Whither Ann?
Where is Ann Coulter these days, anyway? You'd think the U.S. Administration would be hauling out its big guns in punditry at times like this.
What times, you ask?
Well, when Condi Rice is reduced to assigning words new meanings to get out from under, you probably need to take everybody back to a simpler time or the masses will start getting restless-er.
Remember then? When Ann Coulter said what so many pundits have said a million times since, couched a little finer, perhaps - "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"?
Ah, the good old days. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the War on Terror been... what's the word Condi Rice used... embellished? No. Escalated? Not quite. Oh yeah - augmented.
Geez Louise. It almost seems these days as if there is augmentation without representation, so in retreat is the Administration on the home front while it gears up into overdrive on the war front
Democracy is such a drag. Thank Gawd there's a war on to detract from it.
But it's not just Ann Coulter who seems quieter these days, it's all of the Republican right - including Canada's Republican right. The bullying tone is gone, the "if you're not with us, you're against us", bravado is missing, the belief that the war would be quick and decisive, the vanquished welcoming US with open arms, well... you get the point. They've lost the media war thereby "de-menting" the War on Terror to a battle in Iraq.
And let's face it. A battle in Iraq just doesn't inspire the same patriotic fervour as a War on Terror. There's still the hearts and minds part - winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis - but it's hardly worth it if you lost the hearts and minds of Americans in the process.
What hasn't changed in the War on Terror is the moral certainty of its pundit supporters. That they sound decidedly misanthropic is kind of ironic, but still - the moral certainty comes through loud and clear. Still. Sure, Americans showed that support for the War on Terror had shifted to "a lot less" support for the War on Terror - but the belief by the U.S. Administration and its supporters that only a declaration of war by Christianity on Islam would expose Islam as a religion of war - holds fast. Still.
In some cases, it has augmented to an argument that saner minds deem quite racist - that not only is the War on Terror NECESSARY, but it should be escalated to include a war on birth control. Er... for Western women, at least. So we can get those Christian (Western and Christian having become somewhat interchangeable terms for the pundit supporters of the War on Terror - much like Muslims and Terrorists) baby numbers up to compete with the Muslim baby numbers.
Phew. War is hard.
What's also hard is to believe that these lunatics ever had the support of a majority of Americans. And yet they did. And now, Canada is entrenched in Afghanistan, at least until 2009 and probably for years beyond that date. I mean, the NDP, which wants an immediate withdrawal of troops, just recently sided with the New Conservative government in not supporting a Liberal motion to force the Prime Minister to agree to 2009 as the absolute withdrawal date. Not that it matters. This government will do whatever it wants regarding Afghanistan if it gets a majority. And the Liberals were being a tad disingenuous, if you ask me, by introducing the motion at all. And while there is an argument to be made that the NDP should have supported the Liberal motion, I fail to see why.
Maybe the Liberals should have proposed an immediate troop withdrawal if they really wanted an end to this madness. Otherwise, it's just grandstanding from the Party that put us there in the first place. And as an NDP supporter, I fail to see why we should be co-opted into supporting a meaningless bit of politicking. It's just one more step down the road to the Americanization of Canada.
Whatever. It's all so irrelevant now. Gosh... imposing democracy on another people. What were we thinking? But now we're there, it's so much more complicated, isn't it. Especially since leaving at any time will mean abandoning the people there to one form of corruption or another.
Corrupt son-of-a-bitch #1, Warlord #2, or Taleban #3. Take your pick, Afghani voters. (And if somebody could enlighten me as to why Taliban is now spelled Taleban, I'd appreciate it. Because at the time the Americans first started bombing Afghanistan, I could swear it was Taliban. Please don't tell me we weren't even spelling the name of the oppressor of the Afghani people correctly.)
But I guess it was inevitable that Afghanistan would become like Iraq which would become like Afghanistan in some sort of endless War on Terror cycle. I mean, the invasion of Iran hasn't even happened yet to cycle into the loop and already I'm feeling War on Iran deja vu. I'm sure at this point the U.S. Administration would like to re-declare the war a success and pull out.
But it can't.
And so, on the home front, at least, there's really nothing for it but to go back to the beginning to ensure this never happens again, and hold up to the light of today, all those grand claims by media supporters of the U.S. Administration in its first call to go to war - and juxtapose them to Condi Rice's role on the world stage now as she travels the Globe re-defining the meanings of words in order to downplay the disaster NOW that was the original call to war THEN.
Oh yes - and maybe do what Israel is doing and haul up on the carpet the perpetrators of such madness for a good old fashioned probe:
It may be the only way to end the War on Terror.
