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Recent
Stories
April
15, 2003
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
April
14, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush's War Without End
Uri Avnery
Gunboat Democracy: This is Only the Beginning
Wayne
Madsen
Americans: The New Mongols of the Mideast?
Shahid
Alam
Iqra: Iraq is Free
Hani
Shukrallah
Day of the Chicken Hawks
Terry
Jones
The Iraq Gravy Train
John
Chuckman
The Iraq War's Trashiest Piece of Propaganda
Patrick
Cockburn
US has a Lot to Answer For: Violence,
Misery and Poverty in Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/14
April
12 / 13, 2003
Carol
Lipton
Wag the Kennel: the Kenneth Joseph
Story
Wayne
Madsen
Meet the New Butcher of Baghdad: Maj.
Gen. Buford Blount III
John
Brown
"They Got It Down": the Toppling
of the Saddam Statue
Kathy and
Bill Christison
Final Thoughts from Palestine
William
Blum
Our Vulnerable Warmongers' Rush to Justify Devastation
Wallace
Gagne
Let the Stealing Begin
Ann
Harrison
Rosenthal Update: Judge Delays Ruling in Medical Pot Mistrial
Case
Henry Miller
What is the Greatest Treason?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Render Unto Cesar
Zeljko
Cipris
Mocking Militarism: On Ishikawa Jun's Song of Mars
Ishikawa
Jun
The Song of Mars
Jamey Hecht
Chairman of the Sandwich Board
Adam
Engel
Hell of a Town: Mayor Bloomberg and
the News
Poets'
Basement
Chang Yang-Hao, Adam Engel and Hammond Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/12
April
11, 2003
Omar
Barghouti
From Saddam to Uncle Sam
Ron
Jacobs
Greed is Rewarded
David
Vest
The Corporate War on Iraq
Paul
de Rooij
Propaganda Stinkers: Fresh Samples from the Field
Anthony
Gancarski
Foreign Aid: Embezzlement as Public Policy
Mas'ood
Cajee
Franklin Graham: Spiritual Carpetbagger
Michael
Neumann
Now What?
Michael
Berry
The Neo-Cons Have a Dream
Stew Albert
Oh Freedom
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/11
Website
of the Day
About Those Dancing Crowds
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
Hot Stories
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 16,
2003
The
Devil in Bush's Details
Ends, Means
and the Present Tense
by
DIANE CHRISTIAN
"The
war in Iraq is really about peace"
President Bush said on April 11, 2003. He and his regime confidently
assert that the ends of peace and liberation justify the means
of war and destruction.
It's an old trick question in ethics
to ask if the ends justify the means. The trick is usually presented
as checking out the ends. That is, a bad end doesn't justify
any means, while of course a good end is just what justifies
good means. As to bad means, you have to weigh the bad means
(like war) against the good ends (like peace and liberation).
And sometimes they are judged just, sometimes not. It's presented
as a matter of proportion.
The devil is in the details of proportion
of course. How many lives and wounds, how much pain, anguish
and destruction should be sacrificed to 'peace and liberation?'
Would we sacrifice bombing of our cities and destruction of our
civilian population for the peace and liberation of Iraq as confidently
as we sacrifice Iraqi lives and cities? How do we reckon costs
of lives, cities, money?
Moral philosophers bicker. The Pope has
condemned preemptive war as unjust and American neocon Catholic
Michael Novak has hied to Rome to argue US righteousness.
Our ability to abstract and argue like
this is often cited as our human genius. It's also clearly a
curse. Life happens only in the present tense. Memory and imagination
look back and forward and can make us ignore and rationalize
the present, but morality happens only in the present and usually
has a bodily not abstract character. We drop fire from the sky
and wound, we do shoot or don't shoot. Making war and making
peace are different: one accuses and rends, the other forgives
and embraces. We're trying to do both at once and while that's
clearly an improvement over a purely bellicose posture, it's
also an illusion. In the present tense it's impossible. The
Lieutenant Colonel who told his men to go down on one knee, turn
their weapons muzzle down and smile made peace in a scene of
war. But mostly we've made war, bringing staggering military
might against a defiant but ill-matched foe. We're Goliath here,
not David. Except we're an enlightened Goliath who really wants
to be seen not as the giant but as the unarmored David, beloved
entrepreneurial champion and chosen king of God.
TV coverage cracks and confuses our heads
about time. What's going on, what's on tape, what's file footage,
what's the story, fills the time. Very little is in real time
except fireworks and reporters telling stories. It feeds our
appetite for passing time, giving escape and intensity, but it's
weak on the present tense-very much pushing off-scene (literally
'obscene') the broken bodies and buildings. President Bush announces
he's upset by scenes showing carnage and looting. It's all really
about peace to him but a future disembodied peace via sanitized,
not brutal, maiming and ugly war.
When the finest collection of ancient
culture was pillaged and destroyed in Baghdad the Bush regime
comment was that it's terrible and untidy and the result of
transition turbulence-i.e. not really our fault but the sad consequence
of liberation from a brutal regime. Back to Saddam for blame,
forward to liberation and fixing it. But whether 50 thousand
or 170 thousand artifacts are gone or destroyed the cultural
memory and art are savaged. Some reports already blame'ignorant'
Shia revenging their Sunni (Saddam) repression. Clearly the Baghdad
museum was not an asset equal to the oilfields for the American
liberators. The looting is not just a transition in Rumsfeld's
hypocritical shorthand, it is more war and ruin, bad means and
no good end. When Rumsfeld was asked how we could have let this
happen he reared mightily in his righteous fashion and snapped
that we didn't let this happen. It happened, he said, no fault
of ours, our men were probably protecting hospitals at the time.
Already, he said, some people were returning things.
You can say that war is about peace but
that doesn't make it so. That may be your desire for the future
or your rationalization or delusion about the past. The only
really moral mirror is the present tense-the first casualty of
politicians always anxious to 'move forward' and 'get this behind
us.' Whatever clever ends and means we construct, adduce, or
asseverate, we act and will be judged in the present tense-the
only place one can live or die.
Diane Christian
is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at University at Buffalo.
She can be reached at: engdc@acsu.buffalo.edu
Today's
Features
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
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