was announced was like a war with the EU," one Egyptian trade official told the Financial Times, "We can't go to war with the EU. It is 40% of our trade." Avoiding war with the EU, however, landed them in a shootout with the Americans. Reacting with fury, the U.S. accused the Egyptians of breaking their word and cancelled free trade talks. According to the Financial Times, Egyptian officials were "stunned" by the U.S. reaction, particularly after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick recently described their country as a "linchpin" for a Middle East free trade agreement and "the heart of the Arab world."

The White House was banking on Egypt to represent the need for GM crops in "developing countries," in particular, Africa. GM crops as a solution to the African famine is one of the major arguments the Bush administration has used against the EU ban.

The Bush administration seems to be applying its "for us or against us" anti-terrorism formula to trade policy, particularly if the country is a developing one like Egypt. Similarly, when Croatia and Thailand raised health objections to GM crops, the U.S. threatened trade sanctions and both countries backed down. The White House has been more circuitous with big countries, like India and Brazil. In the case of Brazil, U.S. corporations--underwritten by taxpayers--bring politicians and scientists to the U.S. and South Africa to study GM crops. And reaction to India's ban on U.S. GM crops has been muted.

There is much at stake in this fight over biotechnology, and it has nothing to do with alleviating hunger or overcoming famine. The "Big Five" biotech companies--Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, and Aventis--have invested billions of dollars in research and development. Out of 1085 biotech patents, the Big Five control 937.

The U.S. argues that GM crops represent the new "green revolution" that will allow countries to feed the growing world population. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture's own Economic Research Service found that crop yields were no higher for GM crops than they are for regular crops, and GM crops can be tricky to grow. They were created for huge, American super-farms, not the small-scale agriculture that characterizes most of the developing world. Plus GM seeds cost more, and few poor farmers have access to cash.

The Bush administration presents its GM-friendly policies as a solution to hunger. During his recent tour of Africa, Bush said, "For the sake of a continent threatened by famine, I urge the European governments to end their opposition to biotechnology."

But many Africans are suspicious and see the spread of GM crops as creating a kind of "bioserfdom," with farmers in thrall to huge biotech companies. Amadou Kanoute, research director of African Office of Consumers International, says the spread of GM crops, "will plunge Africa into greater food dependency."

(Conn Hallinan <connm@cats.ucsc.edu> is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

II. Letters and Comments

NAÏVE THINKING

Re: Hope out of Quagmire: Iraq and Peace Movement Opportunities

It is somewhat naive to think that George W. Bush will actually take a foreign policy action that would be in the best interest of the American people. For one thing, his agenda has been set by the [Richard] Perles and [Paul] Wolfowitzes, who have been hungering for a chance to demonstrate the power of American imperialism for almost 20 years. They will not go peacefully into the night until there is significant opposition to the wrongheaded policies that the U.S. is pursuing, and they will not hesitate to pile lies on top of deceit in their attempts to control Iraqi crude. One only need look at William Kristol's recent articles to see the untruths and distortions that are being used in defense of our occupation of Iraq.

The good news is that Bush's popularity is plummeting like a stone. Since the last national poll was taken, Bush's approval rating has sunk 9 points, and American opinions on the Iraqi occupation appear to be a leading indicator of the overall approval rating for the President. If trends continue as they have been, Bush's approval rating will be at 40% by September. This may cause Bush to perform a major reevaluation of his military-occupation strategy.

Meanwhile, events in Great Britain bear watching. While there is significant underreporting in the USA, Tony Blair appears to have enmeshed himself in the largest British foreign policy scandal of the last 40 years with the death of Mr. Kelly. Labor MPs like Glenda Jackson have called for Mr. Blair's resignation, and I believe there is a 90% chance of a vote of no confidence within Parliament within the next 90 days.

The cause of Mr. Blair's unpopularity is the same as Mr. Bush's--the lying about reasons for involvement in Iraq. As long as there are no changes in U.S.-UK occupation of Iraq, there will be a soldier a day lost by resistance movements within the country.

Morally, it is just to call for a United Nations takeover of the country. But at the same time, people should make it amply clear to everyone that Mr. Bush has pursued one of the most disastrous foreign policy initiatives in American history, and he should be punished at the polls.

- Karl Eysenbach <karenykarl@hotmail.com>

RESPONSE BY PAUL LOEB

The key phrase is "until there is significant opposition to the wrongheaded policies that the U.S. is pursuing." If enough people take up a campaign of the sort that I and others have been suggesting, we have a chance to get people involved in a way that both offers an alternative and holds the Bush administration accountable for its destructive actions. If we don't, then the small resurgence of media questioning will likely die down, and Bush will probably wriggle off the hook. So the key is to involve as many ordinary citizens as possible in a campaign that raises precisely the kind of core questions that are raised in this letter.

Paul Loeb

BUSH AND THE BIG BAD WOLF

Re: From Baghdad to Tehran?

The people behind this new U.S. foreign policy are in a real bind. The have trumped up two wars and completely gotten away with it, even after being totally exposed as charlatans in the lack of weapons of mass destruction. Now they must decide who to invade next. The world is their oyster. They are like the fat man at the all you can eat buffet. Um, Iran looks good, no wait, what about Syria or even North Korea. Shoot, let's eat 'em all! What they argue over now is the best order to eat them in. How can the maximum profit be extracted? The only question remaining in my mind is how many more little pigs the big bad wolf can eat before he gets a bad case of indigestion.

- Fred Sharp <sharp@realtracs.com>

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