Soapbox

Dispatch from the Frontline of the Propaganda Wars

Douglas Adams created a creature in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy�? that he described as “…so mind-boggling stupid that it thinks that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you.�? Well that fellow has nothing on the people running this country! George Bush apparently thinks that if he doesn’t call it a war- it won’t BE one! I guess this is no surprise coming from a man who believes that if he says that he’s balanced the budget often enough, he has.

Yesterday President George Bush marked the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, a date that weighs heavily in the mands of many Americans, with a speech that lasted 2 whole minutes and did not once use the word "war".

Remember when we were all supposed to call the Iraq war the "global war on terror" and then the "Struggle against people with extremist ideologies-" or some such ridiculous thing? Well it turns out that what is taking place in Iraq right now- including the largest air campaign since the invasion- is not even a war at all! According to the president, after three years of anguish, it is simply "the Liberation of Iraq" and all the dead and injured are merely "sacrifices made".

Oh, well, that makes it alright then.

Over 2,300 Americans dead and tens of thousands wounded, a nation and an entire region in shambles, bombs going off every day killing children on their way to school, U. S. forces under fire every time they step outside their compounds, religious and political leaders assassinated whenever they speak out… and the President has decided that the real enemy is the English language! It’s not a war at all, see: it’s a lib-er-a-tion.
Donald Rumseld was asked this weekend if he could define what a civil war is, since he assures us daily that Iraq is not in the midst of one. He hemmed and hawed but couldn’t do it. Maybe it depends on what your definition of "civil" is. Or maybe it’s like pornography: he’ll know it when he sees it.

This cowardly bunch does not even have the moral courage to stand up and own what they have wrought, what they bullied and lied and cheated to create: a deadly and escalating WAR.

Sorry; I’m not buying. A war is a war is a war…and a war by any other name still makes people dead.