It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
The Best Laid Plans of Bushie Men...

George W. Bush's request to the United Nations to rubber stamp its approval of the American occupation and military dictatorship of Iraq looks likely to fall apart, as once again the Bush Administration makes the diplomatic mistake of "negotiating" by merely asking for what it wants over and over and over again, like an impatient toddler.

Can you blame the rest of the world for rejecting George W. Bush's pleas for the United Nations to help him with the mess that he's created in Iraq? I don't care how much someone promised to pay me - I wouldn't set foot in Iraq for the best job offer in the world (putting the work in Iraq automatically makes it the worst job offer possible). With bombs killing United Nations officials, aid workers, and soldiers, what nation's government could possibly convince its people to send its army into this quagmire?

Only the American government, misled by the lies of George W. Bush, could do that.

Yesterday, retired General of the Marines Anthony Zinni described the situation in Iraq as follows: "There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together... Our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. I ask you, is it happening again?"

I say that the time has come for us to listen to people like General Zinni. After all, he's had years of military experience. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney don't. They both dodged the draft for the Vietnam War. It's time that Bush and Cheney stop dodging and tell the American people the truth about what it's going to take to end the war in Iraq.

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 11:59 AM. # (permalink)  




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