BRIGHTENING GLANCE
  • HOME
  • BRIGHTENING BLOG
  • PUBLISHED WRITING
    • "WHAT ABIDES" (excerpts) >
      • DOWN FIFTH
      • GREETING IKE
      • GRAY DAY SASHAY
      • ALABAMA DRAMA IN RED, WHITE AND BLACK
      • WHO IS MY FATHER IN THIS WORLD?
    • JOURNALISM >
      • OPED NEWS
      • TURKISH FORUM
      • WHO.WHAT.WHY.
    • POETRY >
      • Atget Dans La Rue De Bac
      • Ballgame
      • Six Life Sentences
    • LITERARY CRITICISM >
      • American Book Review
  • Contact
  • Seymour M. Hersh’in 4 Nisan 2014 tarihli “The Red Line and The Rat Line” isimli yazısının Türkçe Çevirisi
  • Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels (9 April 2014)
  • Naci Eriş: A Hero For These Times (15 November 2013)
  • Din Hanesini Sildirdi (Kimlik): "BAŞBAKAN MÜSLÜMANSA BEN DEĞİLİM" 21.09.2013
  • MY APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by Admiral Türker Ertürk (Ret.)
  • The American Ambassador (20 June 2013
  • Alain Badiou--Türkiye: Gerçek Bir Tarihi İsyan Mı? (19 Haziran 2013)
  • Alain Badiou--Turkey: A Genuine Historical Riot? (19 June 2013)
  • Barricade Defense
  • Ayranı Fazla Çekince (Bekir Coşkun-30 Mayıs 2013)
  • ÜMİT UMUTU VERİR 24 Mart 2013
  • İYİ ŞEKER BAYRAMLAR!!!! AKP'DEN (19/8/2012)
  • KILLERS! My last letter to Obama. (20 December 2013)
  • Olympic Women (11/8/2012)
  • OBAMABALL: an open letter to the President of the United States (2 August 2012)
  • Sinatra Dedicates One to Ataturk (17 May 2012)
  • As He Lay Dying (14 May 2012)
  • Viva 19 Mayis! Haydi gel! Bizimle ol!
  • It's 19 May...Know Your Enemy! (11 May 2012)
  • I'm as mad as hell... (2 April 2012)
  • ARAB SPRING=AMERICAN NIGHTMARE
  • Happy World Women's Day in Turkey (8 March 2012)
  • Holy Terror 6 March 2012
  • Kusura Bakma Patron (Bekir Coşkun) 1 Mart 2012
  • My e-mail note from Barack Obama (12/19/11) and my response
  • High Ground
  • Women's Volleyball Team-the only winners
  • MEDIA ALERT: ATATURK SOCIETIES OF THE USA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM (6 June 2011)
  • BASIN BILDIRISI: AMERİKA VE İNGİLTERE ATATÜRK DERNEKLERİ (6 Haziran 2011)
  • Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fascist Moustache
  • Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fascist
  • Epitaph on a Tyrant (W.H. Auden)
  • Ryan Interview: Kanal B, Bilmek Gerek, 28 March 2011
  • Ergenekon Headquarters (karargâh)
  • When the Nazis Came: 8 March 2011
  • Letter to President Obama: 20 Jan. 2009
  • (Türkçe) Letter to President Obama: 20 Jan. 2009
  • Letter to President Obama: 20 Oct. 2009
  • Letter to President Obama: 3 Jan. 2010
  • Letter to President Obama: 20 July 2010
  • (Türkçe) Letter to President Obama: 3 Jan. 2010
  • (Türkçe) Letter to President Obama: 20 Temmuz 2010
  • Follow-up Letter to Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone: 12 March 2011
  • Letter to US Senator Mark Udall: 12 Feb. 2011
  • Islam, Secularism and the Battle for Turkey’s Future
  • WHAT PERCENTAGE OF US ARE STUPID? 5 October 2009
  • The Bloody Streets of Populous Istanbul-17 December 2008
  • Portrait of Ataturk-29 November 2006
  • Cool Turkey-7 December 2004
  • Making Hash of Turkish Democracy-16 September 2005
  • Kidnapped (17/8/2012)
  • The Dead
    • AND SO PASSES A WOMAN’S LIFE IN TURKEY (21 October 2014)
    • Bury My Heart At Heartbreak
    • "Adil" means "just" in Arabic (18 July 2012)
    • THERE WILL BE NO ICE CREAM IN DAMASCUS THIS LOVELY EVENING (14 June 2013)
    • IN ISTANBUL A DOORMAN DIES (31 January 2014)
    • İSTANBUL'DA BİR APARTMAN GÖREVLİSİ ÖLÜR (31 Ocak 2014)
    • "Terrorist Pietá"
    • NOTHING BUT MARGARET (9 May 2014)
    • August 6, 1945 (6 August 2012)
    • BREATHLESS IN AMERICA (5 December 2013)
    • JFK DIES FOR THESE SINS (27 December 2013)
  • Short Fiction
    • Benediction
    • ORIENTA
    • Wellspring-"Stealing Apples"
    • INTENSIVE CARE
  • Music
    • GYPSY- All I Need Is the Girl (1989)
    • American Pie (Don Mclean)
    • BACH
    • Jazz
    • Dave Brubeck-In Memoriam
    • Bix Beiderbecke
    • Poetry in Music: The Lyrics of Lorenz Hart >
      • A Ship Without A Sail
      • Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
      • I Could Write A Book
      • I Didn't Know What Time It Was
      • It Never Entered My Mind
      • I Wish I Were In Love Again
      • Mountain Greenery
      • My Romance
      • Spring Is Here
      • Ten Cents A Dance
      • Wait Till You See Her
      • Where Or When
      • You're Nearer
    • SINATRA >
      • Only the Lonely
      • Sinatra's Greatest Hits
      • GET HAPPY, WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS
  • Poetry
    • TO THE IRANIAN KIDS BUSTED ON EXCESSIVE HAPPINESS CHARGE BY TEHRAN’S KORANIC KOPS (22 May 2014)
    • AMERICA
    • Joe the Biden Eats the Bison (21/01/2013)
    • A poem by Etheridge Knight
    • Apprehension in the Bronx Botanical Garden
    • A Shine on the Quay at Üsküdar
    • Like Kerim
    • Pandemonium
    • Pines
    • Starry Night
    • Senseless, Remembering
    • That Russian Woman in the Caffé Taci
    • The Cliffhouse on San Francisco Bay
    • Traitor
    • World Series Obsequies
  • On Sports
    • A SENSE OF WHERE YOU ARE by John McFee
    • Baseball poetry by Lynn Rigney Schott about her father
    • Brownsville Bum
    • Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
    • Miracle of Coogan's Bluff
    • Muhammad Ali: "Eclipse of the Sonny"
    • The Four Horsemen
    • The Green Fields of the MInd
    • The Death of a Racehorse
  • On Peace
    • A WAR ON WARMONGERS, A “JEFFERSONIAN” REBELLION (April 4, 2016)
    • WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SOCIALIST by Chris Hedges (21 September 2015)
    • THE YOUNG EURO CLASSIC PEACE ORCHESTRA
    • Toxic Legacy of US Assault on Fallujah ‘Worse than Hiroshima’ 15 October 2014
    • Criminal Complaint: International Criminal Court, 6 October 2014
    • What I'd Like to See on Front Pages of Newspapers (By Noam Chomsky)
    • THE NOBEL OBAMA (2 September 2013)
    • My Vote For President: 2012
    • American Democracy
    • Democratic Socialism
  • On West Point
    • OBAMA VISITS WEST POINT THEN LIES, CHEATS AND STEALS (6 June 2014)
    • West Point Graduates Organize Against The War - 21 April 2006
    • Good Neighbor Senator Sessions Walls Out Mexico . . . and Robert Frost - 19 May 2006
    • Now Is The Time - 12 May 2006
    • Cadet Bush at West Point: Screw that chin in, beanhead! - 1 June 2006
    • Guantánamo: The Subject Was Linens- 15 June 2006
    • Impeach the President of the United States - 7 October 2006
    • Election Eve Daze--Hanging in There Together - 6 November 2006
    • Peace Award Remarks - 12 November 2006 - Syracuse, New York
    • George W. MacBush–Serial Murderer - 15 December 2006
    • Abolish It! - 9 Feb 2007
    • WEST POINT TO HONOR DISHONORABLE GEORGE W. BUSH >
      • On West Point, War and Pizza - 6 May 2006
  • On America
    • BRONX GIRL OUSTS 10-TERM DEMOCRAT POLITICAL BOSS!
    • The United States of America: Land of internment camps
    • THIS IS AMERICA!
    • MY DISGUST AND DESPAIR ABOUT TRUMP'S SCHEME TO DESTROY THE V.A.
    • MY LETTER TO SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER , 3 February 2017
    • DONALD DEMENTIA
    • Service Academy Graduates Against the War
    • U.S. Service Academy Graduates Oppose Bombing Syria (5 September 2013)
    • NO WAY OUT YOU NO GOOD PSEUDO-AMERICAN NEOCON NUDNIK APPARATCHIKS! CATCH ME IF YOU DARE!
    • WILLIE MAYS FOR PRESIDENT! (SEPTEMBER 24, 2016)
    • COUNT ME OUT, BERNIE! NO MORE $3 CONTRIBUTIONS! March 2, 2016
    • The atrocities of ISIS and the US wars of sociocide (26 August 2015)
    • WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT U.S. FOREIGN POLICY (25 August 2015)
    • KILLING RAGHEADS FOR JESUS (By Chris Hedges) (26 January 2015)
    • The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass
    • THOMAS PAINE, OUR CONTEMPORARY (27 May 2014)
    • JAMES SALTER
    • BEFORE A SUMMER SUN >
      • Prologue
      • 4. Teaching Bloody Instructions
      • 8. The Doctrine of Discovery
      • 11. Crazed from the Cradle
      • 15. The Necessary Ending of the American Indian
    • JFK >
      • JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination
      • JFK: Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 September 1960)
      • JFK: American University Commencement Address (10 June 1963)
      • JFK HEALTH CARE SPEECH (May 20, 1962)
    • The CIA and the Media
    • The End Of Democracy As We Knew It (Bernd Hamm)
  • Literary Criticism
    • Mrs. Ramsay's Wedge: A View of Woolf's "To the Lighthouse"
  • Paintings
    • "Genuine Fake"--"Gerçik Taklit"
    • "Progress"--"İlerleme"
    • "Her Şey Ortada"
    • Resimler (7/8/2012)
  • Presentations-Papers
    • Boğaziçi University-Symposium
  • THE ISRAELI-AMERICAN KILLING MACHINE (19 July 2014)
  • I-THE FRAME-UP (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on Trial) 8 January 2009
  • II-THE ARRAIGNMENT (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on Trial) 9 January 2009
  • III-ATATÜRK APPEARS (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on Trial) 26 January 2009
  • How Old Are You? 4 May 2009
  • İŞTE!!! Kurmay Albay Dursun Çiçek!!! (28 October 2009)
  • On Living
    • "Art, Truth & Politics" by Harold Pinter (1930-2008)
    • The Power of Imagination (Chris Hedges-13 May 2014)
    • WE ARE ALL ONE
    • The Story of Stuff-What Needs To Be Done (10 May 2012)
    • An Arab Springtime? by Samir Amin
    • From Resistance to Revolution
  • Photographs
    • Istanbul
    • Tarlabaşı, Istanbul 2013
  • Kidnapped (17/8/2012)
Picture

THE TRUE ENEMY
23 January 2003


“The enemies of truth are not lies,” wrote Nietzsche, “but convictions.” Never before has his powerful aphorism been so obviously true.

The United States alleges that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, among other unproved assertions relating to Iraq’s support of terrorists. It refers the weapons-charge to the United Nations who, with the apparently full cooperation of the Iraqi government, begins an intensive inspection effort seeking evidence. Nothing to substantiate the US claim has yet been found. Some shell casings capable of delivering chemical agents a maximum distance of seven miles according to inspectors. Oh some documents, too, but nothing that Iraq has not already admitted to. Indeed, no big deal. But it is a big deal to the United States, and President Bush in particular. For when one’s mind is made up, everything that even minutely supports one’s conclusions is a big deal, and one recoils from further facts lest confusion set in or, in Bush’s case, supreme embarrassment. 


The so-called “shared” CIA intelligence about so-called “hidden weapons sites” has also yielded nothing. No surprise there, for this is the same incompetent CIA of 9/11 fame. But still the American administration babbles on, so sure are they that Saddam Hussein is lying, and playing “hide-and-seek” with the weapons inspectors.

Now President Bush, rightfully anguished about the fate of this phony war, that is, the one with Iraq, is referring to the UN inspection teams as “so-called weapons inspectors” and putting “the world on notice.”  Indeed, he, Bush, is either grossly incompetent or mad, or both. He has himself said that he relies on instinct, on his gut-feel, in making decisions. And in such manner, resolute in his convictions, Bush has prepared his current untenable, embarrassing bed, and placed the world in peril. Condoleezza Rice’s op-ed piece in today’s (January 23, 2003) New York Times, entitled “Why We Know Iraq is Lying,” obviously designed to be some grand apologia, instead, and not surprisingly, simply drags out the old canards. By now we can recognize her drift by smell alone.

So, unencumbered by any desire to examine either recent evidence or their consciences, Bush and his ilk continue to bully blindly for war. But now much of the world, and many Americans, are outraged by their pathetically flimsy case. These warmongers who have never experienced war themselves would do well to think and think again on the merits of an argument that even schoolchildren could recognize as specious.

“Whoever fights monsters,” Nietzsche wrote, “should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
 

James Ryan
Istanbul, Turkey
23 January 2003