Since they just handed Michael Moore an Oscar tonight for Best Documentary, and since I've a few otherwise intelligent friends (waves to macker) that seem to have been swayed by the movie, I thought maybe I ought to post a link to this article that fact-checks the movie, and reveals it to be the piece of lying propaganda that it is - so full of fiction that I don't actually think it should have qualified as a documentary.

Goebbels would be proud.

Next time you wanna cite some Hollywood star on some issue of substance, remember that they were collectively so untrained in critical thinking that they actually, en masse, voted for this steaming heap of lies as an Oscar winning documentary. Then ask yourself how qualified they are to opine on politics, foreign policy, or social issues.

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Henry V, Act IV, Scene VII - Henry V, on learning that the boys guarding the baggage train had been slaughtered, by French fighters that had previously surrendered.

Anyone that has read this site since 9/11 knows that I've been beating the drum for war pretty hard, with my main casus belli the liberation of the people of Iraq from the tyrant that is Saddam.

Today, though, it got a bit more personal.

It seems that a few Army troopers of the 507th Maintenance Battalion made a wrong turn in the trail of the III Infantry Division and managed to get themselves captured by the Iraqis. Some news reports say that they were taken by troops that had previously surrendered, only to reappear as militia fighters. (We do not, at this time, know that for sure)

In any case, whether they were taken by honorable or dishonorable means, their display and interrogation on Iraqi National TV, and Al-Jezeera, is clearly outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention.

Who that knows anything about the current Iraqi regime expected anything else?

Would that were the worst of it.

It is also said by those that have seen the tapes, (the US networks are so far refusing to air them, as they are "disturbing" - they'll be coming soon to an internet site near you, without a doubt) that several of the dead US soldiers look to have wounds that were inflected execution style.

I do not agree with that decision, - I think we can handle the Truth, straight, no soda. But in a way, I understand it. To broadcast to the US public this tape would very likely unleash a grassroots storm of "Kill 'em all, and let Allah sort them out," and I don't think that is in our best interest.

Or is it?

While watching the remarkably precise and blood-free precision bombing campaign of the war so far, in which the major targets have been huge monumental buildings of Saddam's regime, long deserted by anyone with a double digit IQ, I noticed that many of the Iraqi people seemed to learn that they would not be harmed, and that life could and would go on during our air assault. Cars began again to appear on the streets, etc.

Machiavelli wrote that it is good to be loved, and good to be feared, but that it was only very rarely possible to be both. If one had to choose one or the other, then it was better to be feared than loved.

One of the ways that we have hoped the war would end was for the Iraqis to throw out Saddam on their own. Many anti-war advocates have made this argument. Does our humanitarian way of war, in which we try to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties, contribute to this? Or is it prolonging the war?

If the Iraqi people can be allowed to sit back, and let us spill American, Brit, and Aussie blood to liberate them, why should they put life and limb on the line to dislodge him?

Do we need to light a fire under them by inflicting some damage and suffering on them, too, to get them to be more pro-active in their liberation - use both the carrot and the stick? Will some widespread bombing to cut off power and other utilities, destroy bridges, or any of the other things we've so far avoided, make them pick up an AK, or a pitchfork, or whatever, and kill that Ba'athist party member, or Special Republican Guard trooper manning that AA gun in downtown Baghdad?

It that a moral thing to do? I do not know, I confess.

I once read on the net somewhere, it was either on the Reverend General Donald Sensing's site, or Steven den Beste's, I forget which, that sometimes an neccesary requirement to build a lasting peace is for the enemy to well and truly know that he had been beat to a pulp. The reformation of Germany and Japan after WWII would not have been possible unless they had been compleatly destroyed. Saddam himself proclaimed GWI a victory, and many in the Arab world agreed, simply because he had survived.

Maybe it's time to take the gloves off.

Right now, I'm all for giving the Nebuchanezzar and Hamnurabi divisions of the Republican Guard one last chance to surrender. Then I want about five B-52 ArcLights dropped on them if they refuse. Then drop that MOAB on them just to bounce the rubble around. I want them begging to surrender before the III ID get to them.

Why should this bother me more than any of the other myriad atrocities Saddam has comitted? It shouldn't, but it does. Maybe it is just enraged bloodlust talking. Ask me again tomorrow, or the next day.

With apologies to the Bard, perhaps a message from Gen. Franks could be rewritten like this...

"I was not angry since I came to Iraq Until this act. Take a message, sergeant; Broadcast it from our C-130's, Drop leaflets by the ton. If they want a fight with us, we'll give them one, They must go home, and make it quick: Their way of war makes me sick. Tell them I say if they delay We'll kill every one of them, Reaping both lives and limb. BoneMakers, DeathBringers, Swifter than the Tomahawks Of old Iriquois slingers: Not a man of them shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so."

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Surprising some of you perhaps, I don't expect I'll have too much to say about the day-to-day events of this war. The troops are in shape - they're the best-equipped, led and trained force on the planet, and they'll prevail handily, though not, of course without some casualties and mistakes. Good luck, guys and gals, and get your asses back here in one piece.

My confidence in the troops was bolstered even further a few days ago, after I happened to run into a few Marines that were recently back from the Middle East. We talked of many things, most of which I will not repeat here for obvious reasons.

One matter of particular interest to me was the prospect of urban combat, and whether the Special Republican Guard would fight or rout. After I expounded upon my worries, I was assured by one salty senior NCO that it didn't really matter. "If they fire at a Marine, they will die. Period." He then explained to me a few things that we've managed to cook up in the area of urban assault. Basically, the old idea of going room to room through the building is toast. If they get fire from a building, they will promptly remove the entire first floor of said building, and see if any of the enemy will survive the ensuing crash.

(As I am typing this, it seems that Saddam has fired off a few of those SCUD missiles he claimed not to have. 'Magine that.)

As for the title of this post, as I was listening to Bush43's speech in which he gave Saddam 48 hours to get out of town, it struck me that someday the Iraqi people will have a national holiday to honor the day that they got their freedom, their Juneteenth. Will it be the day that Saddam dies, or the day the war started, or when it ends?

I submit it should be the Monday the 17th, which is the night Bush gave that speech. (It'd give me another reason to celebrate Patty's Day, as if I needed one)

That speech was, in effect, their Emancipation Proclamation. "Free at last! Free at last! Allah be praised, we are free at last!"

The humanitarian reason has always been to me the one unassailable casus belli. Saddam's ties to terrorism, WMDs, our right to pre-emptive self-defense, reasonable folks could argue either side of those arguments, though I personally think each of those are credible arguments. Saddam manged to create a "perfect storm" of reasons to take him down.

While Saddam's violations of UN resolutions are without doubt, they were more a legal vehicle to get the rest of the UN world on board with the Anglosphere.

I think in his heart of hearts, Bush43 has always felt that way, too, though perhaps I give him too much credit on this issue. He never really pounded the table with the freedom for the Iraqi people issue until the very end, until it was clear that we were going to do it with our "coalition of the willing," and not with the UN. The theme rang clear in both his speech Monday night and the address he gave to the people last night.

It's also the reason that could have been his strongest with the American public. So, why did he downplay it so?

I believe he had to. It would have made the quest for a UN resolution even tougher, as every tinpot dictator realized that if the US, now uncontrained by pragmatic Cold War realpolitik, was truly committed to freeing people, and establishing liberal republics globally, that they could not help but be next on the Pax Americana hit list.

(As I type this, the news reports that the Marines of one of the Light Armored Recon battalions have engaged and destroyed two Iraqi armored vehicles with the 25mm chain gun of their Grizzly. "First To Fight." Heh. My pride in the competence of my former comrades is tempered with a bit of sadness. Why didn't those stupid fucking Iraqis just surrender?)

I was glad to see that the President has so strongly affirmed the US committment to rebuilding Iraq, and setting them on a course of political and personal freedom. He should be held quite firmly by the American people to that cause, and if he strays from it after he has Saddam's head on a pike, I'll be clamoring along with all the anti-war folk to get his on one.

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