Now that Saddam Hussein has caved in and accepted the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, the Bush administration has declared that it doesn’t give a damn and it wants Congressional carte blanche to bomb Iraq whenever it pleases [NY Times]. Although they are lobbying the UN Security Council for a resolution authorizing police action against Iraq, Bush wants Congress to authorize war whether or not the UN goes along with his transparent plan for conquest and plunder.

The toadies in the War Party of Congress — Daschle, Gephardt, Hastert, et al. — are all lining up to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, but there is a growing amount of grumbling amongst Congressional Democrats. With good reason — not only is Bush’s plan transparent conquest, it’s also transparent attempts at an October Surprise to derail the Democrats’ chances of holding on to the Senate and retaking the House in November by energizing a hawkish coattail once the anti-Iraq media blitz hits the airwaves. As Roderick Long has pointed out, Bush should get a t-shirt with his new slogan: Think locally, act globally.

The Bush-Rumsfeld junta claims that Iraq is a unique threat to the world:

Iraq is unique, Mr. Rumsfeld said. No other living dictator matches Saddam Hussein’s record of waging aggressive war against his neighbors, pursuing weapons of mass destruction, using them against his own people, launching missiles against his neighbors, brutalizing and torturing his own citizens, harboring terrorist networks, engaging in terrorist acts, including the attempted assassination of foreign officials, violating international commitments.

Rumsfeld is correct that the peace and welfare of a great many people in the world is in peril from a rogue state, which

• … pursues aggressive campaigns of conquest and plunder against sovereign states
• … has imprisoned thousands of its own civilians without basic civil rights protections
• … does everything it can to stockpile weapons of mass destruction and has threatened to use them unprovoked [*]
• … flouts international agreements and threatens war in violation of international law
• … has used poison gas against its own people in acts of repression
• … is goverened by a maniacally hawkish, unelected head of state

… and so on. But as you’ve probably guessed by now, it’s not Iraq. Anyone want to guess who it is? Anyone? Anyone?

In Other News

The Bush administration is, of course, doing everything it can to use the war issue as a media smokescreen over issues that it would prefer to go away, here’s a brief review of some U.S. news tidbits:

• Michael McConnell, the latest anti-choice extremist nominated to the federal bench by the Bush administration, faced the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Bush needs Democrats behind McConnell to get him past the committee, which has already struck down Charles Pickering’s and Priscilla Owen’s nominations.
• The domestic economy continues to falter, with a lacklustre retail season during the back-to-school period
• How war-crazy media toadies built a story by making shit up about the faux terrorism scare in Georgia
• The Congressional inquiry into September 11 was just released, and makes clear that the administration failed to take up intelligence leads for investigation or even warning of the public. The administration still refuses to declassify details concerning the reports received by the White House from intelligence agencies.

O.K., so I was planning on putting out a post about the silly little debate that the conservative and libertarian webloggers were having amongst themselves recently about the liberal Southern white boys who inhabit their own media bubble. But for the time being Andrew Sullivan’s pit of narcissism website is offline, so that will have to wait.

In the meantime, however, I would like to bring a happy addition to the web world to your attention. For your reading pleasure, Bitch Magazine has converted their online (S)HITLIST section into a very readable MovableType weblog format. They update about twice a month or so, and their archives are eminently readable. Warning: this weblog may cause sleep deprivation – the night I found out about this I ended up getting to sleep about 4 hours later than I’d intended, because I spent so long combing through their entire archives.

In Swaziland, a tiny country surrounded by South Africa, sub-saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy maintains a regime of tyranny over the women of the nation. Under Swazi law, women are considered minors, and cannot own property, acquire a bank loan, or enter into a legal contract without the consent of a male relative. The King is promising that a new constitution will be written sometime soon now, but with no commissions or discussion at all in the palace about gender equity, its’ likely that this new constitution will merely recycle status quo ante as far as women are concerned.

In a recent fit of misogyny that veers into the completely senseless, Jim Gama, a power behind the throne and Right-wing hate radio host near the capital Mbabane has ordered that soldiers strip women wearing trousers in the royal villages. (One is reminded of the Shah’s charming little habit of having soldiers tear off women’s chadors with bayonetts during his campaign of forced Westernization.) According to women’s rights activist Pholile Dlamini, Gama became the most powerful traditional authority in Swaziland because he "endeared himself to the national leadership by being a super traditionalist who regularly belittled women on the air."

Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news that I don’t at all intend to link with the preceding story: power-behind-the-throne Dick Cheney decided to spend the anniversary of the September 11^th massacre building national unity and currying mainstream consensus by sitting down for an interview with Rush Limbaugh, a Right-wing hate radio host who endeared himself to the national leadership by being a super-traditionalist who regularly belittles women on the air.

But I digress.

In memoriam… 9/11/2001

One year ago today, the world stood still as carnage and madness consumed New York City and Washington DC. I remember that just a bit before I was supposed to leave for school at 9:00 my mother came in and told me that she’d heard on the car radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I turned on the television next to my computer and saw it there. The massacre unfolding before all our eyes on live television. The home video of that explosion and the screams. I don’t even remember how I went through the rest of the day — I know I went to school. Silent crowds of people—a few whispering around the edges—stood fixed in front of the television screens in Haley Center. None of us knew what to do but stand there.

I’m not going to wax elegiac or maudlin about it today. I’m told that there has been wall to wall media coverage for the past week or so, but I’m cut off from TV right now so I have been mercifully spared most of it. I am tired of the soft violins and the misty-focus interviews and the incessant attempts to wrap up this ugly, horrible crime in some kind of lyrical closure. Well, closure doesn’t exist. Some 2,000 people were brutally murdered and there is nothing that can close the wounds — no heartfelt words, no bombing of foreign lands, no teevee specials will ever bring them back.

Solace is the best we can strive for. Take a moment at 8:46am and 10:30am to silently remember those who died in that awful day. There will be performances of Mozart’s Requiem being sung around the world (including here in Auburn)—take the time out of your evening to listen to it, if you can. You don’t need to put on any big production of mourning. Just remember, and be still, for a while.

All you Fifth Column Leftists and pantywaist liberals fess up. You thought that all this sabre-rattling against Iraq was just a cynical political maneuver by the Bush administration for an October surprise to undermine Democratic prospects in the upcoming Congressional races, didn’t you? Well, you’re just going to have to give up your sorry little paranoid delusions. It turns out that political maneuvering is only a fringe benefit. Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) has shone the light of good old conservative moral and strategic clarity on why we need to bomb Baghdad as soon as possible:

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The United States should no longer buy oil from Iraq, but steal it, U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, R-Wolfeboro, told hundreds of New Hampshire Republicans gathered last night at a party fund-raiser.

Why don’t we just take his oil? Smith bellowed to the crowd during a fiery 13-minute speech, referring to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Why buy it? Take it!

Thanks, Bob, for clearing that one up for us. The oppressed petrochemicals of Iraq must be liberated from Saddam Hussein’s iron fist as soon as possible.