Op-ed - 10/07

     Let's begin with a short piece from someone named Wondering. "Is this the Small Town blog, or the Iraq blog? I can't figure it out."

Dear wondering:  The name was changed almost a year ago. It is now called "Smokytown." Like you know (to use a bit of teen jargon) where there's smoke there's fire. I have to admit the last three blogs spent a lot of time in Iraq. You'll be pleased to learn that Youssif, the Iraqi burned boy, is now in America getting plastic surgery to repair his disfigured face.When his mother looked out the plane at all the green grass, she exclaimed, "Am I in Paradise?" Back in Iraq, Baby Fatima remains under the care of the American medical staff that nursed her back to health. They are still searching for a family to adopt her. One of the 24 orphans rescued from deplorable circumstances failed to survive.

     A question from Sam: "You have an Italian name and you've mentioned having German parentage. What side did you fight on during World War II?"

Dear Sam: My first reaction was to laugh, but then I realized everyone that I knew in the service has passed on. As you probably know, veterans of that war are dying off at the rate of a thousand a day. I fumbled around through some old records and I'm happy to report I found discharge papers indicating I served on the Allied side. Does that satisfy you, Sam?

     An e-mail from a relative: "Have your read any books or seen any videos by John Pilger, an Australian, who is now primarily based in London?  If you don't know his works, I think you might want to dip into them. You and John have much in common. In all of his work, Pilger has been a prominent and fervent critic of Western foreign policy." 

Dear Relative: Thanks to NPR, I have heard some of Pilger's speeches, the most recent drawing attention to his latest book: " Lapdogs with Laptops," an incisive attack on today's mainstream media. "We need a press that will hold the feet of the mighty to the fire and not drink Cabernet Avignon with them.Citizens are ill served by lapdogs with laptops. More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants, and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American publics. thanks to the freest media on earth."

     Originally published in "Counterpunch," this  Op-ed piece comes from a former student and good friend, James McEnteer.

            An Academic Hotshot Introduces a Petty Tyrant:

                                     Hell,Columbia

     "Before addressing our speaker, I have a few critical points to emphasize. First, just because we invite some nutcase here to sound off does not mean we endorse his ideas. Does the term 'political pressure' mean anything to you people? Enough said. Second, to those who are offended by this guy and everything he stands for and wish we'd never asked him here or that he'd never been born, I couldn't agree with you more completely.

"But as a noted free speech expert in a country that supposedly stands for freedom of speech, I didn't really have a choice, okay? So stop with those nasty letters and that evil spam already. Third, if what this lunatic says offends you or causes you pain, I am truly sorry and wish I could lay some percodan on each and every one of you. Fourth ... oh never mind. We scheduled it. We took heat for it. We didn't want to appear to back down. So we're going ahead with it. I just want you to know I really really don't like it, okay?

"Now, let me turn to you, Mr. President. You have unfairly and without trial or any due process imprisoned hundreds of people. You have denied them counsel. You have allowed them to be tortured. You have committed wanton acts of violence against the populations of several countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

"You lied about your reasons for this violence. But millions of innocent civilians have died, or been wounded or become refugees thanks to your brutal, unjustified policies. Your misleading inept actions have now killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden or the terrorists of September 11. You are now officially the greatest mass murderer of the twenty-first century.

"We could have expected brutality from you. After all, you presided over more executions than any modern ruler of any state. Even the mentally incompetent are not immune from the system you call justice. The ones you don't appoint to office you execute. Of course your own ascent to the presidency, abetted by your father's judicial cronies, which the rest of the world rightly saw as a coup, was enabled by your own fawning media and your country's one-party state. You are shameless, as your regime has been shameless, scornful of the rights of others, Americans and non-Americans alike.

"Let's be clear, Mr. President. You exhibit all the signs of a cruel and petty dictator. You have no integrity, no credibility and no competence. You have said and your Congressional lackeys have agreed that Iran is supplying arms to your enemies in Iraq. Many people fear you will attack Iran, despite your failure to contain the chaos you have unleashed in Afghanistan or Iraq. To do so would be immoral and irresponsible. But of course, that is precisely your signature style.

"You spout lies. You conduct official business in secret. You spy on your own countrymen. You put anyone who questions your policies on your no-fly list and harass them. Why are you so afraid of American citizens expressing their opinions for change?

"Frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes everything you say and do. I feel the weight of the modern civilized world, yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for.

"And so folks, without further doodoo, let's put your hands together for that wacky dry drunk, that lyin' murderin' Christian himself, still beloved by 28 percent of us, that draft-dodging commander-in-chief and the illiterate leader of the free world himself, the son, the phony ... "

[Drowned out by jeers]

James McEnteer is the author of Shooting The Truth: The Rise of American Political Documentaries (Praeger, 2006).

     Gosh almighty, I wonder who was being introduced in Jim's piece? It certainly wasn't Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadimejad, who was rather rudely introduced by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. Talk about inviting a speaker and then making chopped liver out of him by calling him to his face "a petty and cruel dictator."  Bollinger might want to go back to the times of King Arthur and the Round Table and review how guests should be treated. In those days, if an enemy managed to gain entrance to a castle, he was treated as a guest until he left the premises.

     Here are a few excerpts from Iranian blogs:

>Insulting the president of a country, no matter how unacceptable his point of view, is synonymous to insulting a nation.

>What is interesting is that we claim the Americans want to prevent our voice from being heard, so why do we censor ourselves?

>I was reading the news reports of the American media. I am truly dumbfounded. They have focused on Ahmadinejad's response to the homosexually question and are analyzing it. What has the world come to that, with innocent people dying in Iraq every day, the rights of the homosexuals have become the most important issue of the day?

>Someone who denies the Holocaust and promises the downfall of the Western World will inevitably remind Westerns of bin Laden and Al-Queda.

A late e-mail: What is your response to Bush's veto of the bill to expand the Children's Insurance Program?

     Dear Late:  I wold get an illustrator to draw a cartoon with Bush standing up to his neck in a quagmire of sand surrounded by a half-trillion dollars. He is saying: "We can't afford to increase the money to help children."

A second e-mail from "Wondering," who said I was spending too much time in Iraq. Remember?  "But I love your blog, don't get me wrong. Keep up the good work."

Comments

[Sleepy reader]

Hey, it's your blog, but might I humbly ask why do the articles have to be so long? A good blog posts at least 3 times a week. Shorter is better. Try it, you might like it. Plus your readership will increase, just watch.