Ils sont fous, ces Américains!

I didn't really finish my point yesterday, so here's what I was trying to get at: the US is employing its Cold War-era connections and a potent combination of financial carrots and stealth bombing sticks to coerce other nation into doing its dirty work. This isn't shocking (go to WikiPedia and type in "COINTELPRO", "Allende" or "Rumsfeld and Hussein go yachting" -- it's hilarious). What's striking about Priest's article is that it highlights how the American government clearly believes that -- if they can just stay one step ahead of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the global community of investigative journalism -- they can "win" Iraq by locking up any Persian men between the ages of 14 and 60.

These people are being kidnapped and held in places where habeas corpus is a rumour and the only court is the paved area where the guards shoot hoops. This is Pinochet-type shit, is what this is: people being yanked out of their homes in the middle of the night by armed men, tied up, gagged and blindfolded then driven to a remote location where they're imprisoned and interrogated.

And when the shoe's on the other foot? Well, we all know what happens when the "good guys" get arrested.

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Remember that scene in Les Douze Travaux d'Astérix when he has to get ahold of form A-38? Yeah, well -- after successfully grappling with Québec's byzantine bureaucracy for three days, I once again have a valid driver's license. Give me an invisible tightrope any day...