[Peace-discuss] rumors

[C. G. Estabrook]

Something's up in DC.  Proconsul Bremer is suddenly summoned home.  To be
treated like Jay Garner and told he's not creating "peace" in the desert
(a la Tacitus) fast enough?  That the generals are going to be unleashed?
Perhaps in connection with another dramatic strike, say against Iranian
reactors?  And all of this in time for Bush's visit to London next week
(where he should encounter some serious opposition -- Reuters couches its
article about the visit in a history of presidential assassinations!).

There's some evidence for something big and murderous by our masters
coming up.  The net's been full for a week with stories of major aircraft
movements by the US, positioning them for access to the Middle East.
Regime-friendly pundits in the US have been touting the application of
Vietnam-style tactics to Iraq (WP, Newsweek), notably what the Nixonians
called "Vietnamization" -- the term "Iraqization" is being used.  (There
are a lot of differences: the Nixon people meant getting Vietnamese to
fight and die after what was essentially a revolt of the US expeditionary
force in Vietnam.  The US draft army was unreliable, and someone else had
to do the fighting.  That's not quite the case in Iraq.)

Saddam Hussein's birthplace has been turned into a "strategic hamlet" --
Vietnam-speak for a concentration camp -- and air strikes have begun again
(on what?) after the helicopter downings.  The brutality of US troops --
young, misled, in-country longer than they expected, and apparently each
day shooting more indiscriminately -- has become a byword in the non-US
press.

More that two dozen Congress-people have called for Rumsfeld's dismissal.
The "intelligence community" (spooks at the CIA and elsewhere) is in
revolt, in spite of a weak director whom the Bushies can't afford to fire
at the moment, in part against a parallel "Intel" establishment created by
the increasingly besieged Neocons. (Douglas Feith's job is apparently at
risk.)

There may have been a decision that the current situation can't go on, and
the only thing to do is escalate, because (as our liberal Democratic
candidate for Congress said the other night), " We can't just pull out."

Why not?  --CGE