The racket of war

Warmongers/War Profiteers Watch

Here is James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, and member of the Project for a New American Century, declaring that "World War IV", which we are apparently now in, will last longer than WWI or WWII did but "hopefully" not as long as WWIII (aka the cold war) did. He also manages to threaten the governments of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. No doubt he will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize next. Here is the text of the speech, and here is an article on how Woolsey is all set to make handsome profits on this "war": "Bush ally set to profit from the war on terror" So I guess there really is no incentive for him to tone down his bellicose rhetoric. Thanks for stirring up the shite there Mr. Woolsey. I'm sure a lot of parents of dead servicepeople will be thanking you in the future, too. Some other bizarre parts of the speech are that he says Iran, Iraq, and Syria have been at "war" with the US for years, but we didn't notice (Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia) and saying that the US is "on the march" and "on the side" of the people of Saudi Arabia, and that the rulers of Saudi Arabia had better "be nervous" about us. This is so totally weird I don't know what to make of it. The rulers of Saudi Arabia, the house of Saud, are relatively urbane and secular, and without them, all of that precious oil that we can't live without would be in the hands of the much more fundamentalist population. Of course, he probably means that we are on the side of the population in as much as we would like to get rid of the government, take their oil, and then let the population choose their own government, as long as it is not a Muslim theocracy. Like we are doing in Iraq! Dealing with the House of Saud is the center of the devil's bargain which is at the heart of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Poppy Bush has the rulers of Saudi Arabia as his most important business partners. So what is with Woolsey?

On a different note, instead of profiting from the conflicts he is trying to start, Rumsfeld seems to only have profited by selling nuclear technology to a country which we now call "evil". (There was a similar article about Richard Perle a month or two ago). Remember this the next time you hear these guys denouncing the Clinton administration's dealings with North Korea. If they thought it was a bad policy, at least they didn't let that stop them from profiting handsomely from it.

FCC Watch

More on the vote scheduled to happen in June: "FCC close to easing media caps Giant firms want to own more outlets", "FCC may ease rules for media ownership" and this. Also, Krugman on our broken media.

Dean Watch

Here is a good article on the Dean campaign, and a mini-biography of Dean. (I especially like this quote: One of the old ladies shakes Dean's hand and issues a command. "You beat that goddamn Bush," she says.) Here is the full interview from the article. Here is the Dean campaign's response to the bizarre attack by the DLC this week. LiberalOasis wrote some analysis of the attack and response.

Major T.J. Kong Watch

Here is an article about Operation Strangelove, which I missed this year, but sounds like a great idea.