from greg palast at gregpalast.com

Mr. Tall and Mr. Small
By Greg Palast

Thursday September 30, 2004

Our President told the debate audience, "You cannot lead if you send
mexxed missiges." I certainly hope not.

But that's exactly what we got. You watch our President, the nervous
hand-hiding, the compulsive water-glass-fondling, the panicked
I-wish-I-had-a-whiskey look, and you think, "My god, this is the guy who's
supposed to save us from al Qaeda."

And how are we going to win the War on Terror, Mr. President? "First
of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that," he
said. Well, that's a start, I suppose.

But it doesn't have to stay this way. This is America, home of the
brave and where, I remember from school, we could vote for president and
the votes would count. So we looked to the tall man next to him to show
us the way out.

In Iraq, "We don't have enough troops there," said the tall one.
Really, Senator? We should send MORE? Not exactly: Mr. Tall's got a plan
to get our troops out. He'll have a big meeting of "allies," and after
he talks with them, they will all jump up and volunteer to send THEIR
kids to Fallujah. France and Indonesia and Kuwait can't wait to ship
in soldiers and extra body bags. Right. We love you, John, but there’s
no band of Hobbits coming to the rescue -- that's just a movie.

Well, he looked kind of "presidential." But given the line-up includes
Nixon, Ford and two Bushes, that's not a big trick.

I'm sorry. I know I'm supposed to stand up and cheer that John Kerry
didn't get Gored. In fact, if you look at presidential debates the way
the media plays it, as something akin to Olympic figure skating, where
you score for the competitor’s style, you could say Kerry won.

But I don't feel WE won anything.

I mean, when Jim Lehrer asked how the candidates would make America
safe from terrorists, Mr. Tall said he'd hire more firemen. And add more
cops. Maybe he thought he was running for mayor.

It was disappointing, but then Mr. Small's answer was downright
frightening. We have to "stay on the offensive," and "stay on the offense,"
and "I repeat, stay on the offense." We have no doubt that Mr. Small
can be extraordinarily offensive, but even he can't take his
offensiveness to the bad guys if he doesn't know where they are. And on that
point, he's clueless.

There were two words I was hoping to hear from Mr. Tall: "Saudi" and
"Arabia." Imagine if he laid it on the line, "The terrorists didn't
put the hijackings on a credit card, Mr. President. Their Saudi sponsors
are fattening on the bloated war-driven price of oil. But you can't
touch your buck-buddies in the Gulf, can you, Mr. President?. As
Commander-in-Chief, I'd cut'm off at the spigots, beginning with the release
of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And then I'd seize their
fat assets in the USA to compensate the victims of terror attacks."

When Mr. Tall was asked what whoppers the President has told us, surely
there was something a bit more memorable than Mr. Small's failing to
win over allies for his whacky crusade.

Here's what Mr. Tall said … in my dreams:

* "Beginning in March 2001, your Administration began a series of
meetings with oil company executives to map the conquest of Iraq and its
oil, a plan Americans would pay for in blood. You originally called this
scheme, 'Operation Iraqi Liberation' -- O.I.L. We don't appreciate
your little joke, Mr. Small."

* "One month after seizing Baghdad you fired General Jay Garner, the
man you put in charge of Iraq, after he called for rapid elections in
Najaf; after he refused to impose your plans to sell off Iraq's oil
fields. In Najaf, citizens denied ballots, turned to bullets. And then, as
General Garner predicted, the seizure of Iraq's assets resulted in the
type of war one expects -- when seeking to impose colonial control."

* "Mr. Small, you claim we've given a thousand lives to bring
democracy to the Mid-east. But so far, your democracy, Mr. Small, comes down
to a puppet prime minister, we've installed in Iraq and a puppet
government, the Saudis have installed in Washington."

OK, I can't expect all that in a presidential debate, where the message
has to fit through a tube. But still, Mr. Tall could have won my vote
with two words. It's the two-word answer John Kerry gave three decades
ago when asked the same question -- “How can we get our troops out of a
disastrous war?”

Then, the clear-minded, tall young men said, "In ships."

* note from this blogger : "a puppet government the Saudis have installed in Washington" ...???

While i basically have no real problem with the rest of your article , you confuse me with that remark Mr. Palast ...Do you mean the same neo-con led government in Washington that acts as a foreign policy puppet and rubber stamp for Ariel Sharon and the expansionist , land grabbing , ethnic cleansing , Likud gang in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem ...A gang that has actively sought all along to ignite conflicts with the Palestinians in order to create enough bloodshed and outrage to justify expelling all of the Palestinians from the stolen territories in order to build the zionist dream of a "Greater Israel" ?

If the government in Washington is a Saudi puppet , why does it bend over backwards to excuse the blatant and violent excesses regularly done by the Israelis in the middle east with arms , monies , technologies and loan guarantees unquestioningly provided by America ?