Semi Skimmed Horseshit. posted by Richard Seymour

Sitemeter does me an enormous favour, in that it allows me to see what sort of attention I'm attracting, sweet or sour, savoury or unsavoury. It lets me know if I'm floating on a sea of adulation or sinking in a cess-pool of my own drivel. There is a darling boy named Rob Hinckley at "Semiskimmed.net" who does some advertising for me at his place. I am in his debt, and would therefore like to return the favour. Initially, it isn't clear why he sends so much traffic my way, since his views are evidently far to the right of mine. But for him, I'm the Angry Young Man, the elusive voter that George Galloway would like to appeal to with his new Respect coalition (never mind that he isn't the author or the founder of the coalition). How does he know this? Well, I advertised it pretty constantly, didn't I, sweethearts?

The only trouble I have with this is, aside from its obvious condescension, is that I am only occasionally really angry when I write. And when I have written under its influence, I have produced less than polished work. Impassioned, impatient, but not impressive.

Nevertheless, I'd like to take the young nip up on a point or two about his prose, so I'll give him a chance to wipe his creamy moustache off on his sleeve before addressing him. All ready? Let's begin.

Hinckley is much exercised by George Soros' accusations that Bush lied in his State of the Union Address by claiming that Dr Kay had already located weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "No, Mr Soros. What Bush actually said was:

'... We are seeking all the facts - already the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programmes would continue to this day. ...'

And I thought it was Bush who was supposed to have difficulty with basic comprehension."

Hold on a second, you precocious little devil you. The sense of this statement can be construed many ways - but surely it is self-evident that it is indeed intended to be construed only one way. Namely that WMD programmes are things like nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in development, and which "would continue to this day" had it not been for the American superhero operation.

Nevertheless, we have plenty of misrepresentations from the Bush administration to be getting on with - among them:

"In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons." Dick Cheney, Detroit fundraiser, 20th June, 2002.

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Dick Cheney, 26th August, 2002.

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." George W. Bush, 5th October, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." George W. Bush, 7th October, 2002.

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them." George W. Bush, 23rd April, 2003.

And the killers

"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." George W. Bush, 30th May, 2003

"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." George W. Bush, 30th May, 2003

You hear that? We "Found Banned Weapons".

But of course, we didn't, which makes Bush a liar. If this wasn't in itself an imperishable unintended satire of the right, there is more.

Our milkman attempts a little fun at Noam Chomsky's expense, claiming that a) he made "predictions" of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan if the US bombed, and b) those "predictions" since they hadn't proven to be accurate, were subsequently 'disowned' by Noam Chomsky.

In fact, Noam Chomsky was accurate that a) "Plans are being made on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people." This was in fact the case, because every single charity and aid organisation was crying out for the bombing not to happen on exactly these grounds. This was a real risk. 14 seperate charities and organisations, including Christian Aid, Oxfam, Save the Children, Amnesty International and the World Development movement, issued a statement during the war that it could have catastrophic consequences. Now, there's no way that the planners of that war were unaware of this risk, and therefore there is no chance that they fully intended to allow it to happen given that they undertook precisely the action that it was assumed would cause mass starvation. It reflects no credit on the bombers that these horrid visions did not materialise, since they also succeeded in killing more people than died on 9/11 in their little escapade. And to subject a people to such enormous risk for one's own geo-strategic imperatives is morally abominable. Nevertheless, Chomsky is quite accurate. He is also accurate because b) he himself did not make this prediction.

What was semiskimmed saying about having a "difficulty with basic comprehension". You may read his e-mail correspondence with Chomsky here , and enjoy the uncomfortable squirm at the end as he acknowledges that, well, Chomsky didn't use those exact words, but... Priceless.

I couldn't be bothered trawling through the remaining farrago of lazy-minded tripe that our milk-toothed boy has served up for the public to peruse. There is some entertaining flack dished out to George Galloway for the charges that have been confected against him, citing allegations quoted in Le Monde . To date, most of what has been said in Galloways' disfavour on this issue has turned out to be fraudulent . Still, if neither fact nor value will allow you to win the argument, there is always mud-slinging. It's hard to account for Semiskimmed bothering with his website - but then some people like to expose their cocks, their shit and their flaccid work-worn arseholes, rubbing their baseness in the world's face. Some time, however, it comes time to settle down and grow out of all that.

On your way, now, you young scamp.