THE HOWELLING::

Mashing Our Monster (MAUREEN DOWD, March 16, 2003, NY Times)

Sure, the Bushies might be feeling a bit rattled right now, with the old international system and the North Atlantic alliance crashing down around their ears.

But you can't transfigure the world without ticking off the world.

It's not a simple task, carving new divisions in Europe, just as Europe is moving past the divisions that led to the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.

The Bush hawks never intended to give peace a chance. They intended to give pre-emption a chance.

They never wanted to merely disarm the slimy Saddam. They wanted to dislodge and dispose of him. [...]

The hawks despise the U.N. and if they'd gotten its support, they never would have been able to establish the principle that the U.S. can act wherever and whenever it wants to--a Lone Ranger, no Tontos.

Cheney, Rummy, Wolfy, etc. never wanted Colin Powell to find a diplomatic solution. They hate diplomatic solutions. That's why they gleefully junked so many international treaties, multilateral exercises and trans-Atlantic engagements.

They blame the popular Mr. Powell for persuading Bush 41 to end Desert Storm with Saddam still in power, so that the Army would not look as if it was slaughtering the retreating Iraqi Republican Guard.

Once the war stopped, American troops could not intervene to help Shiite Muslims rising up in the south, a rebellion encouraged by Bush 41. Saddam massacred the rebels.

It's no longer possible to even tell what this woman is trying to say--can she really mean to be suggesting that Mr. Powell was right and she supports those massacres?

And does she really think that Europe's problem was "divisions" rather than the totalitarian ideology adopted on one half of the divide?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 15, 2003 8:53 PM