Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 13:03:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Its a Long way to TipperarryEE --0-1417129719-1039889031=:86946 Put me in mind of this: Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, n. 12, p.162: "The notorious Iraqi 'weapons of mass destruction' offer another example of the objet petit a: they are an elusive entity, never empirically specified, a kind of Hitchcockian MacGuffin, expected to be hidden in the most disparate and improbably places, from the (rather logical) desert to the (slightly irrational) cellars of presidential palaces (so that when the palace is bombed, they may poison Saddam and his entire entourage); allegedly present in large quantities, yet magically moved around all the time by workers; and the more they are destroyed, the more all-present and all-powerful they are in their threat, as if removal of the greater part of them magically heightens the destructive power of the remainder -- as such, by definition they can never be found, and are therefore all the more dangerous. . ." PD deleuze oedipus rimbaud <rimbaudboyo-AT-yahoo.ca> wrote: ZNet | A Community of People Committed to Social Change Watch Out For Scuds On The London Underground Everything In The World Is Now Proof That Iraq Must Be Invaded ZNet Top Iraq Home Recent Iraq Culture Of PowerBerube Responds againFurther Reply to BerubeAmerica's Bid For DominanceFinal Exchange With MonbiotRecent Steel Saddam Won Floating VotersTortured LogicSaddam Is Drowning KittensBart Simpson Goes To WarTake me to the Promised Land (the long way) Other Sections Activism Afghanistan Watch Africa Alternative Media Anarchy Animal Rights Argentina Asia Biotechnology Book Watch Brazil Watch Chiapas Colombia Disability_ Rights East Timor Watch Economy Foreign Policy Gender Global Global Economics Instructionals Interviews Ireland Japan Kosovo Labor Latin America Mainstream Media Mideast Miscellaneous Mumia Native Pacifica Parecon Peltier Site Puerto Rico Queer Race Repression Russia South Asia Terror War Third Party Venezuela VisionStrategy Web Youth ZNet InterActive by Mark Steel The Independent December 12, 2002 Could anyone have a more useless job than those weapons inspectors in Iraq? Does anyone honestly believe there is any vague chance that George Bush might say "Well, fair enough, we couldn't find anything so it's nice to know that he's mended his ways." And then the Pentagon would call off the war, as long as Saddam went on a self-help programme at "Dictators Anonymous", standing up to say: "my name is Saddam and it's now two years and five weeks since I gassed my own people." The pointlessness is displayed in a tabloid headline: "Iraqis risk Bush's wrath with another arms denial." So to please Bush rather than anger him, they'd have had to say: "I tell you what, we're overflowing with mass destruction gear. It's in the airing cupboard, the one place your blokes didn't look. We've got A bombs, N bombs, a machine for giving everyone in the world Mad Cow Disease. To be honest we'd be grateful if you could take some of it off our hands; we're running out of storage space." It's like a witch trial from the 12th century. If they're caught, they're guilty, if they're not caught they must be guilty. Which is why the Americans wouldn't let anyone else see the 12,000 word document from Iraq that detailed their weapons itinerary. Even if this document proved Iraq had no weapons, the Americans would say it was a shameful work requiring a land war in response, on grounds of bad grammar and unclear use of tenses. Or that the plot was thinly developed, the love scenes were overlong and the character of Tariq Aziz was left hopelessly unresolved, and the only solution was regime change so this could be cleared up in the sequel. Everything in the world is now proof that Iraq must be invaded. Yesterday's evidence of a Saddam plot was a shipload of Scuds going from one country to another, neither of which was Iraq. In any case, Scuds are the size of a large truck so they're hardly the most practical weapons to use for terror. Even the doziest guard on London Underground would notice someone trying to sneak one on to the Piccadilly Line. British politicians nod and repeat every one of Bush's farcical pronouncements, so that together, Bush and the British cabinet sound like these pairs of old women talking on buses. Bush says: "He's proved himself as a monster prepared to use weapons of mass destruction," and Geoff Hoon says: "Yes, weapons of mass destruction, hmm, yes, destruction." Bush says: "He's a threat to the civilised world," and Jack Straw says: "Oo yes, a threat to the civilised world, and you've got to be careful these days." Most galling is when British politicians repeat the Bush mantra on Saddam's human rights record. In almost every statement a minister makes on the issue, they remind us that "this is a man who gassed his own people". Which is true, and the incident they refer to involved chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. Human rights groups condemned the attack immediately, and a motion was put forward in parliament, but Jack Straw, who now uses the incident as a reason for a global conflict, didn't support it. Nor did Blair. Nor did Prescott. Nor did Blunkett. Nor did Hoon. Because at the time Britain was backing Saddam. Now, all of a sudden, they're appalled by this act. It's like if Alex Ferguson announced he was bombing Roy Keane, and if anyone objected he said: "But he's been a dirty fouling bastard." More recently, in January 2001 an Iraqi refugee, who'd been detained and tortured by the good people of the Iraqi state, had an application for asylum rejected by the Home Office. The letter read: "The Secretary of State (Jack Straw) is aware that the Iraqi security forces would only convict and sentence a person in the courts with the provision of a proper jurisdiction. He is satisfied that, if there are any charges against you, you could expect to receive a fair trial under an independent and properly constituted judiciary." Perhaps Jack Straw is under the impression there are two Iraqs, one an evil regime packed with weapons of mass destruction, and the other a charming happy-go-lucky village that comes under Hereford county council. This Government's warmongering wouldn't be more hypocritical if they declared Iraq had to be bombed as it had introduced tuition fees for students and refused to give its firefighters the same pay rise it gave to its politicians. None of this is to suggest Saddam isn't a monster, only that the impending war has nothing to do with his monsterness. If only he was more shrewd, instead of presenting that belligerent warrior image, he would find more effective ways of winning over world opinion. For example, he could get Mrs Hussein to announce: "If I've made a mistake then I'm sorry, but all I was trying to do, was protect my family, sniff, with just a few weapons of mass destruction, sniff, destruction, pause, just like any mother would do." And who, in their right minds, wouldn't go, "Oh you've got to feel for her, haven't you?" Greetings ! I am a Buddhist ! I came to share a Light!! --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals Derrida 3:16 says, "I just deconstructed your ass!" --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals --0-1417129719-1039889031=:86946
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Put me in mind of this:
Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, n. 12, p.162:
"The notorious Iraqi 'weapons of mass destruction' offer another example of the objet petit a: they are an elusive entity, never empirically specified, a kind of Hitchcockian MacGuffin, expected to be hidden in the most disparate and improbably places, from the (rather logical) desert to the (slightly irrational) cellars of presidential palaces (so that when the palace is bombed, they may poison Saddam and his entire entourage); allegedly present in large quantities, yet magically moved around all the time by workers; and the more they are destroyed, the more all-present and all-powerful they are in their threat, as if removal of the greater part of them magically heightens the destructive power of the remainder -- as such, by definition they can never be found, and are therefore all the more dangerous. . ."
PD
deleuze oedipus rimbaud <rimbaudboyo-AT-yahoo.ca> wrote:
ZNet | A Community of People Committed to Social Change
Watch Out For Scuds On The London Underground
Everything In The World Is Now Proof That Iraq Must Be Invaded
by Mark Steel
The Independent
December 12, 2002
Could anyone have a more useless job than those weapons inspectors in Iraq? Does anyone honestly believe there is any vague chance that George Bush might say "Well, fair enough, we couldn't find anything so it's nice to know that he's mended his ways." And then the Pentagon would call off the war, as long as Saddam went on a self-help programme at "Dictators Anonymous", standing up to say: "my name is Saddam and it's now two years and five weeks since I gassed my own people."
The pointlessness is displayed in a tabloid headline: "Iraqis risk Bush's wrath with another arms denial." So to please Bush rather than anger him, they'd have had to say: "I tell you what, we're overflowing with mass destruction gear. It's in the airing cupboard, the one place your blokes didn't look. We've got A bombs, N bombs, a machine for giving everyone in the world Mad Cow Disease. To be honest we'd be grateful if you could take some of it off our hands; we're running out of storage space."
It's like a witch trial from the 12th century. If they're caught, they're guilty, if they're not caught they must be guilty. Which is why the Americans wouldn't let anyone else see the 12,000 word document from Iraq that detailed their weapons itinerary. Even if this document proved Iraq had no weapons, the Americans would say it was a shameful work requiring a land war in response, on grounds of bad grammar and unclear use of tenses. Or that the plot was thinly developed, the love scenes were overlong and the character of Tariq Aziz was left hopelessly unresolved, and the only solution was regime change so this could be cleared up in the sequel.
Everything in the world is now proof that Iraq must be invaded. Yesterday's evidence of a Saddam plot was a shipload of Scuds going from one country to another, neither of which was Iraq. In any case, Scuds are the size of a large truck so they're hardly the most practical weapons to use for terror. Even the doziest guard on London Underground would notice someone trying to sneak one on to the Piccadilly Line.
British politicians nod and repeat every one of Bush's farcical pronouncements, so that together, Bush and the British cabinet sound like these pairs of old women talking on buses. Bush says: "He's proved himself as a monster prepared to use weapons of mass destruction," and Geoff Hoon says: "Yes, weapons of mass destruction, hmm, yes, destruction." Bush says: "He's a threat to the civilised world," and Jack Straw says: "Oo yes, a threat to the civilised world, and you've got to be careful these days."
Most galling is when British politicians repeat the Bush mantra on Saddam's human rights record. In almost every statement a minister makes on the issue, they remind us that "this is a man who gassed his own people". Which is true, and the incident they refer to involved chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. Human rights groups condemned the attack immediately, and a motion was put forward in parliament, but Jack Straw, who now uses the incident as a reason for a global conflict, didn't support it. Nor did Blair. Nor did Prescott. Nor did Blunkett. Nor did Hoon. Because at the time Britain was backing Saddam. Now, all of a sudden, they're appalled by this act. It's like if Alex Ferguson announced he was bombing Roy Keane, and if anyone objected he said: "But he's been a dirty fouling bastard."
More recently, in January 2001 an Iraqi refugee, who'd been detained and tortured by the good people of the Iraqi state, had an application for asylum rejected by the Home Office. The letter read: "The Secretary of State (Jack Straw) is aware that the Iraqi security forces would only convict and sentence a person in the courts with the provision of a proper jurisdiction. He is satisfied that, if there are any charges against you, you could expect to receive a fair trial under an independent and properly constituted judiciary." Perhaps Jack Straw is under the impression there are two Iraqs, one an evil regime packed with weapons of mass destruction, and the other a charming happy-go-lucky village that comes under Hereford county council. This Government's warmongering wouldn't be more hypocritical if they declared Iraq had to be bombed as it had introduced tuition fees for students and refused to give its firefighters the same pay rise it gave to its politicians.
None of this is to suggest Saddam isn't a monster, only that the impending war has nothing to do with his monsterness. If only he was more shrewd, instead of presenting that belligerent warrior image, he would find more effective ways of winning over world opinion. For example, he could get Mrs Hussein to announce: "If I've made a mistake then I'm sorry, but all I was trying to do, was protect my family, sniff, with just a few weapons of mass destruction, sniff, destruction, pause, just like any mother would do." And who, in their right minds, wouldn't go, "Oh you've got to feel for her, haven't you?"
Greetings ! I am a Buddhist ! I came to share a Light!!
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