Guess I've found my own personal Fiskee -- Jill Nelson.   I found her last week here.   She's surfaced today with a new OpEd titled "Lust for Empire".

Turkey balks at a multibillion-dollar aid package — also known as a bribe — offered by the United States in return for permission to deploy upwards of 60,000 American troops along its border with Iraq; it demands not only more money but a share in the Iraqi oilfields that many believe, more than weapons of mass destruction or toppling a dictator, are the real reasons for war.

The problem is that she's got requestor / requestee completely mixed up.   Turkey is demanding the aid package, not simply being offered one.    "That many believe... are the real reasons for war" -- Why doesn't she just come out and say that she's a "no blood for oil" type of gal?    She cautiously deflects from having to defend the statement by merely saying "many believe..."

Luckily she comes back to it here:

The truth is, in the past few months it’s become clear that this war is about far more than toppling the head of one of the nations in George W. Bush’s self-defined “axis of evil” in order to liberate the people of Iraq, and even far more than a war for oil — which it clearly is.

Well, I guess since they've got oil and many Americans drive SUV's, then for Jill the case is closed.   Forget about WMD, acid torture baths, 4 Million refugees, pan-Arab ambitions, stomping on UN resolutions for the past 12 years (but of course the one right around the corner is critical for Jill), and finding the first step towards revitalizing the region.   In the end, they've got oil and rich, old, white men in Texas have some association with it.

Jill's underlying world view comes into sharp focus here:

What the Bush administration is hell-bent on initiating in Iraq is the first salvo in a war for empire. Iraq is just the first step by an administration committed to global hegemony, the creation of a United States to which all other nations are made subservient through bludgeoning, bribery, or the threat of American-made terror.

Whoa, will someone please help Jill inform Western Europe, former Eastern Europe, Japan, S. Korea, Kuwait, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, & Afghanistan that we've suddenly changed our minds about packing up and leaving a place better than when our military first found it?   We could've hung out and extracted tribute and plundered treasures but instead we pay rents, provide aid, and helped established democracies.  (please, no cheap shots about Vietnam....).

This letter from an Iraqi-in-exile whacks at Jill's *real* bailiwick:

I suspect that ...you will simply retire to your cappucino cafes to brainstorm the next hot topic to protest, and that you will simply forget about us Iraqis, once you succeed in discrediting President Bush.

Let's return to Jill --

Do we really believe members of Arab states in the region and around the world will rejoice when the United States of Iraq is suddenly forced into their midst?

No.   Those klepto-regimes are going to shake in their boots when their citizens see the kind of world that's being shaped in front of them within Iraq.  It's going to scare the bejesus out of many of their leaders when it's revealed that much of what Saddam had to do to stay in power is exactly what they're secretly doing now to their own people.  It's going to reset the citizenry's expectations about what their regimes can/should do for them.  In the long run, it's going to reset the individuals' expectations about whom he lives his life for and what constitutes self-actualization.

Haven’t we learned by now that war, violence, and arrogance does not end terror, but spawns it? And that in the end, righteous rhetoric is always overwhelmed by the terrors of war and occupation?

More History for ya Jill.    To paraphrase a memorable pro-war protest sign, War hasn't solved anything except: Fascism, Communism, Nazism, Ethnic Cleansing, and Islamo-fundamentalist regimes.   Baathism's next.

The administration has done the work of creating legions of people who hate and fear America, who have or will soon be profoundly hurt by this country, who see the United States as greedy, rapacious and violent.

Well, if you include certain forms of psychological hurt, then I guess you're talking about France and Germany.  Of course, Jill doesn't account for the "legions of people" who previously hated America and who used to run an entire country called Afghanistan.    9/11 didn't happen because we attacked Afghanistan first.

Surely, whatever side of the fence we’re on, we can agree that pre-emptively attacking another nation when most of the world does not support us is not a wise move.

Something tells me we're going to have a very difficult time explaining pre-emption as laid out in the National Security Strategy doc to Jill.  I *hate* the pithy-ness of "no blood for oil" but I'm going to respond to Jill with the (almost) equally pithy statement "I trust Bush more than Saddam."

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