roachboy

i have mentioned this parallel before, but here it seems germaine--the americans find themselves in a scenario that is very much like what the french found themselves in during the algerian war.

the use of torture. illegal detensions, the modern gulag in general follow from the fact that the american military is vertically organized and cannot figure out how to deal with horizontally organized/fragmented opposition. the assumption is that an adversary structured like the american military exists out there somewhere, and apparently if you torture enough people would till find it. this use of torture and illegal detention seems to follow from particular types of conflicts, particular organizational assymetries. in both cases, this usage was facilitated by racism and ignorance. in both situations, the central effect was the creation of the conditions that the actiosn were designed to pre-empt. (i refer mostly to iraq here)

the category "terrorist" and the arguments from bush's boy alberto gonzalez about the non-applicability of the "quaint" geneva convention to manly campaigns like bushwar in general are simply ideological screens, meant to provide a pseudo-legal face for the wholesale evacuation of even the most elementary human rights in the name of the war on terror.

al qeada operates as the bogyeman behind this move--the americans need al qeada, and al-qeada needs the americans. for each, the other is the best publicity imaginable.

i think in the main pacifier is correct: the manual is irrelevant.
it seems pretty clear that support for the war is structured to a significant extent around a blurring of iraq into the wider "logic" of bushwar.
stevo's post makes the case for this quite clearly.
but it is irrelevant.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite