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i was a junior in high school during the last gulf war. belmont had just gotten cable so i was able to share in the revolution that is 24/7 war coverage. general schwarzkopf would come out with his videos of precision missiles striking their targets, telling us that the military did whatever it could to diminish civilian casualties. i believed it when they told me that patriot missiles were destroying incoming scud missiles. i believed it when they said an demolished milk factory was in fact a dangerous chemical weapons lab. everything seemed so clean and neat, as if no iraqis were harmed in the production of that war because they all surrendered when they saw the overwhelming combined military power of the united nations coalition. the only iraqis that were killed were probably bad iraqis anyway, struck down while running away with a jeep full of kuwaiti loot.

i was pretty naive back then.

in the 12 years since that time, something happened. either i matured, or i became a cynic, or maybe both. now when i watch george w. bush or donald rumsfield speak, i feel myself getting sick. i can't even watch the television, i just listen and whisper "bullshit" under my breath. i don't believe innocent iraqis won't be killed. i don't believe oil isn't somehow a factor for us going to war. and i don't believe it when they say the US is going into this war with a coalition of 40 odd nations, and many more countries that don't want to be named (i'm pretty sure securing micronesia's support did keep the administration up at nights). i want to believe all this propaganda, i really do. i'm a sucker for happy endings, and it's easy to swallow the sugar-coated lies the administration is feeding us. but i know the truth, and the truth is all that candy is bad for you.

pbs had some frontline specials on iraqi, one about the plan to get saddam hussein, the other about his rise to power. after watching it though, i couldn't help but to think, "hey, maybe what we're doing is right. that saddam hussein is a bad guy." he didn't get that way without americans help though. i'm not a conspiracy nut, but the US has had a hand in creating a lot of current problems in the world. al qaeda terrorists, saddam hussein, north korea, i'd say even the israeli-palestinian situation. but if the administration wants to take out saddam so badly, why not just assassinate him? i mean, why not just drop a bomb in the area where he just happens to be? that's not really assassination, is it? whoops a daisy! we had no idea he was there! but given the situation, aren't you better off now that he's gone? and the US could keep on trying until they accidently killed saddam hussein. pretty soon we'd know where he is because there'd be an expanding perimeter of people fleeing away from saddam "your it" hussein.

i love the body double idea though. i saw videos of saddam's double and he looks just like him, i couldn't tell the difference. i should hire my own army of doubles, and pay them to go out and do things when i don't feel like leaving the house.

today, hot dogs fruit elixir once again for lunch, alex wong came by to retrieve my ibook in the late afternoon, i fell asleep watching the news, woke up to some canned soup, and worked on my weblog code for most of the day (today i fixed the archiving mechanism, generating flat html files to take off some burden from the database server). where's my three's company at 3am by the way? what's this cosby show nonsense? i could do with some too close for comfort action right now though. jim j. bullock as monroe, my favorite daughter was deborah van valkenburgh as jackie.