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For those of you who might have miguidedly thought that the terrorists involved in the London bombings may have been driven to commit terrorist acts in reaction to, inter alia, the invasion of Iraq, immediately cleanse your mind of that idea. Secretary of Defense and Chief War on Terror Thought-Channeler Donald Rumsfeld knows for a fact that the invasion of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the bombings:
Some people seem confused about the motivations and intentions of terrorists and about our coalition's defense of the still young democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.Full article.
"They seem to cling to the discredited theory that the recent attacks in London and elsewhere, for example, are really in retaliation for the war in Iraq or for the so-called occupation of Afghanistan," he added. "That is nonsense."
So it's settled then. You wouldn't want to be one of those unfortunate, officially disfavored "some people," would you? People are not being driven to hate America and Britain in any way because we invaded Iraq and killed, oh, a handful of people in the process. Oh, and in case you had forgotten, W took the opportunity of the new Al Qaeda videotape to remind everyone that of course Iraq is part of the War on Terror TM. Because we in America are obviously safer after killing off tens of thousands of Iraqis, and losing 1,800 American lives (more every single day) to capture that foaming, fundamentalist Islamist terrorist, Saddam Hussein. (If nothing sounded off to you in that last sentence, the programming is functioning fine.)
August 5 2005, 01:00:16 UTC 6 years ago
The thing that gets me ...
is that whenever I think I can't possibly seethe any more, I do. Such incredible hubris I've never experienced. There's an interesting profile of Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, in the August 8/15 New Yorker in which he says, "President Bush No. 1 is such a nice person. Some of my most prized possessions are the three letters he wrote me. But this President is totally different. He takes after his mother. It’s either his way or no way. It’s very, very difficult." (Here's a link to the entire article.)While I'm not sure I'd call Bush pere a "nice person," I think Reid's observation is telling, and altogether frightening: Even a conservative Mormon Democrat has problems with him. But Dubya's approval rating is going down by the moment, and while he could really give a rat's ass -- it's all a continuation of the first administration's smoke-and-mirrors policy -- the next three years is going to be a seriously demented exercise in RNC damage control. I wonder if Rove will continue to act as consigliere to the Republican party as Bush becomes a bigger, fatter, contagion-bloated lame duck.
August 10 2005, 22:56:18 UTC 6 years ago
the wallop of wolcott
Readers of Grigori, as re: Rummy: please leap at once to the Wolcott blog (and then hustle right back), because JW's been on fire of late, a fine example of which can be found in this, his coverage of The Donald's recent Goebbels-inspired media interventions:
http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/0