War Profiteering/why sudden silence?

[Jim Baldauf]

Bob sez:
>The USA did something right again.<

What could he mean?

Perhaps the
THE CORPORATE WELFARE
PAID WITH OUR TAXDOLLARS
exposed below?


"While our hands are on our hearts,
their hands are picking our pockets."

Great site exposing war profiteering
with bi-partisan congressional help.

www.HowDareThey.org

jb







----- Original Message -----
From: telebob x <telebob98@hotmail.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 10:14 AM
Subject: why sudden silence?


Gee, what has happened to the usual drumbeat of defeat from Roger, Jon, et
al ?  Shocking!  The USA did something right again. And not for the wrong
reasons either.

tele

Ha ha ha
by
Christopher Hitchens
Wednesday November 14, 2001
The Guardian

There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of
work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor
of the American Express travel magazine, Departures.
Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly
drivelling style employed by the journalists of
tourism. "Land of Contrasts" was our shorthand for it.
("Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new."
"South Africa: a harmony in black and white."
"Belfast, where ancient meets modern.") It was as you
can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few
weeks ago that my enemies in the "peace" movement had
decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The
mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper,
was: "Afghanistan, where the world's richest country
rains bombs on the world's poorest country."

Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at
this game. What about, "Afghanistan, where the world's
most open society confronts the world's most closed
one"? "Where American women pilots kill the men who
enslave women." "Where the world's most indiscriminate
bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones."
"Where the largest number of poor people applaud the
bombing of their own regime." I could go on. (I think
number four may need a little work.) But there are
some suggested contrasts for the "doves" to paste into
their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their
scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves
saying things like, "The bombing of Kosovo is driving
the Serbs into the arms of Milosevic."

If the silly policy of a Ramadan pause had been
adopted, the citizens of Kabul would have still been
under a regime of medieval cruelty, and their
oppresssors would have been busily regrouping, not
praying. Anyhow, what a damn-fool proposal to start
with. I don't stop insulting the Christian coalition
at Eastertime. Come Yom Kippur I tend to step up my
scornful remarks about Zionism. Whatever happened to
the robust secularism that used to help characterise
the left? And why is it suddenly only the injured
feelings of Muslims that count? A couple of years ago,
the same people were striking pompous attitudes about
the need to avoid offending Serbian and therefore
Russian Orthodox sensitivities. Except that those
sensitive people, or their leaders, were engaged in
putting the Muslims of Europe to the sword...

There's no pleasing some people, but as a charter
supporter of CND I can remember a time when the peace
movement was not an auxiliary to dictators and
aggressors in trouble. Looking at some of the
mind-rotting tripe that comes my way from much of
today's left, I get the impression that they go to bed
saying: what have I done for Saddam Hussein or good
old Slobodan or the Taliban today?

Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo. It was obvious from the
very start that the United States had no alternative
but to do what it has done. It was also obvious that
defeat was impossible. The Taliban will soon be
history. Al-Qaida will take longer. There will be
other mutants to fight. But if, as the peaceniks like
to moan, more Bin Ladens will spring up to take his
place, I can offer this assurance: should that be the
case, there are many many more who will also spring up
to kill him all over again. And there are more of us
and we are both smarter and nicer, as well as
surprisingly insistent that our culture demands
respect, too.

· Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.







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