The Surge Of Money Out Of The United States And Into Iraq Is Working

From The Million Year War By Tom Engelhardt:

Before confirmatory polls even arrived, the media had waved its own magic wand and declared that Americans had lost interest in Iraq. Certainly the media people had. The economy -- with its subprime Hadithas and its market Abu Ghraibs -- moved to center stage, yet links between the Bush administration's two trillion dollar war and a swooning economy were seldom considered. It mattered little that a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll revealed a majority of Americans to be convinced that the most reasonable "stimulus" for the U.S. economy would be withdrawal from Iraq. A total of 68% of those polled believed such a move would help the economy.

I Think They Can't, I Think They Can't, I Think They Can't

From The Little Administration That Couldn't By Tom Engelhardt:

History may not repeat itself, but the administration's repetitive acts these past seven years make an assessment of our economic situation possible, even if you are an economics dummy.

Just consider the record: Administration officials proved incapable of rebuilding two countries that their military occupied and damaged. In Afghanistan and Iraq, while talking up the President's "freedom agenda," they were the equivalent of a natural disaster, a whirlwind of destruction.

And now, with a mere ten "lame duck" months to go, comes the American economy…

You don't faintly need to understand economics to grasp the immediate danger. The people overseeing the handling of this crisis have done little these last years but hand money over to the rich, while running American power into the dirt.

Let me review our history lesson for a moment: No to nation-rebuilding, no to city-rebuilding, no to Congressional majority-building…

Who dares imagine that the people who brought you Iraq, the war, could begin the rebuilding of an economy, or even successfully caulk the cracks in the levees of a system that, in its complexity, puts Iraq's feeble economy to shame?

In some ways, an administration -- whatever its periodic changes of personnel -- can be compared to an individual. At a certain age, its urges become predictable, its habits set, its limits largely known. While change may be possible, you wouldn't want to bet your house on it.

So what exactly has the Bush administration proven itself good at? The twin skills of destruction and looting would stand at the top of any list. Perhaps that's because it chose to put its "eggs" in only two baskets -- those of the U.S. military and crony corporations.

Terrorism Means What Washington Wants It To Mean

Washington, DC must be devoid of any dictionaries. Otherwise how can so many politicians get away with the novel use of so many words. For example the phrase “free speech zone” does not mean what it sounds like it means. It is in practice a way of restricting free speech, not promoting it.

The words terror, terrorist, and terrorism are easily applied to our latest “enemy of the week.” Rightly so in many cases. Most of the people labeled as such have killed and maimed other people. When the United States kills and maims other people, how is it defined? Do we label ourselves as terrorists? No? Why not? If we are doing the same thing, shouldn’t the same label apply?

Noam Chomsky (who knows a thing or two about words) digs deeper into this subject, and more, in a piece called The Most Wanted List over at tomdispatch.com.

I particularly like this part of Tom Engelhardt’s introduction:

Of course, the minute you try to turn the Washington norm (in word or act) around, as Chomsky did in a piece entitled What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?, you've already entered the theater of the absurd. "Terror" is a particularly good example of this. "Terror" is something that, by (recent) definition, is committed by free-floating groups or movements against innocent civilians and is utterly reprehensible (unless the group turns out to be the CIA running car bombs into Baghdad or car and camel bombs into Afghanistan, in which case it's not a topic that's either much discussed, or condemned in our world). On the other hand, that weapon of terror, air power, which is at the heart of the American way of war, simply doesn't qualify under the category of "terror" at all -- no matter how terrifying it may be to innocent civilians who find themselves underneath the missiles and bombs.

There is a reason why the supporters of the powers that be in Washington are dismissive of Noam Chomsky. Read the article to find out why.