Mark Lawson (London Guardian): Bush resorts to head-on-a-stick politics

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian of London
Dated Staurday July 26

Seeing is believing
Why does Bush feel he now has to resort to head-on-a-stick politics?
By Mark Lawson

quietly, does Tony Blair - and is reported to have scriptural advisers who highlight daily passages relevant to his presidency. These theological bodyguards would have failed in their duty if they did not this week direct America's highest eyes to John 20:25: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe."
The most serious religious believers to occupy the White House and Downing Street in recent memory now ironically find themselves facing an entire population of Islamic Doubting Thomases in Iraq. The publication of the gruesome morgue shots of Saddam Hussein's two sons . . . mark an extraordinary cultural moment: the leaders of two supposedly sophisticated and civilised democracies forced to resort to the most basic head-on-a-stick politics.
The first factor that has led to this savage assault on conventional proprieties and disorderly retreat from the moral high ground is the surely unexpected phenomenon of the vanished enemy.
For thousands of years, regardless of changes in military methods, the rules of invasion remained the same: the enemy leader was beaten and then taken. He might frustrate his planned display through suicide but there would usually be some proof of death. Some said Hitler lived on, false-bearded in the jungle, but the sane knew he was dust in a bunker.
Yet twice now in the war against terrorism, the quarry, though losing, has also managed to get lost: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein continue to exert a ghostly power over minds if not nations through video, audio, rumour and hope on one side and fear on the other.

Read more.

[Maccagirl]

1. No one cares about "international outrage"

in fact, I'm certain the Bushistas are counting on it.