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| This Just In..... |
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| McVeigh and Nichols and Omar and Osama |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, April 07, 2004. Well, here it is. The moment the American Left has been waiting for, the exact instant when the glory days of Vietnam can be not only revisited but relived. But being the American Left, it’ll blow it. It always does. The Great Quagmire Bizarre opened for business recently, as both the Baathist Sunnis in the north and the moronic Shi’ites in the South began separate revolutions against the occupation, and hundreds upon hundreds of people will soon be dead, I fear. The general ratio will be one Marine will slam his finger in an ammo box while 300 Iraqis will be blown apart, but you never know. It’s war. And here I am, caught on the cusp of my own hypocrisy. I approved of the Iraqi war, mostly in the nature of making hay while the sun shone, since we were in the neighborhood going back and forth between Afghanistan and…..well, in the neighborhood. And also because of my inbred desire to watch strutting dirtbags in military uniforms festooned with medals they could not possibly have earned be brought low and, yes, humiliated. Who among us would not like to have seen Idi Amin chained and imprisoned and in great fear? Or Milosevic and his generals? Or any of the Rwandan thugs? We can disagree on many things, but a quick photo journey through the works of folks like them would bring St. Francis to his feet screaming for torture and death penalty. Well, maybe not Francis. You’re right. St. Bernard, then. St. Theresa, even. But, having said all that, what to do now that we are in a country that we did not actually conquer, no allies except Blair, with a military woefully undermanned world-wide and unable to subdue by the preposterous and arbitrary but election convenient date of June 30th? We’ve managed today to hit a mosque and kill people, some of whom, at least, were innocents. That happens in war, and to be expected. But apparently that sort of thing didn’t occur to the Bushies, who have made a mess almost beyond comprehension not because they did what they promised but because they had no intention or ability to keep those promises. They wanted the war not for the reasons they said but for the President to pay tribute to his father and because a small, winning war is good for re-election, as the Karl Rove memo suggests. And they lied to us, the UN, and our best allies. The Bushies, apparently, assumed that the electorate would be as thrilled with the televised bombing of foreigners as they were, and that things would work out based solely on momentum, which they once had in spades. But everything America stood for, all the friends it had amassed for years, all the power it still has, now is as nothing in the hands of George Bush, who has lost us our dyed in the wool friends, all respect for our nation’s professed principles, all hope of a moderately early exit from the Middle East. Far worse, the momentum is all against our Marines and soldiers, and do not be surprised if the number of troops in Iraq double by the end of the year. In fact? Let’s count on it. Today, George Will, of all people, questioned the President’s character and abilities as a self-declared war leader. And it is all as a piece with Richard Clarke’s book. Among the many things in there that did not come up in the superficial interviews is this rather shocking fact. Terry Nichols, who was Timothy McVeigh’s companion in the Oklahoma City blast, had been in the same Philippine city when al Quada’s bomb trainers were there to work with locals. We now know that Nichols couldn’t build a decent bomb before that visit in 1994, but he could after. And yesterday Terry Nichols' former wife testified that she was horrified by a letter he gave her five months before the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Let me quote the AP today: “The letter included instructions on how to distribute Nichols' belongings if he died during a 1994 trip to the Philippines, told her how to enter a storage unit in nearby Henderson, Nev., and what to do with its contents…. {Nichol’s ex-wife….} found a package containing $20,000 in cash. She also went to the storage shed and found camping gear, bullion coins and a cigar box containing jade that prosecutors say was stolen from Arkansas gun collector Roger Moore as part of a plan to finance the bombing. {Nichols’ ex-wife} said she was stunned by the items' $38,000 value, adding that Nichols never paid child support and she thought he lived in poverty. Also in the package was a letter addressed to executed killer Timothy McVeigh, instructing him to clear out two storage units, including one in Council Grove., Kan., that prosecutors have said were used to store components for the bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building.” Clarke says in the book he could never disprove that al Quada had both financed and instructed the bomb makers of Oklahoma, and this possibility has been known since Nichols’ arrest. Yesterday’s testimony pretty much proves it. So, local right wing militia types have been willing to accept money from al Quada. Are they still? And if so, what is being done about it? And who is doing it? |
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