"It was a cold, calculated act of sadism. Choosing to broadcast images of a werewolfish Saddam being shorn of his beard, his mouth opened and examined – for what? Drugs? Bombs? Cavities? – was part and parcel of the Americans' "shock and awe" campaign. A phony "medical examination" became a symbolic subjugation in which Saddam represented an entire people."
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"As Saddam is displayed like a wild animal in captivity, the braying triumphalism of the War Party marks a low point, not only in our conduct of the war, but in the annals of modern military history. I have every confidence, however, that we'll go much lower before the occupation is over."
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"This war was always about advancing Israel's agenda in the Middle East, with the mythical "weapons of mass destruction" merely a pretext, a Potemkin village of disinformation behind which the real motive for the invasion was concealed. The 200 or so soldiers who have died in Iraq, and the thousands seriously wounded or otherwise disabled, were sacrificed to make the world – or, at least, the Middle East – safe for Israel."