I wholeheartedly agree with you, Momus. But I can't help but feel sorry for the infantry men stationed in Iraq who are as helpless and as victimized by the American government as the Iraqis.

One of the most appalling things I read this month was a LiveJournal by a soldier called Mike who died just a couple of weeks ago in Iraq. He died pointlessly, and he died because of Bush. And Bush is preparing more tragedies of exactly this kind as we speak. Other 'Mikes' will die in other countries. Pointlessly.

Nice work. Have you read that Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker? As an American of draft-able age, and a student whose taking the next semester off, it's scary stuff to take in.

It seems to me that the most difficult and most important step in actively changing the current attrocities is to create new forms of protest that do not follow current methods. We need to be creative in how and why we protest. It seems many traditional forms are deemed acceptable, or are passed off as an impotent display. What are peaceful and unexpected ways to create change? In what ways can community change itself so it is no longer dependent on the govt. for survival?

There are no peaceful ways to create political change. Even Ghandi knew that.

thanks momus, i will pass it on.

If he's not already on your Friends list, you might want to check out habibi. His parents were born in Iraq; he currently lives in Chicago and is a film-maker. He and his American wife went to Iraq a year ago with his dad to see what was left of the home they's left twenty-plus years ago. He's a great guy; I think you'd like him.

I'm a rather un-political person. I have my ideas, sure, but I'm not an activist of any kind. I don't like talking about politics.
The most political act I have made in my life is to move my ass and go to vote.
These days I have the clear sensation that I am the centre of a worldwide plot aimed at making an hardcore activist out of me.
The prime minister of my country (Italy.. sigh - sighing because of the prime minister, not for Italy), every day says something that offends my intelligence, not just my political views.
Bush is re-elected and in no time is babbling even more awful and idiotic plans for future wars.
I'm beginning to understand a lot of things about history.

Your piece is beautifully thought and written, momus, thank you.

One risk we run, even in formulating our revulsion against current developments, is just being on the same page as the current US administration. Not necessarily the page they're really on (because after all, it's hard to imagine them in all honesty saying, amongst themselves, 'Hey, this Iraq war has gone so well, let's start another one!') but the page they want us to be on.

There's a famous report by Ron Suskind of an encounter with a Bush aide:

'The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'''

If that's the case, this blog entry is already a defeat. Instead of promoting my own view of reality, primarily an aesthetic-utopian one, I'm getting on board the Bush Perception Wagon. Even if I'm disagreeing profoundly with what it says, I'm on the same page, letting them set the agenda. And that's already a concession, a small victory for the other side.

Now, I want to know Bush's views on 'disorienteering'. Whaddya mean 'you don't have any opinion'? Everybody has an opinion about disorienteering!

best way to stop the monkey curse is for you to advocate the British to vote for Lib Dems. As long as Blair cow tails to the cowboy monkey he will feel as if he has an international mandate. I know my English wife who lives in NYC will be voting for Kennedy. Fony Bliar OUT.

Yes well done there, get a party that would have supported the war if the UN security council had backed it (ie if it had the added cachet of having been supported by a crook, a tsar and a dictator).

Out of interest Nick, what *should* we do about the fact that Iran are developing nuclear weapons and many of their leaders want to use them to destroy Israel?

Please don't take this as any sort of endorsement on my part but...

It's bloody inevitable.

My crystal ball says it like this: Iraqi elections, Bush declares victory and then proceeds to start trumping up Iran. This will allow him to keep troops in Iraq, "just in case" action needs to be taken against Iran. Nevermind those troops will be busy as hell keeping Iraq from descending into civil war. We won't think about that. But it'll give Bush & Friends some breathing time, during which they'll be making their case for dealing with Iran. It'll be an easy sell, maybe even easier than Iraq, because hey, remember that hostage thing 25 years ago? Yeah, the ignorant hate is already there.

And by now, *everyone* knows Bush doesn't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys what anyone thinks.

Yes, it will turn out badly. Seriously, you lot outside the U.S. of Jesus really need to whup us upside the head. Please.

I know another gas-rich, Central Asian, beautiful, history-laden country governed by a despicable authoritarian regime that Dubya might want to consider invading in order to spread 'freedom and democracy'.

Uzbekistan.

But oh, bugger! Uzbekistan is a partner in the 'Coalition of the Willing', so reports of human rights abuses, corruption, official complicity in the drugs trade and slavery are conveniently sidelined.

Very possibly (and hopefully) the 'conservative' regime in Tehran will shortly crumble in the face of a serious and determined popular uprising - the Iranians are generally quite good at that sort of thing - and the USA will NOT feel the need to intervene. Furthermore, I'm not a fan of any project involving the restoration of those Cossack usurpers, the Pahlavis, who frankly got their comeuppance in '79 (before the 'Islamic' was put into 'Revolution').

At least, please Dubya, put off the war until AFTER I've been to Iran.

Yes, actually, all signs point to yes. Apparently we *will* invade Iran. I can't say anything else about this, I'm so disgusted.


It won't just be Iran. You know that, right? Bush wants to spread Democracy throughout the oil having countries Middle East. For humanitarian reasons, you know.

My quote: "If Haiti had anything to export besides aids, the US might help them too."

Of course they won't invade Iran.

Unlike Iraq, Iran actually DOES have "weapons of mass destruction" and though they might be arrogant pricks, the Bush administration is not foolish enough to risk getting themselves nuked.

Hideous design, by the way.

I and millions like me will feel an intense revulsion not felt since the Spanish Civil War or Vietnam. We will make life a misery for you, and we will actively resist you every step of the way. I'm talking about individuals, governments, nations. You will become the black sheep of the entire world. You will excommunicate a great nation, your own, from all compassionate consideration. You will become a symbol of the problem, not the solution.

i highly doubt any protest outside of the U.S. by anyone or any nation or any nations for that matter would stop this agenda. this administration wants to permanently change threatening regimes and democratize the world by whatever means necessary. and from a military point of view, they definitely have the means to carry this out. they expect casualties but view this course of action as forever benefiting the future generations of those nations and the world.

i don't agree with it, i don't like it, but if they can actually succeed(and i don't think they will) then some good can come out of it.

Momus I sadly agree with you, but sadder still The vast majority of the American public does not. Personally, I would rather be supposedly "terrorized" then live in this 1984 excuse for a country. This war is political campaign that is only doing good by making hundreds of shameless people in The US and abroad rich off of defense contracts and oil theft.
The saddest part is that people like my surrounding neighbors and family totally buy into The Bush Administration's idea of "freedom" and the popular vote in America is to keep pushing until every brown person in the world is under our boot. Americans won't stand up because they spend their days in front of the tube ignoring the fact that their new shiny Chevy Tahoe is part of a systematic death warrant against any resource rich nation and believing that a nearly illiterate Prep school flunky is our safest bet for leadership. America isn't going to change until the American media and the populous changes drastically. The entire American asthetic and value system needs a face lift.
I hope You have open arms for some new American Ex-Pats.

USA!
Kim

I don't have anything to add, but wanted to say how beautifully written this was. Thank you.

We elected him, so it's our fault. Don't blame George W. Bush for doing what he believes in, because we elected him to do what he believes in doing. We can criticize all we want, but we have to let the president do his job. Otherwise, we'd have a powerless leader being swayed by the loud voices of the few and not the ballots of the many.
My advice to the worried: Ride it out, it'll be okay. Don't get upset when nothing is for certain. And afterall, if the worst possible thing happened and our society changed forever, some tough skin asshole would still crawl out from under a rock and keep on living. Ain't it grand?

It's probably a few weeks too late to be fashionable saying this, at this point, but I don't believe we elected him. Since many of the contested districts had no paper trail, there's no way to ever verfiy this one way or the other. There's not even a hope of making a show of verifying it -- because there are no records left to check.

In a very real way we've cross a threshold into unaccountability.

Beautiful. Thank you Nick. I'm passing this one on.
eD

I've been planning to go to Iran in the autumn. When I first decided to go, it was around the time of the American election and I was thinking I should visit before the Americans got any stupid ideas and wiped another country off the map. The election took place and I took refuge in various comments from pundits that the level of involvement in Iraq made designs upon Iran quite preposterous to consider seriously in the short term.

Having read the inaugural address, I am not sure how much longer I can seek refuge in the impracticability of war in Iran. That doesn't seem to matter any more, for the speech makes it the duty of every American to join in this struggle to establish a world free of tyranny. What sort of citizen would you be if you didn't want to protect your freedom? Especially this great American freedom in all its myriad of forms. 57 varieties that all taste the same. I doubt that the combined forces of Attar, Rumi and Hafiz could even manage to describe one facet of this great jewel of human achievement.

I've a number of Iranian friends in London. They've variously suffered and lost under the Shah, in the Revolution, during the Iran-Iraq war. Left to their own devices, I'm confident they'll find their own solutions over time. I'm not convinced that America will invade Iran in the next five years, but it's clear you can't rely upon logic in these circumstances. A fire has been lit - the untamed fire of freedom. Don't think about cooking chelo kebab or nothing on it, only 100% prime hormone-plumped American beef will do.

Bull's urine is used in various Zoroastrian religious practices. I'd advise Americans to keep a bucket with them at all times to cleanse any possible defilements they may encounter.

I'm still planning to go. I like civilisation.

i was born in tehran but my parents moved us out when i was only a year old. i still have family there. they remember me in diapers, i don't remember them at all. i'd really like to go to tehran someday, to see where i'm from, meet some of my family, etc. it's already a little difficult for me to go there. i have to get an iranian passport, i have to actually get the nerve to go...ha. if they invade and it turns out as bad as iraq currently is...well i don't even want to think about that...

As Cheney made clear here, we may handle the "not enough troops" problem by simply taking the gloves off Israel and letting them strike Iran.

This was laid out pretty clearly in a recent New York Review of Books article, but was roundly panned by administration officials who dismiss everything not written in Rove's handwriting as Liberal propaganda.

I seethe and sputter but your sum-upance done it.
Now for to screech our various anti-manifestos on speakers the size and consistency of the countries he plans to invade...during his nap time when his mind is most gooey and maleable...
rumor has it with conspiracy theorists here that should we not comply with Evil in both the form of Israel and America they will blow the Aswan High Dam to smitherines...an act which would effectively kill 90% of Egypt's population and most of it's donkeys. Most folk feel personally threatened by America, cowering and unable to organize.
Now, at a time when both nature and man are at their most violent and aggressive, when one's been continually battered with images of 'angry and threatening' Muslim creatures-then the same Muslim's bloody stumps and innerds being scraped together and rushed in a mini-bus to a makeshift hospital-leanto behind a gas station... 10 times daily on Al-Jazeera...I'm starting to give in, lose and get paranoid myself.
My common sense and feelings of childlike awe towards systems of governance and their leaders have been missing long.
An untouched Iran is our last bastion of sanity...structure's got holes in it as it is.
Nothing stays clear for long now, not even our drinkin' water.

If the US does invade Iran, I suggest a total boycott on all US goods, for a start. I just hope Blair doesn't join in.

what does the us make?

No one's going to invade Iran. They're just going to blow large parts of it up. And it'll probably all be over before you or the Iranians can raise a voice of protest.

But then we will see just how many friends America really has.

thank you for opening my eyes momus.

It occured to me to check these out:

www.iranbodycount.org
www.syriabodycount.org

Already registered...

well said.

what about Israel?

Well, I suppose the mullahs are doing a good enough job of running Iran into the ground on their own. Who needs war?

wait, is iran or is it not the worst country ever?