[lbo-talk] Wolf Tears

[Dennis Perrin]

"About 3,000 bodies have been unearthed here, but townspeople say thousands more probably decomposed in the shallow water table over the last decade. Relatives have claimed about 1,000 sets of the remains. The rest are wrapped in white plastic bags and spread out over the neatly leveled soil, in silent testimony to the horrors of Mr. Hussein's three-decade rule. 

" 'Obviously, for those people, liberation didn't come in time,' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said today, visiting here as part of a five-day trip throughout Iraq." 

No mention of the fact that a fair number of these people were slaughtered after heeding George Herbert Walker Bush's call for an uprising, and while US forces simply watched. But never mind that -- check this:

"In Najaf, Mr. Wolfowitz joined two dozen members of a fledgling town council at one of their meetings, and gave an impromptu lesson in American-style civics. 

" 'I don't think you can have a free country without a free media,' he said. 'I'd be very, very careful about anything that prevents people from expressing their views.' "

This from a guy who urged the Turkish military to ignore the Turkish parliament's refusal to allow US troops on their soil, which stemmed from a 90%-plus opposition to the war among the Turkish population. American-style civics, via "Seven Days in May." 

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/international/worldspecial/20IRAQ.html>

DP
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