My favorite political writer remains Subcomandante Marcos. He has written a letter to the Italian people on the war, a letter which contains this quote:

"Neither Hussein nor the Iraqi people matter to the North American government. What matters to it is demonstrating that it can commit its crimes in any part of the world, at any moment, and that it can do so with absolute impunity."

As people struggle to find some possible reason for this war, I think this is an excellent summary of the American goal. The Bush Administration is the government of fear. It has churned up fake fears of terrorist attacks to win the midterm elections and to completely control the American political agenda. It has used this fear to set the United States well on the road to being a fascist security state, and now it is the turn of everybody else to feel the fear. It is this fear which the Bushists (should it be Bushists, Bushites, or, my favorite, Bu-shits?) want to use to take over the world for the benefit of the tiny group of plutocrats and religious crazies which the Bushists represent. If the world succumbs to this fear now, it will put everybody in the grip of a permanent fear. It is impossible to overstate the evil in Bush and his cabal (underestimating the evil in those few who are truly evil has led to such horrors as those perpetrated by Hitler), and it is impossible to overstate the necessity of standing up to this fear now.