GuardianUnlimited has a “comment is free” section. Something for op’ed pieces, I guess. This one has an interesting title: “Britain is determined to protect its right to kill civilians at random” – regarding cluster bombs:
The numbers of cluster bombs deployed are mind-boggling. The US air force released 19m over Cambodia, 70m in Vietnam and 208m in Laos. Over much shorter periods, the US and the UK dropped some 54m cluster bombs on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war and around 2m during the 2003 Iraq invasion. Israel scattered 4m cluster bombs over Lebanon during its latest invasion earlier this year, almost all of them during the final 72 hours. It looked like revenge, or an attempt (like its deliberate bombing of the Jiyeh power plant, causing a massive oil spill) to cripple Lebanon’s economy. Since the invasion, more than two Lebanese civilians have been blown up by cluster bombs each day on average. ¹
There’s also a sad report on the plans Democrats have. It sounds very lame. On the EmacsChannel, somebody recently called them “politiclones” – which is only slightly better than “politiclowns” I guess. But I’ve long claimed that Democrats will probably not be much better than Republicans:
Regarding Iraq, the Democrats’ plan has two parts. First, they want Iraqis to assume “primary responsibility for securing and governing their country”. Then they want “responsible redeployment” of American forces. Older readers may recognise this formula. It’s Vietnamisation - the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a mistake. But Vietnamisation was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called “peace with honour” and is now known as “defeat”. Maybe *A New Direction* is just a campaign document. My fear is that the House Democrats may try to use it as a basis for governing. ²
The reasons for voting against the Republicans:
1. Send a strong signal against future war-monger wannabes.
The reasons to vote for Democrats:
...
#USA #England #Israel #China #Russia