(2003-02-26) Barlow On Iraq

John Perry Barlow on Dick Cheney and the War On Iraq: In other words, it's possible Cheney and company are actually bluffing. This time, instead of trying to terrify the Soviets into collapse, the objective is even grander. If I'm right about this, they have two goals. Neither involves actual war, any more than the MX missile did. First, they seek to scare Saddam Hussein into voluntarily turning his country over to the U.S. and choosing safe exile or, failing that, they want to convince the Iraqi people that it's safer to attempt his overthrow or assassination than to endure an invasion by American ground troops. Second, they are trying to convince every other nation on the planet that the UnitedStates is the Mother of All Rogue State-s, run by mad thugs in possession of 15,000 nuclear warheads they are willing to use and spending, as they already are, more on death-making capacity than all the other countries on the planet combined.