Iraq - not yet time to pull out

The Iraq War was not something I thought we should do but now that we are there, we are obligated to stay until we can leave them in better shape than when we arrived. What I have a hard time with is the whole politics of the thing.

At the time we were discussing going to war, I was against it. My first objection was the underlying premise: We think Saddam has weapons of mass destruction so we should remove him. That statement is like saying someone is capable of committing a crime so we should arrest them and put them in prison. Granted that in this case, the individual has a known tendency to use violence. That does not validate the argument. Preemptive wars simply prove which party is most prone to use violence.

My second objection has to do with state’s autonomy – we do not have a general right to invade another country because we don’t like their government. I do not want to live my life subject to the laws of Iran or Iraq. I do not want them to have the right to decide that I need to change the laws I live under because those laws do not match what their holy law. But if we set a precedent of overthrowing governments that we don’t like, we really don’t have much to protest if someday they decide to overthrow our government.

And that leads me to my third object – if the concepts we are using to justify the Iraq war were applied to the US, could someone justify invading us? The answer is yes. We are a nation with weapons of mass destruction and the only nation to use a nuclear weapon. We have a demonstrated aggressive government that has been known to make preemptive strikes. And we have now demonstrated that we believe one country has the right to remake the political system of another country.

My unrelated objection was that I could not see how this war would help us in the long run. People do not like having outsiders dictate to them. There is a natural resentment that results from being forced to do it the way someone else wants. Thus I expected an increase in resentment/hatred of Americans. I also felt that there was too much religious language in use, making us Christians and them Muslims. Religion is so personal that it amps up the emotional impact of everything else. And when you add in the clearly defined US as the outsider them, then there is a focus for all the rage, anger and fear. I could not help but believe that our invasion in Iraq would lead to an increase in anti-American hostility and a subsequent increase in the number of individuals willing to become “terrorists.” (and I am not even going to go into the whole issue of what is a terrorist this entry).

My expectation was always that this would be a long war. My fear was that it would become another Vietnam. I could not see how we could possibly get out in any short term (under 4 years). I could potentially envision us getting out in 10 years. But my fear was that this was really a 15-20 year project.

But President Bush and his cabinet ignored these issues and pushed us into the war. I doubt we will ever know the truth, but I believe that the decision was made in advance and Bush just looked for the facts that would support his decision. He does not welcome dissenting opinions and seems to prefer a group-think process to any intellectual rigor. My personal take on it is that George W is trying to prove that he is better than his father and so wanted to do internationally the one thing his father did not do. The problem is that he is taking the rest of us along with us (nothing more dangerous than a man with ego-problems and some power).

So now we are in this war and everyone has decided that it is time for us to pull-out. Not because we have accomplished something, but because they are beginning to realize how costly a war can be. The US public apparently believed that one can invade another country, change the government, and then walk away in a couple of months! All, of course, without any opposition or deaths. How naïve can they get?! It doesn’t really take all that much brains to figure out that it takes time and money, that when you fight a war people die. Yes, your people can die when you invade some other country. Perhaps they forgot the Korean and Vietnam wars?

Which brings me to my current struggle with the whole politics of what we do next. If we don’t want to make it worse, we have to stay and ensure a stable, democratic government is installed with adequate police and military to prevent ethnic cleansing and/or the reversion to a brutal dictatorship. We need to ensure that there is better infrastructure when we leave than when we arrived.

But I fear that once again I am going to be a minority voice. As a nation, we want instant gratification without paying for it. I am hearing more and more rumblings that the war is too costly and it is time to pull out. What we need now is someone willing to point out that the cost of pulling out too soon will be worse.

If we don’t accomplish better and more stable conditions, we will desperately wish that we had. Leaving to soon will do nothing more than create a crucible in which anti-US terrorists will breed and multiply. We will create a world condition worse than what we started with and, eventually, it will be our own citizens who die as a result.

©scrapsnthread

Having a voice of my own

It seems to me that there is this tendency to see the people of a country as a unified whole. Democracy is supposed to be this wonderful political system whereby the people control their government. The result is that the politicians and bureaucrats talk and act as if the government is representing all the people. But the problem with most modern democracies is that they are not direct democracies. Rather they are representative democracies where politicians get into power by a majority or plurality vote. That means they are only elected by a proportion of those they are supposed to represent.

The reality is that our representative democracy is not representing people like me very well. I find I am angry at the way the government is handling things with very little sense that they actually hear my protests. And I don’t trust them very much any more. In the last couple of years I have begun to believe that the US news has become so controlled by the government and big business that we might as well consider it state run news services.

And not all Americans are members of the conservative right. I certainly am not. I am not sure that I am a liberal either, though compared to them I am. I actually find that I define myself in terms of what I am not simply because I get so annoyed with their rhetoric that assumes I am just like them.

And that is where this blog comes in. We, the people living in the world, seem to have little input into the way we are presented and represented by the media and the government. I want to represent myself so that at least some will understand that we are not a homogenous whole who all believe in the course presented by our government.

So, here I am going to explore what it is I believe about philosophy, religion, ethics, art and politics. They do go together, although not always because they should.

I confess that I worry about putting these thoughts out into a public space. Speaking up can make one a target of some vitriolic and nasty attacks. I don’t particularly enjoy some of the nasty comments I get from people I know – I have been told that disagreeing is un-American and I should emigrate to some place where my views would be more acceptable. That not only hurts, it violates the principles of a democracy, which scares me.

I am writing despite my fears because the other choice is to let the bureaucrats and politicians destroy the earth and enslave us. That is, of course, a vast rhetorical overstatement. Nonetheless, it is how I am coming to feel about the current state of things. I choose to resist.

Getting into the swing of things

Well, I am finally back from Quebec City. Nice place and people but I missed the kitty girls. Actually, I like people but need lots of personal time. This being a business trip, had little personal time.

Most amazing sight there, at least that I saw, was the setting moon. Normally, I think of the harvest moons as rising moons. but this one was a setting moon. Gorgeous!

And then there was this wall. looked like it might have been the original wall around the settlement but was too new looking for that to be real. But the view gave history a new feel.

Welcome to Scrap's Book.

After threatening to start one of these for a long time, I am finally getting started. Wanted a place to have a voice on the issues I care about. Also a way for my friends to catch up to me. So here goes...