UPDATED - ColdType

the jihad and its mirror image.
“For Christian fundamentalists, the notion of
Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction is
not in and of itself an anathema; it’s the timing
that is bad. Armageddon can’t happen without
forces of evil, presumably bearing nuclear arms,
to fight the forces of good. But scripture dictates
that the Jewish temple must first be rebuilt, and
since that hasn’t happened, it cannot be Saddam
Hussein, the incarnation-of-evil-du-jour, that
bears those arms. What better argument to disarm
him? After the temple is built, then we will
find evil and arm it.
“For American empire-builders, the religious
fanatics can proselytize till the messiah comes or
returns; what matters today is less Deuteronomy
than hegemony. American hegemony, as in control
of the Middle East’s oil and natural gas
resources, and hence the world’s economy. How
better to get there than by turning Iraq, with
proven oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia’s,
into the overseas address of the XVIII Airborne
Corps? Fort Braggdad has an irresistible
ring to it.”
Legitimate fears?
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
THERE may be another wrinkle in why Britain is
so gung-ho for a new resolution – which others
see as not needed or irrelevant. TomDispatch.
com, noticed a revealing paragraph buried deep
in the bowels of the Washington Post:
“The Washington Post today in the penultimate
paragraph – oh, those final paragraphs of
news stories in the imperial press – of a piece
entitled “Bush Lobbies for Deal on Iraq,” offered
this:
“British officials also expressed fresh concern
68
that failure to obtain a resolution authorizing
war against Iraq would expose them to potential
prosecution by a newly established International
Criminal Court with jurisdiction over war
crimes. Britain is a signatory to the treaty establishing
the tribunal, but the United States is not.
Blair was advised by his attorney general last
October that military action to force ‘regime
change’ in Baghdad would violate international
law”
The death of TV news (again)
NOW let’s move into the media landscape. I
begin today with some comments from Av
Westin, a man who was a mentor to me and a
boss I frequently quarreled with at ABC News.
He ran 20/20 until the late Roone Arledge
became convinced he was gunning for his job. I
wrote about what it was like to work for him in
my book, “The More You Watch the Less You
Know.” When I knew him, he was a defender of
network power. Today, he like many, has become
a critic. The Pioneer Press picked up a talk he
gave to students in Minneapolis. Av says:
“I think we’re on the death spiral of TV news.
Everywhere you look, the bottom line has
trumped [quality journalism]. The profit expectations
of conglomerate news are such that if
you’re running a local newsroom, the only way
you’re going to meet your objectives is by going
down-market and cutting staff. You look around,
and you see men and women today running
newsrooms who got all their training in the past
10 years. They don’t know any other environment.
And as for great journalism, I seriously
doubt either Mel Karamazin [president and COO
of CBS’ parent company, Viacom] or Sumner