we don't get french benefits

just like the guy in the fedex commercial, slate's fred kaplan is always wrong...
...about NK being a legitimate partner...about a 'breakthrough' in nuke program talks 24 hrs before they predictably fall apart...counseling defeatism in iraq...declaring the vote a disaster when iraqis didn't heed his advice...then suggesting the iraq-democracy experiment doomed...

now he suggests president bush openly declare war on the iraqi people

For a brief spell a few weeks ago, President Bush departed from his monochromatic view that the Iraqi insurgents consisted entirely of Saddamists aching for a comeback and jihadist terrorists aiming for a caliphate. He acknowledged a third—and much larger—group: "ordinary Iraqis" who simply oppose occupation. Now he seems to have dropped the complexity. "The mission of American troops," he said in Sunday night's speech, has been "fighting Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists."

The omission of the third group—those who are fighting strictly against the occupation—is not a small matter. To ignore this group is to misunderstand the insurgency's dynamic, the main ingredient of its appeal, and the dilemma that underlies the stateside debate over whether to withdraw U.S. troops. [emphasis added]

is kaplan suggesting President Bush publicaly state that the "mission of the American troops" is to fight "ordinary Iraqis"?

how would that play on al-jazeera>?

putting aside the intensely stupid notion, the political process (that kaplan has pooh-poohed at pretty much every step, as noted above) is supposed to address the "ordinary iraqis", not military force.

and fellow slater wonders whether journalists are underpaid...

¶ - nitish @ 1:46 PM