War links

Here are a few things that I wish more people would read and really think about.

From the political angle of what's behind the decision to go to war in the first place: Noam Chomsky on the underlying motivations. I've seen independent confirmation of both the proposed new foreign policy doctrine (Richard Pearle is the most frequent public proponent), and of the poll figures cited here giving the success of government and media propaganda at connecting Iraq with 9/11. A majority of Americans believe that "many or most" of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi (not a single one of them was; they were almost all Saudi).

From the operational angle of how the war is being conducted: a New Yorker article about Rumsfeld and the way that he's choosing to run this war. The degree of arrogance and self-certainty of the people that Bush has surrounded himself with is frightening, and they're proving to be spectacularly, catastrophically wrong. I have the feeling that Colin Powell attempted to warn them.

Regardless of one's position on the war, Rumsfeld deserves and needs to be thrown out on his ear. He's simply too arrogant, dangerous, and blinded by his own propaganda to be permitted to remain in control of a significant government department. He's getting US soldiers killed, unnecessarily, purely for political reasons, and that's something that both pro-war and anti-war people (and all the people in the middle) should be able to agree is unacceptable.