While Donald Rumsfeld and his chuckle-headed apologists crow about the outcome of the Bush administration’s use of lies and deceit to justify war on Iraq, we might remember that the war zone created in Baghdad has led to a couple things: armed Islamist militias controlled by local clerics and the rise of rape and terror against women.

Zeinab, a 24-year-old computer science major who declined to give her last name, would drive her own car to college before the U.S. invasion, but now she’s only permitted to leave the house for school with the man she jokingly calls her driver-bodyguard-chaperon.

The beauty salons she used to frequent for pedicures and conversation are closed, so Zeinab spends much of her long hours at home in front of a mirror, practicing different hairstyles for the day she regains a social life.

Girls lost most of their freedom here a long time ago, but now we’ve lost it all, she said angrily. They want to protect our honor.

[LA Times]

And:

Sheik Nasseri, for instance, has been giving the Friday sermon at the main mosque in Sadr City, where he has railed against Americans as infidel colonizers and sanctioned the killing of unveiled women who refuse to comply with his rules, as well as the killing of Muslims or non-Muslims who sell liquor.

[NY Times]

Just in case you have forgotten: these are the same conditions–precisely the same conditions–that led to the establishment of the Islamist tyranny in Iran, and were used to justify forced veiling and other misogynist repression. And they are also the same conditions–precisely the same conditions that led to the horrors of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

So thanks, Donald, for lying to us about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out your dirty little war. What an awful outcome indeed.

Donald Rumsfeld gives up on trying to think up new excuses.

(link courtesy of This Modern World weblog)

No longer content with ignoring Iraq’s decision to acquiesce to U.S. demands on weapons inspectors, the Bush administration has now declared that it will actively work to prevent weapons inspectors from going to Iraq [BBC].

Three words: What the fuck?

The Bush administration has apparently become so convinced of its divine right to bomb the world that they don’t even give a damn anymore about keeping up appearances out of a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. They urged the U.N. to take responsibility for the situation in Iraq, and then days later the Bush-Rumsfeld junta demands carte blanche from Congress for unilateral aggression. They demanded Iraq let weapons inspectors back in, and now that Iraq has spoiled their war plans by acquiescing, the junta says they’ll do what they can to keep the inspectors out!

Take Action!

The War Party toadies in Congress are trying to work out just how to get President Bush’s war resolution through, in spite of reservations by some Right-wing Republicans and growing division amongst Democrats. Take some time today to write or fax a polite but firm letter to your Representative and your Senators urging them not to approve any resolution authorizing force against Iraq. Then send a copy of your letter to the editor of your local newspaper. You may want to use MoveOn’s No War on Iraq letter as a template, but be sure to put your own pen to paper. The situation at this point requires more than just petition drives.