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Re: Dubya causes chaos

Liesel wrote:
> let's sit on our asses because it's the easy, kind, politically correct thing to do.  

False dichotomy.  Unworthy of you.  There are other alternatives between
"sitting on our asses" and bombing/invading the country.  There's humanitarian
aid to the poor people so they can have an infrastructure which they need
to even start working against the regime.  There's working with local allies
(rather than dictating policy to them).  When even *Kuwait* is telling the
US to back off Iraq, I think it's worth considering, don't you?

> on these grounds did we only fight wwii because europe did?

That's not what Raven was saying.  Raven was suggesting that our government's
motivation for a "regime change" has more to do with internal US politics than
a sincere desire to help the Iraqi people (look what Dubya's government tried
to do in Venezuala last year), and that this in of itself is not a valid reason
to invade another country, no matter how despicable their leadership.  

I was about to make a parallel analogy, saying something along the lines of how
we really have no right to go in and take Hussein out, seeing as how we helped
put him there, at least not without acknoweldging our culpability in the
matter, but then I remembered that many US magnates supported the Nazi rise to
power (including Dubya's own grandfather), and of course, we put Noriega in
power in Panama (a graduate of our very own School of the Americas!  Training
thugs and assassins world-wide!), and then felt the need to go and take him
out.  Rather than shaking sabers and demonizing Hussein (who, of course,
doesn't need much help in that department, although we did help him back when
he was our buddy), I'd like to see some more long-term thinking and discussion
going on about how we shouldn't be helping these sorts of people in the first
place!  Are we going to go in and take out the corrupt, vicious, genocidal
regime in Nigeria (which not-so-coincidently is helping Shell oil make
billions)?

When Bush, on national TV, "assures" the troops that they will never be held
accountable to the world court, I get the screaming heebie-jeebies.  Why on
earth would this be considered a good thing?  He really did that; I saw the
film clip.  People were lauding him for it!  I am baffled.  "Go ahead and
commit war crimes, you'll never be punished."  What's that all about?  I really
don't get it.  Unless it's tied in with this weird "Left Behind" thing that
sees the UN and the World Court as tied in with the Antichrist.  I used to
think only the wacko minority believed such things, but I've gotten more
cynical in my old age. 

I think the question Raven is raising is not so much whether Hussein should
be taken out, but (a) what are our real motives here?  (b) are we really the
right ones to do it? and (c) is this really the best way to go about it?

At least, if that's not what Raven is trying to do, that's how *I'd* rather
frame the discussion.  :-)  Apologies to Raven if I'm pulling the discussion
off-track.

I wish your uncle well, and I hope he is able to work for good.  My ire is
generally reserved for the people who make the policy decisions, not the people
who get sent to carry them out.  A good friend of mine was a laser targeter
during the Gulf War, and he's talked to me about his struggles with trying to
deal with the knowledge that he guided those missles in, and who they killed
when they hit.  That's a burden he'll have to bear all his life.  The people
hit by the weapons are not the only casualties of war; I worry just as much
about what it does, spiritually, to those who are forced to kill.  There may be
situations where war is necessary (and for me even to admit that much is a huge
change for me; I used to hold that it was categorically never appropriate), but
those situations are few and far between, and I think with foresight and care
by people in power, they could be avoided.  I have yet to see *any* evidence to
convince me that a US attack on Iraq is justified, properly motivated, and
unavoidable.  I don't trust the motives of the people making the decision, and
I can't see how it will cause more good than harm.

So, I've written my congresspeople, but it feels very scarily out of my hands
for living in a representative democracy.  I didn't bother writing Bush.  I
tried that last year, and received a form letter in response that had been
written as if I had written a complimentary letter.  You'd think they could
have at least sent me a form letter that said "sorry, we disagree with you, and
are going to keep doing what we think is best without your input, thank you."

Sigh.  I need some ice cream.
-- 
Don Smith                           Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                                 http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

"I never explain anything."			   - Mary Poppins

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