Victory in Washington, chaos in Iraq

Our way of keeping up with images of the war has been to watch Univisión (Jorge Ramos talking mostly about himself & his great adventures, but Héctor Guzmán and especially Pavolovic, in Baghdad for the duration, were fine & informative); then we switch to Le Journal, for the French view. (They have subtitles to aid my shaky French.) Le Journal is hardly radical, but it is different from the US take. The French continue indignant about US violations of international law: according to the Geneva Convention, they point out, the occupying power has certain responsibilities to, at least, keep the mobs from sacking and destroying hospitals. But it's total chaos now, with Saddam gone & no other police. But appeals to international law are fruitless with the Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush gang. They are the law. So the only way we are going to be able to turn the enormous force of the United States toward constructive purposes is not by opposing it with the UN, the EU or NATO, but from here, within. We have to take back control of our country. It'll be tough: they stole the last election, but this time, given the triumphalist furor, they may actually win it. But we can't let them win everything. Congressional races, etc., and popular movements are going to be even more important. Well, this is all fresh, and my ideas are not entirely clear yet, but that's what's on my mind right now.