Kathreb

Off Topic

The first point that I feel needs to be clarified is that it has not taken me this long to read "Shadows of the Empire". For some reason my blogger template has refused to recognise subsequent changes to my 'currently reading' section. I'm not comfortable with the thought that people out there are thinking that it is taking me a good month to read a 250-page Star Wars novel. I will continue to up-date my book notification but cannot guarantee when it will actually change.

But that issue aside, today I intended to read through the mass of information I located at the Nautilus Institute on North Korea and to blog my thoughts and opinions pertaining to said topic. However, I have only managed a rudimentary perusal of some of the information and don't feel confident enough to make a relevant comment.

Instead of reading all that information I have in fact spent most of today's internet session at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and at the Whitehouse getting the latest on Iraq. I read the President Bush's speech to the National Press Conference and thought that perhaps if it weren't so sad it might have been funny. CSIS reporting on the phalanx of the weapons programs and Blix's reports were enlightening and highlighted some of the complex matters at hand which left me feeling more informed but still clueless.

I would proffer a more relevant opinion about the whole Iraq issue but I tend to think that both sides are big fat liars aiming to decieve me and that no answer exists on this issue as both sides are guilty of the things they charge each other and neither side possesses any moral ground upon which to win over public support. Its like two devils vying to be head honcho in hell. I also read a transcript that I can't relocate of Paul Wolfowitz, number two under Rummy at the Department of Defense, discussing the Iraq matter that was even more sad/funny and in fact could not be read through to the end as it became increasingly possible that the transcript was likely to induce a headache or worse. It was a blatent piece of horredously transparent propoganda where every sentence started with "the suffering of the those poor, desperate and oppressed Iraqi people is evidence that the great and omnipotent defender of freedom, the US, needs to ..." [not a direct quote but pretty bloody close]

The question of the day though came from a reporter during the Bush speech by the name of "Bob" who asked: "..millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi, and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?"

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