Aussie point of view, covering New York Times original I think. Gets my vote for headline of 2003 so far...
Frightening propagandistic counter-terrorism writing. What exactly is meant in the Star Wars reference of the last line?
(Article edited, move to the link for the whole piece).
www.smh.com.au...
The world must stop this madman
No, not Saddam. That other gun-toting, tough-talking cowboy in the Oval Office.
The trap is sprung. The name of the game is containment. Contain the wild man, the leader with the messianic and relentless glint who is scaring the
world. Surround him, throw Lilliputian nets on him, tie him up with a lot of United Nations inspection demands, humour him long enough to stop him
from using his weapons and blowing up the Middle East.
But this time, the object of the containment strategy is not Saddam Hussein, but George Bush, the president with real bombs, not the predator with
plans to make them.
America's European and Arab allies now act more nervously about the cowboy in the Oval Office who likes to brag of America as "the greatest nation
on the face of the Earth" than the thug in the Baghdad bunker.....
But the Bushies have got a taste of empire building in Afghanistan and they like it. The White House adviser, Karl Rove, is building a Republican
empire. The Defence secretary adviser, Richard Perle, the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff,
Scooter Libby, are building an ideological empire. Cheney is building a unilateral empire. And the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is building a
military empire....
They can restore civilisation to the cradle of civilisation. Lemon fizzes, cribbage and cricket by the Tower of Babel. A 36-hole golf course on the
banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. ArabDisney in the hanging gardens of Babylon. Oil on tap at the Baghdad Hilton. Huge contracts for buddies in the
defence and oil industries. Halliburton's Brown & Root construction company building a six-lane highway from Baghdad to Tel Aviv.
How long can it be before the empire strikes back?
BTW, that was written September 2002.