For most of the past year, W justified his war in Iraq with the contention that WMD were a threat to the U.S. None have been found, of course. So, the justification now is that we are bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq. A basic tenent of American polical theory has been that a free press is essential for democracy to function (hence the First Amendment).

It is interesting to me that in Iraq, the country supposedly benefitting so much from our imposition of democracy, has little freedom to exercise that basic element of free speech. I'm confused, but apparently, so is the leadership of our nation.

When the Iraqis started printing a newspaper in Fallujah that was antagonisitic to the U.S. occupation we shut it down and ignited the most concentrated resistence since the invasion. Be free, we say, but do only what we say you may do. (In Wspeak, subjugation is freedom, just as war is peace.)

More evidence of our heavy-handed control over the media. Take a look:

http://www.indexonline.org/

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=3758