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taratemima(edited: more thoughts added)
My opposition is simple.
Yes, the status quo sucks. Do I really need to reiterate the suckiness of Iraqi regime? It sucked in 1991, and I remember not being sure if the first Gulf War fit all the criteria for a just war. But will this action make things better or worse? From what I've seen, from all the oscillations and obfuscations from my own country, I'd say worst. I mean, 'shock and awe?' Forgetting to mention that the US sold those chemical weapons in that UN report? No, sorry, just methods are part of a just war.
I suspect some folks will disagree. That's okay, I think you still are thinking three steps ahead of the current administration. Hell, I think Blair might be thinking two steps ahead of the current administration. To hear some of his advisors, after a quick war, a thousand flowers of democracy and peace will bloom in the desert soil (I am being extravagent and simplistic, but hopefully I make my point). I doubt it. I really don't think the current administration is interested in making the lives of anyone not them better, be they in Iraq, the US or anywhere else.
I don't think Iraq has sweet Fanny Adams to do with Al-Qaida. Hamas, sure, I'll buy it with some evidence. Any sorta-secular Arab terrorist group, sure. But why pick the least likely group? Because it is the one most Americans know of?
But there is still cruelty, there is still tyranny. There are machines altered by sycophants made to maim and kill. What other solution is there?
I found this quotation on Jeanne's blog while looking for something else entirely, but it fits nicely.
"Tyrants exist, and if we want to get rid of them then we need to support reform, everywhere, and to genuinely try exporting something besides business and corporate exploitation. There are no sound bite solutions to this. The whole system needs reform and re-thinking, but what nobody needs (except Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin) is this war."
And that's it. Peace requires work, reform, other people's thoughts mattering and I wish I could figure out ways to do it. I get annoyed by the Chamberlain references (maybe because this isn't WWII, Saddam isn't Hitler, and I think we're sick of discussing WWII France, right?), but there is a good point. Sometimes one group's peace is another group's death. I certainly don't fault, say, people in the Warsaw ghetto for using force. But force is, I think, to be used at the last resort, and as a precursor to lots of work.
As I write this, air raids have begun. Explosions have been heard in Baghdad. I was told never to use the passive voice, but something tells me that the higher eschalon only heard muffled explosions. I hope for the best case scenario (kinda like Afghanistan), but worry that my fears about the aftermath will be well-founded (a little bit like Afghanistan).
My opposition is simple.
Yes, the status quo sucks. Do I really need to reiterate the suckiness of Iraqi regime? It sucked in 1991, and I remember not being sure if the first Gulf War fit all the criteria for a just war. But will this action make things better or worse? From what I've seen, from all the oscillations and obfuscations from my own country, I'd say worst. I mean, 'shock and awe?' Forgetting to mention that the US sold those chemical weapons in that UN report? No, sorry, just methods are part of a just war.
I suspect some folks will disagree. That's okay, I think you still are thinking three steps ahead of the current administration. Hell, I think Blair might be thinking two steps ahead of the current administration. To hear some of his advisors, after a quick war, a thousand flowers of democracy and peace will bloom in the desert soil (I am being extravagent and simplistic, but hopefully I make my point). I doubt it. I really don't think the current administration is interested in making the lives of anyone not them better, be they in Iraq, the US or anywhere else.
I don't think Iraq has sweet Fanny Adams to do with Al-Qaida. Hamas, sure, I'll buy it with some evidence. Any sorta-secular Arab terrorist group, sure. But why pick the least likely group? Because it is the one most Americans know of?
But there is still cruelty, there is still tyranny. There are machines altered by sycophants made to maim and kill. What other solution is there?
I found this quotation on Jeanne's blog while looking for something else entirely, but it fits nicely.
"Tyrants exist, and if we want to get rid of them then we need to support reform, everywhere, and to genuinely try exporting something besides business and corporate exploitation. There are no sound bite solutions to this. The whole system needs reform and re-thinking, but what nobody needs (except Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin) is this war."
And that's it. Peace requires work, reform, other people's thoughts mattering and I wish I could figure out ways to do it. I get annoyed by the Chamberlain references (maybe because this isn't WWII, Saddam isn't Hitler, and I think we're sick of discussing WWII France, right?), but there is a good point. Sometimes one group's peace is another group's death. I certainly don't fault, say, people in the Warsaw ghetto for using force. But force is, I think, to be used at the last resort, and as a precursor to lots of work.
As I write this, air raids have begun. Explosions have been heard in Baghdad. I was told never to use the passive voice, but something tells me that the higher eschalon only heard muffled explosions. I hope for the best case scenario (kinda like Afghanistan), but worry that my fears about the aftermath will be well-founded (a little bit like Afghanistan).
