WHAT WILL BUSH-- OR HILLARY-- DO WITH THE IRAQI QUISLINGS?

You know what the word "quisling" means, right? It's like a "Benedict Arnold." Vidkun Qusiling, though was a Norwegian who collaborated with the Germans who occupied his country during WW II. He was a fascist and after the war he was tried, found guilt and shot. The Germans were in no position to rescue him. His name lives on, a synonym for "traitor." Regardless of what George Bush, Dick Cheney and the Neocons want, the Iraqis who are collaborating with the occupiers of their country will be marked as quislings. The Neocons would like to rescue them.

Domestic political considerations make it unlikely that tens of thousands of Iraqi Arabs will be getting visas to live in America any time soon. The problem is already roiling British political discussion. Pro-war bloggers, in the U.S. as well as the U.K., want to admit the Iraqi quislings. After all they may be quislings but they're our quislings, right? No, wrong. Let Bush take them to his gargantuan estancia in Paraguay.

It seems the Iraqis in question live in real fear of their lives in their newly "liberated" country. Surely, this can't be right. Weren't we told five years ago by the same pro-war bloggers that the Iraqi people were simply baying for a US/UK invasion, and that the "liberators" would be greeted with bouquets of flowers and cucumber sandwiches? Now the cakewalk brigade is telling us those who collaborate with-- oops, sorry, work for-- the liberators may not actually be the most popular guys and gals in town.

...The most nauseating aspect of the campaign is the way we are repeatedly told that the Iraqi interpreters worked for "us."

Who exactly is meant by "us?" In common with millions of other Britons, I did not want the Iraq war, an illegal invasion of a sovereign state engineered and egged on by a tiny minority of fanatical neoconservatives whose first loyalty was not to Britain but to the cause of Pax Americana. NHS doctors and nurses, firemen and the police force work for "us," but in no stretch of the imagination do Iraqi interpreters, who are employed by British forces that have no right or cause to be in Iraq.

...The interpreters did not work for "us," the British people, but for themselves - they are paid around £16 a day, an excellent wage in Iraq - and for an illegal occupying force. Let's not cast them as heroes. The true heroes in Iraq are those who have resisted the invasion of their country.

I guarantee you that the craziest of the neo-fascist blogs here in America will be all over this. They may not want hard working Mexicans-- lured here by capitalism's siren call-- to be able to live here in dignity but they love the idea of people like Ahmed Chalabi being adopted into the fabric of our society. Maybe they can give them South Carolina?