Here is a great interview with Noam Chomsky entitled There Is No War On Terror. Some of my favorite quotes from it, follow:
This is even sometimes discussed. You can find it in the strategic analysis literature. Take, say, the invasion of Iraq again. We’re told that they didn’t find weapons of mass destruction. Well, that’s not exactly correct. They did find weapons of mass destruction, namely, the ones that had been sent to Saddam by the United States, Britain, and others through the 1980s. A lot of them were still there. They were under control of U.N. inspectors and were being dismantled. But many were still there. When the U.S. invaded, the inspectors were kicked out, and Rumsfeld and Cheney didn’t tell their troops to guard the sites. So the sites were left unguarded, and they were systematically looted. The U.N. inspectors did continue their work by satellite and they identified over 100 sites that were systematically looted, like, not somebody going in and stealing something, but carefully, systematically looted.
Now, any discussion of withdrawal from Iraq has to at least enter the real world, meaning, at least consider these issues. Just take a look at the commentary in the United States, across the spectrum. How much discussion do you see of these issues? Well, you know, approximately zero, which means that the discussion is just on Mars. And there’s a reason for it. We’re not allowed to concede that our leaders have rational imperial interests. We have to assume that they’re good-hearted and bumbling. But they’re not. They’re perfectly sensible. They can understand what anybody else can understand. So the first step in talk about withdrawal is: consider the actual situation, not some dream situation, where Bush is pursuing a vision of democracy or something. If we can enter the real world we can begin to talk about it. And yes, I think there should be withdrawal, but we have to talk about it in the real world and know what the White House is thinking. They’re not willing to live in a dream world.
Interviewer: What’s your biggest regret over 40 years of political activism? What would you have done differently?
I would have done more. Because the problems are so serious and overwhelming that it’s disgraceful not to do more about it.
Interviewer: What sort of organizing should be done to try and change some of these policies?
Well, there’s a basis for democratic change. Take what happened in Bolivia a couple of days ago. How did a leftist indigenous leader get elected? Was it showing up at the polls once every four years and saying, “Vote for me!”? No. It’s because there are mass popular organizations which are working all the time on everything from blocking privatization of water to resources to local issues and so on, and they’re actually participatory organizations. Well, that’s democracy. We’re a long way from it. And that’s one task of organizing.
I also got the following story about The Singular Story of the Cuban Five from counterpunch.org. This is a story about the unfair and just strange treatment of political prisoners by the US as compared to others, who are actually admitted terrorists who have subsequently gotten citizenship in the US after knowing about their terrorist actions. Just wierd.
This article: Proof Bush Deceived America has a strong title, and though it does deliver what it claims… it was somewhat of an anti-climax. Basically it rehashed details that already exist, and reviewed them for any who don’t already know about the (at this point) fairly well documented falsifications the world was fed to “justify” Bush’s war in Iraq.