Bush catches flak & a Baghdad mystery

It seems that the Bush administration has, what, offended some people with its utter disregard for the environment, global warming, and the rights of labor unions, besides that whole 'international law' issue. Paul Krugman summarizes the conservative worldview, Republican environmentalism, and reminds us that 'we can't go it alone.' A Washington Post columnist takes Bush to task for screwing over unions, which is probably the most significant and willfully obscured aspect of this administration. And The Guardian (UK) satirizes the lawlesness in Iraq:

With handkerchiefs masking half their faces, two rioters roughly the height of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld kicked in the gates of Iraq's largest oilfield and started to grab all the keys for the oil tankers. International onlookers were powerless to prevent the illegal behaviour of these heavily armed looters and billions of dollars of worth of crude oil, gas and petroleum were seized, not to mention all the free glasses.

Thanks to Nick for these tasty links.

In other news there have been some positive developments in the Israel/Palestine conflict as Ariel Sharon's government promised to help support the efforts of the new Palestinian Prime Minister, the elderly Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Will anything tangibly positive occur? Who knows.

At any time it's good to look at the latest Noam Chmosky interview (April 13). Now some people loathe Chomsky and believe he's a full-of-shit anarchic biatch, but I think he usually has something astute to say.

Robert Fisk has really taken on a strange inverted view to whatever is actually going on inside Iraq. At this point, I can't tell if he's gone utterly mad, or actually has a grasp of the mysterious forms of anarchy and power now manifesting in Iraq. He also has some very interesting speculation on the looters and arsonists who destroyed all those government ministries:

There is something dangerous - and deeply disturbing - about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town.

The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge - an explanation that is growing very thin - and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.

The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets.

So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop this?

As I said, something is going terribly wrong in Baghdad and something is going on which demands that serious questions be asked of the United States government.

Posted by HongPong at April 18, 2003 02:48 PM
Listed under Iraq .