Ignorance Is Not Bliss

As the US invasion of Iraq descends into chaos, the childish and uninformed assumptions of the neo-cons who planned all this madness many years ago becomes all the more obvious. This ignorance is symptomatic of a widespread US ignorance of the outside world, an ignorance which seems to have grown steadily since WWII.

After September 11th, US papers were running headlines like, "Why do they hate us?" Sadly, the US public really had no idea. Unfortunately, most of them still do not. Worse yet, neither do their elected politicians and civil servants.

It's bad enough that Rumsfeld confused Afghanistan with Iraq (I am sure he has worked out the difference by now, though US policy differs little between the two: see below). But the following day, when Rumsfeld hosted a state dinner with the president of Romania, dinner tables were decorated with RUSSIAN flags. Romania was a former communist state subject to Russian domination for decades. To confuse the two nations is embarrassingly stupid. Obviously, the Romanian public was not impressed.

How on earth can the US neo-cons have serious pretensions of global empire? It's bad enough when half their citizens can't even draw a decent map of the USA, let alone Canada or Mexico. But the neo-cons' arrogant quest for global domination is itself born of the same ignorance. These are children who grew up with bedtime stories of Reds under the beds, communists planning invasions from Nicaragua, Cuba and Chile, and evil bad-guys lurking on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

These ignorant neo-con turds all need a good, long holiday abroad. Anywhere will do, even England. Just as long as they are far away from the White House.

And, in case you missed it:

Rummy Confuses Afghanistan With Iraq

From the website of the US department of defence:

Journalist: Do you think that warlordism is something that should be factored into Afghanistan?

Rumsfeld: Well, I don't know quite what it means in this case. If you're talking about militias existing in the country, clearly, militias have existed in parts of that country, not least of which are the Kurdish peshmerga forces. And other elements have had militias...

Journalist: Sir ...

Rumsfeld: Just a minute.

Journalist: Afghanistan, sir, not Iraq.

Rumsfeld: Oh, I'm sorry. Go to Afghanistan. I'm sorry. I was thinking of Iraq. No wonder I couldn't understand it.

Journalist: I thought you might ...

Rumsfeld: I'm sorry. Yeah, I had the wrong country.

Journalist: They're close!

Rumsfeld: Yes, they are. (Chuckles)