Seven pillars of ignorance BY PHILLIPE & JORGE

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at our friend Mark " Pinky " Patinkin’s triumphant rhetoric in his column on Sunday. As readers of the Other Paper already know, he’s been four-square behind this ill-conceived war from Day One. Needless to say, we beg to differ. What’s really amazing is that he’s apparently joined the ranks of Moron Nation in assuming (in classic instant gratification fashion — something we thought conservatives are against) that we’re safer with the military victory over Iraq (not that it was ever in any doubt). It’s the next 25 or so years that concern P&J.

As any student of history knows, military victory seldom ensures a positive outcome. Doesn’t much of the turmoil on the Arabian Peninsula date back to the days of T.E. Lawrence, when the Brits carved up the area to serve their interests? Does anyone doubt that what happens next has a lot more to do with " serving our best (big business) interests " ? Perhaps you should check with Bechtel and Halliburton on this one (see below).

We don’t think this war was fought solely for access to oil. There were a number of reasons — a few legit, but most not — but oil and the ability of the US to leverage more control in the region weren’t far from the minds of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Co. These guys make Kissinger look like Gandhi. (And what a completely tone-deaf move in the Bush administration (Read: Rummy and Big Time) to pick of one of their old pals, Jay Garner, who has been working for the company that makes Patriot missiles, to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq. As put by a representative of Oxfam, the British relief agency, picking someone with defense or oil ties would be the worst way to return the country to a semblance of normalcy. " Hey, sonny, is that an unexploded bomb? My company made that! Cool, huh? " )

It is naïve in the extreme to buy Pinky’s perception that it’s all about " liberation. " That’s the one notion (and it’s a legitimate, but extremely secondary element) that the Bushies knew would play with the American public. We have now played into the whole jihad dynamic that the Islamic fundamentalists have been propagating, and it’s spreading like wildfire throughout the rest of the world.

Let’s see what happens in the next nine months. Let’s see what happens in the next 25 or 30 years. We guarantee that a lot of the folks who put their faith in Dubya’s war will start rethinking the wisdom of this real soon. Sorry folks, but nothing has been resolved. The real horror is just beginning.

Wag the dog

It is virtually confirmed that the toppling of the huge Saddam Hussein statue in downtown Baghdad was nothing more than a US military-staged photo op to be gobbled up by American media lapdogs. Long-range photos by Reuters show the sign-waving and hammer-wielding demonstrators only on one side of the statue, people going about their business in the background, and traffic cordoned off, so no one would get in the sight lines of Fox News and their breathless fellow broadcasters.

NBC continues to lead the disgraceful coverage of the war. The network’s April 9 broadcast of Dateline, led by Stone " Broadcast News " Phillips, was beyond the pale in glorifying the crushing of a minor world power by a military that ought to be able to brush dusky sons of the desert aside like matchsticks on an off day. Calling this one-sided slaughter a " historic " victory was appalling. And extra bozo points to idiotic Brian Williams, sitting in his Humvee and extolling the roll into Baghdad as " V-I Day. " Analogous to what, Bri? " V-G Day " in Grenada? " D-V Day, " a.k.a. Defeat in Vietnam Day? If you’re comparing it to V-E Day or V-J Day, you owe an apology to every World War II vet and need a few hours in the library stacks, history section.

Just asking

A few questions come to mind now that we have loosed the fateful lightning of our terrible, swift laser sword.

If, as the Bush administration wailed to the UN, our intelligence people knew where Saddam had his weapons of mass destruction hidden, how come we can’t find them? We excoriated UN weapons inspector Hans Blix for being incompetent, and after leveling the country, we come up empty. God forbid that anyone suggest the Bushies were lying. (And trust us, they will " find " what they want. Bombs with " Weapon of Mass Destruction! Zees was made en France! " stenciled on the side.)

Representative Henry Waxman recently asked the Army Corps of Engineers how KBR, a subsidiary of Big Time’s Halliburton, won a $7 billion dollar contract — without competition — to restore Iraq’s oil infrastructure. (See if you can connect the dots here. Big Time is aware that his pals at Halliburton have contract in hand, which he knows would be sole-sourced to them after any conflict in Iraq is over. Think he was going to oppose an invasion?) But at least KBR has a great track record, as Waxman noted: The GAO found that while working in the Balkans for the US government, KBR was charging $85.98 per piece of $14.06 plywood. KBR inflated costs in the same Balkans work by charging for cleaning offices up to four times a day. And KBR paid $2 million in fines for fraud in February 2002 after inflating prices at Fort Ord. Hmm, price-gouging in wartime. P&J would call that treason.

What will the Bushies do now to take our mind off domestic problems, like a crashing economy; corporate CEOs going unpunished for corporate crimes; personal and civil rights being trashed; and tax cuts for the rich being pushed through while the government sharply reduces funding for education, homeland security, and veterans’ benefits? Hey, you’re not the weakest link after all. Yes, boys and girls, we’re going to invade Syria! That ought to get your mind off those pesky things like paying the mortgage, 35-student classes (no art or music please, we’re Americans), and detaining people who don’t look right. Hey, is that a weapon of mass destruction in your hand, Assad? Don’t lie to us, you dictator. Time to change that regime.

Now let’s see. Didn’t we just liberate Iraqi oil? We have successfully overrun Iraq, occupied the country’s ministries of Oil and Interior while museums were being looted, and saved the oil wells from being blown up. Yet the Republican House leadership has just revived the idea of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If we just secured Iraq’s oil, where’s the shortage?

Oops, just asking. Sleep tight America.

Double no-Soul On Ice

Your superior correspondents received this missive from letter to the editor maven Ronald Ruggieri, a regular in the letters sections in a variety of periodicals hereabouts:

I am not a fan or a defender of the now imprisoned ex-mayor of Providence, Vincent " Buddy " Cianci. But I did not want him to languish in prison. What happens to any man’s soul in prison is always of great human interest. I’ll bet many of your readers might enjoy a monthly LETTER FROM BUDDY. " Know thyself, " advises the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. What has Buddy discovered in prison about the REAL Buddy? Any spiritual growth here? What does he think about late at night, all alone in very un-regal surroundings? What does he read? I do miss his COLOR and flamboyance. But how quickly prison can break a man. A penny for your thoughts, Buddy.

Although the Bud-I is a very bright man, we do have serious doubts about whether his soulful reflections on prison would equal those of any number of Russian novelists, let alone Eldridge Cleaver or even Jack Abbott. Spiritual growth is certainly possible, but the Bud-I has never been real big on exposing that area of his being (some suspect it doesn’t exist).

More to the point, the Bud-I is quite brilliant at reading how certain presentations will be perceived. He’s no fool and knows that if he were to start circulating some sort of " prison journal, " there would be widespread howling about another PR gimmick to produce a little sympathy for the devil. You can guess which local daily newspaper would be chief howler.

And that’s not to say that your superior correspondents would refrain from the chorus. We feel that the Bud-I, if he is indeed keeping a prison journal, would be well advised to keep it to himself for a decade or so. Yes, it might be very interesting, but because the Bud-I is the Bud-I, if it were to suddenly appear in print somewhere next week, charges of it being self-serving would be more than credible.

Youthful indiscretions

Congrats to URI prez Bob Carothers, and the URI and Brown student senates, for publicly supporting the repeal of the provision in the Higher Education Act of 1998, which prohibits drug offenders from receiving federal loans and grants to attend college. In addition to punishing what in many cases is a lack of judgment by teenagers — not that any of us did anything incredibly boneheaded back in high school — the act punishes a disproportionately number of low-income and minority kids.

Alcohol and drugs are " the curse of the poor, " President Bob correctly noted in an appeal to Vo Dilun’s congressional delegation, especially when their use results in the denial of assistance to people who want to pull themselves up through education. (Disclosure: Phillipe works at URI, and Jorge attended the university and has been honored by the school.)

P&J are very puzzled, however, by the reaction from our elected officials in DC, judging from the Other Paper. " So far, Rhode Island congressmen have been hesitant to embrace the appeal . . . spokesmen for US Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin were noncommittal. " Hey, Patrick and Jimmy, get with the program. There is someone who brushes Mr. Kennedy’s teeth every morning, after all, who should be familiar with succumbing to drug use as a youth.

Meanwhile, the other shoe is ready to drop in Kingston with investigations into the basketball program under the disgraced former coach Jim Harrick and his moron assistant coach son. Both were recently cashiered at the University of Georgia for suspect antics, such as payoffs to players and coercing bogus classroom grades. The NCAA is looking into what when on during Harrick’s time in South County, and the investigation has the added spice of a sexual harassment suit by an athletic department secretary, quietly settled out of court by athletic director Ron Petro.

Stay tuned, this has scandal written all over it. Thanks, Jim.

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