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True Lies
Looks like Tom Clancy is a popular author in Britain - at least among the editors of the tabloid 'The Sun' and spokespeople for the Prime Minister's Office. The recent alleged threat to flood Britain with the deadly anthrax virus is straight out of Clancy's 'Executive Orders' - except in the book the target was America, it was Ebola and the nogoodniks originated in Iran.
>I don't doubt for a minute that Baghdad has 'plans' to attack the West with chemical and germ weapons. But I suspect the plans are more theoretical - a sinister mental exercise - than a seriously considered option. For one thing, using germ warfare on a civilian population is - as Clancy explains in his book - an attack using methods of mass destruction and there can only be one response.
Baghdad would cease to exist - it would be reduced to one huge radioactive smoking crater. Frankly speaking I don't think Saddam Hussein is that insane. A religious maniac or some psycho political cell might consider doing it, but Saddam isn't religious, he's just a miserable, murderous SOB.
I figure there is a difference. I don't really think Saddam wants to die - he doesn't strike me as the sort of thing suicide-bombers are made of.
Let's face it, an anthrax attack on London would be a bit dumb. With all the recent coverage pertaining to Iraq's alleged arsenal of biolgical weapons, it wouldn't take long before the British population took to the streets screaming for a nuke strike against Baghdad. It would be a difficult call for the British government to ignore. Guilty or not. The real sad thing about all of this is that Iraq will be the number one suspect if there is any biological or chemical attack on a Western country that supports continued sanctions against Baghdad. The real culprits could get away scott free - what a great opportunity the British media has created. Well done.
But the story did capture the headlines didn't it?
Just when we were thinking Saddam might have been mellowing out by opening up the Presidential Sites for inspection, there he goes again with some despicable nastiness. When Richard Butler was saying that UNSCOM could possibly wrap up their work by the end of the year and other folks were worrying about the lifting of sanctions and an oil glut triggered by Iraq, there is the world's number one bad guy back on the front page of every newspaper in the free world.
Have you ever noticed that 'security' leaks never seem to bring us good news? Wouldn't it be great, for example, to learn via a leaked security document that China has been secretly destroying its nuclear weapons, or that North Korea doesn't have any. Nope, these leaks are always bad news for the peace-loving people of the Western democracies and always finger a nation that we all love to hate.
I'm not saying that the anthrax story was planted - but I am seriously suggesting it. True or not, the timing was perfect.
- Chris Gelken
25 March 1998 , Hong Kong
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", a client, a friend, and one of the keenest minds in American politics, told me one afternoon: 'A good place to begin thinking critically about American and Western European democracies to ask yourself: What kind of man or woman would choose to run for public office? Think about that.' - I did."
- Eliot Janeway ,1991 New York
From an Introduction to JK's essay and speech, "Washington - The New American Babylon"
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