04 Apr 2003 | indi said...

I think the US has multiple personality disorder. Part Superman, part Lex Luthor.

04 Apr 2003 | Steven Garrity said...

I too have been thinking about the anthropomorphisation (sp?) of nations lately. More in a negative context, though. It bothers me when I hear about the relationship between the U.S. and Canada. Can nations really have relationships? Isnt it what individual Canadians think about individual Americans that matters? Am I being totally nave?

04 Apr 2003 | Darrel said...

In the case of the US, at least, you vote.

04 Apr 2003 | Jim Jones said...

The US is a raging (recovering) alcoholic father who has never gotten over being the black sheep of the family.

04 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

The United States are that big, tough guy with a heart of gold that will do anything to help you but that you had better not mess with.

Like me. :-)

04 Apr 2003 | David (OnFire4jc) said...

Amen to that Don! Uh, about the US... don't know about you. ;-)

04 Apr 2003 | TheChillPill said...

In my mind, the US will do anything to help you as long as there is something in it for them.

I've always been very envious of the patriotism of the americans, but unfortunately it seems to 'brainwash' many into supporting things that surely good people must be able to see through.

04 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

ChilPill -- If North Korea got hit by a "12" earthquake on Saturday, guess who would be putting together humanitarian aid?

On Saturday night.

04 Apr 2003 | TheChillPill said...

The UN?

I don't mean this in a disrespectful way by any means, so please don't take it that way - but I simply cannot think of a single occasion when the US has done something for another country without there being something 'in it' for themselves.

04 Apr 2003 | B said...

In my mind, the US will do anything to help you as long as there is something in it for them.

Which country doesn't? And, there's nothing wrong with both sides benefiting.

04 Apr 2003 | Darrel said...

Well, Don's an example of the brainwashed patriatism. ;)

Yes, the US does a lot of world good. And it does a lot of world bad. We basically do a lot. We're the annoying aunt that is always meddling, but usually means well (though certainly not always).

She also did time for a few questionable things, but no one ever brings that up without being shushed and told 'leave the past alone...' ;o)

04 Apr 2003 | yuckmouth said...

I think Darrell kind of nailed it - it's that the US basically everywhere doing something. Whether good deeds are being done or not, it's bound to piss someone off.

04 Apr 2003 | ~bc said...

ML, I think you have a very good point about the personalities, but I think everyone else here is right too... all the different characterizations here make up our multiple personalities. Or, maybe different parts of our country have certain personalities: The Executive & legislative branches are ML's persona, various other US agencies, and American NGOs are Don's persona; US Service men and women are Superman, and the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and Cheney's boys are Lex Luthor.

And Steve, I don't know what Canadians think of Americans, but I've always thought of Canadians as Americans' best friends, who are very much like us, only slightly more patient. I get a warm feeling when I think of y'all. I hope we're thought of the same way, but some times I fear we aren't (like when they booed the anthem at the Habs v NY Islanders game weeks back).

04 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Darrel, you're probably right. It's the result of my grandpa fighting in WWI, my dad in WWII, my brother enlisting during Vietnam, my experience, my son signing up ...

Yeah, you're right.

Just don't mess with me :-)

05 Apr 2003 | MegaGrunt said...

The U.S. is probably closest to John Wayne Gacy. One of the most respected members of the community, doing a lot of good work for charity, regular church goer, succesful at business, loved to entertain kids as Pogo the Clown.

Just don't look to closely under the floorboards.....

05 Apr 2003 | Steve2 said...

~bc, I'm certain that we were wondering the same thing last year when the Americans booed the Canadian national anthem for no apparent reason. See any media reports about that?

So I have to say that yes, America is the spoiled rich kid who always gets his way, buys friends, abuses the nerds but deep down, just wants to be loved. Deep down it's asking "Why don't you like me?" but on the surface it's saying "You better f***ng like me."

France is the older brother (or sister) who's having trouble adjusting to the new baby in the house. All that attention once lavished on them is gone.

Germany's the ex-smoker. And everyone knows that an ex-smoker is a tens times as hard on smokers as non-smokers.

05 Apr 2003 | Cam said...

"The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem with (name of addiction)"

If this were a 12-step program, Bush and company haven't even gotten to Step 1.

05 Apr 2003 | John said...

Yikes! This is a very dangerous line of thinking. Metaphors can kill.

05 Apr 2003 | indi said...

Oh jeeze, I just had a flashing image of the US as Bill Mumi in that old Twilight Zone episode. First we change Saddam into a big jack in the box, then we send him to the cornfield...

"you're a bad man..."

06 Apr 2003 | Mac said...

At least we can count on France to save the world. Whew!

07 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

The people are not the politics. And statesmen dont exisist any longer - there are only politicians. People/citizens have very little to do with modern politics. The group consciousness of a country tends to break itself down into age groups/generations. The yonger ones being more active and against war. In Germany, the kids of the WW2 generation are the anti-war movement and are strict "non-drinkers", based on the fact that thier parents fucked up (excuse my "french"). But all-in-all, its the tactics and methods of the Bush administration that the rest of the world doesnt like.

This doesnt mean our countries are disfunctional - it means the mentalities are different and the only way to build bridges of understanding is through communication and education - not of politicians, but of the people.

07 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Darrel, you're probably right. It's the result of my grandpa fighting in WWI, my dad in WWII, my brother enlisting during Vietnam, my experience, my son signing up ...

my family lost people in WWI and World War II Don. Most of my family have been/are in the forces. Would I have liked to see the US clampdown on terrorist funding earlier, when money was pouring out of the US to fund the Irish Republican Army and my cousin was working Bomb Disposal in Northern Ireland? Course I would. Was anything done about it then? No, it wasn't. Even someone as hawkish as you are Don must see the need to act consistently.

**************************************

Good article Alisha.

**************************************

One of the big issues here for me is the matter of political expediency. See, no matter how much anyone talks about a process of democratisation in Iraq, essentially most people see it as being about oil. There are lots of reasons for this, but let's take a really obvious one:

The official line over Iraq roughly runs that it's not about oil, it's about liberating the Iraqi people from a ruthless dictator and starting a process of democratising the Middle East. However when the oil supply started looking a little shaky from Venezuela, it wasn't about supporting the democratically elected government of Chavez, but supporting the military coup that they thought had overthrown it and would oversee some stability back to oil exports.

See, that's the thing about democracy, you either support it or you don't. You can't support democracy in some places and not in others out of political expediency. The US has a fairly recent history of being overly 'flexible' on whether democracy is "good" or "bad" depending on whether or not the US administration that happens to be in power agrees with the results or not.

Trying to argue that you're in the right either way is just hypocritical and in the long term brings nothing but resentment and enmity. Understand that and I think we can all start to move on a bit, but you won't, you'll just start arguing about how you were right over Venezuela and then we all loop back to position one again.

No person, entity, or nation is right all of the time, so stop acting like it.

07 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Paperhead -- some serious questions. Honest to God, I am sincerely asking.

1. Do you believe that the war in Iraq is about oil?

2. What can we do as U.S. citizens to make our foreign policy make more sense?

BTW, as hawkish as I may seem, I'm actually more of a live and let live type of guy. In fact, a better model of democracization of a country is Romania, where the people spilt their own blood.

My understanding and belief is that our foreign policy suffers from administration changes, which means consistency is nigh on impossible.

And I do not believe the Iraq war is about oil.

07 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Don, as I'm basically a trusting type, I'm going to take your sincerity in asking on face value.

1 I do believe that the war in Iraq is about oil. Not in the Dubya/Cheney/Rice/Don all have vested interests way, but on a much larger scale. I'm going to go through a lot of stuff because a lot of people have some pretty strange ideas about US oil requirements ("we don't need Iraqi oil", "Russia could supply our oil needs" etc):

During the 1960s the rate of discovery of oil was around 40-odd billion barrels a year, in the 70s that fell to 30-odd billion a year, it's still in decline and currently it's around 13-14 billion barrels a year. That is to say, the rate of oil discovery is falling rapidly, there are hardly any major oilfields that we don't know about any more.

The United States alone consumes some 20 million barrels of oil each and every day of each and every year. The amount of oil consumed is rising daily (more people with cars, more SUVs - whatever, it's rising).

The US already imports around 60% of its oil. One of the world's major oil producers and one of the only OPEC members really considered to be "safe" - in a pro-American kind of way - was Venezuela. That source is no longer safe. Other sources are clearly needed, especially as US domestic oil production is dropping fast.

At full capacity, Iraq can turn out, depending on which estimates you believe, somewhere between 5 and 8 million barrels of oil per day. That's a pretty big chunk of your daily requirements. Since the sanctions have been on and Iraq has been tied to it's oil for food and medicine deal, there has been no way that Iraq has been able to pump anywhere close to those amounts. That means that there are also fields in Iraq that are still untapped. If you get rid of Saddam, you can drop the sanctions and start getting Iraq to pump at full capacity. The only other choice was to drop the sanctions anyway and admit that you need the oil - this, clearly, was never going to happen.

You see Don, in the bigger picture it doen't matter who owns the Iraqi oil, so long as it starts flowing again.

However, this is only a temporary solution. Depending on who you believe, oil production worldwide is set to go into terminal decline in the VERY near future. I am not talking about our children's children's lifetimes, I mean our lifetimes. Depending on which of the major oil company geologists you care to believe, it is only a matter of a few years. Some of the geologists point to 2020, some to 2010, most of them hover somewhere in the middle.

"Terminal decline" in this case is a specific phrase, it means that each year the global oil producing capacity will drop compared to the previous year. Most geologists estimate that the rate of drop will be 3-4% per year. This is going to mean huge hikes in the price of oil - price rises that won't settle or come back down again later. The days of oil are already numbered and countable. The largest reserves left anywhere are in the Middle East, that's why it's important for the US to maintain a military presence in the Middle East, to secure the supplies of oil as we go into decline. This is going to have a profound effect on the world we have all grown up in: international travel, international freight haulage, getting into your car and going for a drive just because it's a nice day and "hey it's only 30 miles to the beach". All gone.

The war in Afghanistan was fought to install a pipeline so that we could start pumping oil out of Kazakhstan and the surrounding countries. The war in Iraq is because we need to get the country up to full pumping capacity again.

The Iraqi opposition in exile was holding very big meetings with just about all of the oil majors in London in 2002.

2 This is a hard one Don. There are lots of barriers to get over, a lot of them concerning double standards. US foreign policy needs to be consistent. Supporting the spread of democracy is good, but that also means that the administration support elected governments across the board, whether they agree with their policies or not, whether they are pro-American or not. Freely elected is freely elected, just like free speech is free speech whether you like what the speaker is saying or not. I presume you can see how claiming to fight a war because of a belief in people's right to democracy doesn't sit well with welcoming a military coup that has just unseated a democratically elected government?

I also think your own democratic processes need to be re-invigorated. Having a country tell everyone that they want to spread democracy is fine, but it would look a hell of a lot better if more US citizens actually took part in the democratic process (so few of you vote). Added to which your election systems seem so at odds with the notion of democracy - if you can't raise the $400 million necessary to run a campaign, there's no point in standing and the only way you can raise $400 million is by taking corporate money. This just makes your political system seem corporate because, well, frankly, it is.

To the rest of the world Don, there is a big discrepancy between what we see your administrations doing and what the American people seem to think is happening. I truly believe that most people have nothing against the ordinary people of America, we just think you are easily hoodwinked by your successive governments.

I could go on a lot longer in reply here and cover a lot more ground, but I've already posted a ton of stuff here.
_______________________________

The foreign policy of all democratic nations suffers from administration changes Don. I'd say that support for democratically elected governments in other nations should be above and beyond party differences.

07 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Paperhead -- Thanks for the good, honest reply.

Your explanation of #1, above, smacks of Conspiracy Theory. I'm not saying that it isn't true, but you have to realize that it does sound a lot like the Bilderberg/Illuminati/Trilateral Commission stuff out of a Des Griffin book. Again, it may be true.

If the people who hope to take over a nation (Iraqi exiles) were in meetings about how to rebuild the economy once they're in power, who can fault that? It's to be expected.

Your comments about #2 are what I expected. That's neither good nor bad; just my comments. Democracy has it's problems, to be sure. Allow a redress of Congress, and a percentage of evil people will true to influence the gov't for their own, selfish purposes.

At the same time, organizations will try to influence Congress for the good of many. AARP has a vested interested that many would consider good.

My main gripe is that the United States was "all about" helping Hussein in the 1980's, now we're removing him. He was a "good" person back then? I don't think so. *That* is my gripe; we pick and choose based on short-term interests rather than doing what is right.

I have other, much stronger opinions and ideas, but I'll not air them in public. If you and I were sitting in a pub, drinking beer/wine and smoking premium cigars, I'd tell you my deepest thoughts on this subject. :-)

Thanks for explaining yourself at length, paperhead. It's nice to engage in some conversation that goes beyond "Bumper Sticker Theology".

07 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

I'm one of the few on the antiwar side of the coin who does not believe this war has much of anything to do with oil. It does only inasmuch as if the mideast didn't have oil it would get about as much attention as central Africa, which is every bit as unstable and messy, yet is pretty well ignored.

But the real factors behind this war are twofold, I think. One, I honestly believe that George Bush thinks he is on a mission from God. Not necessarily in the Crusader sense, but that this is a struggle between clear-cut good and clear-cut evil and that not to act would be a moral wrong. He sees the world in very simple, black-and-white terms - which can be a good thing sometimes - but because of that he focuses only on one thing. Which explains the ham-fisted approach to diplomacy, the lack of thinking through what happens after the war, etc.

The other factor, and the primary motivator of most people in Bush's administration, is the neoconservative theory that the world is a better place if the US acts forcefully throughout the world. Some of these people actually do believe that democracy can be created at the point of a gun, and don't really grasp that people aren't going to be all that grateful for the right to vote if their family has just been killed. One of the reasons behind the military strategy of limited troop deployments was to prove a theory that, if successful, would allow the US to perform a series of Iraq-like operations in quick succession. Neocons have been looking at Iraq as the perfect opportunity to put their (half-baked, in my opinion) theories into action.

Neither of these motivators has anything to do with oil.

07 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

Paperhead wins the longest post award!
are you from Ireland?
---
Good article Alisha.
---
got it from whatdoiknow.org
he has lots of goodies over there.

07 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Don, Steve

I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. Oil production will enter terminal decline at some point, that's an absolute fact. Whether it is in the next ten or fifteen years, whilst remaining a fact, has more leeway. But it is going to happen and happen sooner rather than later.

Now as I see the arguments, these things can't be had both ways. Russia and France had oil and trade deals on the table with Iraq and that is why they vetoed a new resolution. But that's not conspiracy theory stuff? But the thought that the US and the UK might have a similar agenda is conspiracy theory stuff? It's just basic economics really. Rumsfeld was talking about the need to militarily protect US energy interests at least a decade back, now the lyrics have changed but the tune remains the same. Alaska, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq - it's not just the letter 'a' that they have in common.

I understand that it's much more comfortable to think that this war is being waged for moral reasons rather than economic ones, but I honestly believe the reasoning here is economic. As I've said before, the US administration was willing to put together a multi-billion dollar aid package in return for troops going through Turkey, yet Turkey also kills thousands of Kurds every year - I see no hint of morality in that. I see no hint of morality in supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments either, but in the case of Venezuela it was expected that the overthrow of Chavez would get oil production back on track, so democracy was expendable.

When I was talking about the meetings between the Iraqi opposition in exile and the major oil companies, I was talking about deals on the table ready for after the war Don.

My main gripe is that the United States was "all about" helping Hussein in the 1980's, now we're removing him. He was a "good" person back then? I don't think so. *That* is my gripe; we pick and choose based on short-term interests rather than doing what is right.

This is what I was saying earlier Don, and strangely - across the political divide - I think we agree on this. If you want to be able to claim that you are spreading democracy across the globe you can't play different sides of the democratic fence. The US has supported "good" (i.e. pro-US) dictators and helped to topple "bad" (i.e. anti-US) elected governments for a long time now. In the end, like I said earlier, you either have to support democratically elected governments regardless of their political stance, or not support them. You can't pick and choose as circumstances arise, and if you do you can't expect the world to automatically believe you when you say that you just want to "spread democracy".

********

Alisha:

yay, I won something!

No, I'm not Irish, I am a mongrel, just going back to my grandparents the family included English, German, Irish, and Sudanese.

s'funny, I look at whatdoiknow quite often, must've missed that one.

07 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Damn, why do I always think of things after I've hit "Post"

Don -

maybe this makes it sound a little less conspiracy theory, or maybe I'm just shooting myself in the foot here:

if it was discovered that there was a large meteor on a collision course with the earth, due to impact in, say, 2016, would you expect your government to be doing something about it?

. . . the end of oil will be calamitous.

07 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Paperhead -- just between you and me, it's something calamitous that will need to happen before our societies become more humane and less harsh.

But there I go, being idealistic again *sigh*

07 Apr 2003 | MegaGrunt said...

Good post Paperhead!

One thing that makes me suspicious of this war is the level of personal commitment to it by the U.S. government. How much do they have to gain and how much do they have to lose individualy?

From what I've read, out of the more than 500 members of both Houses (U.S.), only one of them currently has a son or daughter in the army. On the other hand, the profits that companies closely associated to members of the administration are making from this conflict is astronomical!

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,930562,00.html

In a democracy, the most patriotic thing you can do is question your government (that would make a good bumper sticker - except you might get rammed). People need to realise that "My government right or wrong?" is not the same as "My country right or wrong?".

08 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

I understand that it's much more comfortable to think that this war is being waged for moral reasons rather than economic ones, but I honestly believe the reasoning here is economic.

Actually, I would find the purely mercenary explanation of oil and economic interests far more comforting than the "mission from God" explanation. People who act out of economic reasons do so selfishly, but rationally. People convinced they are on a mission from God tend not to act rationally.

Seriously, do some reading and research on the neoconservative geopolitical theories being tested out in this war and shaping decisions on how to handle its aftermath. Things make a lot more sense when viewed through that prism. They also look a lot more frightening.

Oil is too easy an answer in this instance, which may be why it's so natural to assume that this is what this war is all about. Remember that the US doesn't need Iraqi oil. The US is down to about 20-25 percent of its total oil need that it imports from the Middle East. The majority comes from Canada, Mexico and the US itself. Venezuela plays a bigger role (and keep in mind that the move to war came long before there were signs that Venezuela was going through the sort of instability it's had int he last six months). Europe and Japan need Middle Eastern oil much more than the US. But, the US has an interest in - and a stated policy of - keeping Europe and Japan from developing into military powers of any significance. They would need to develop their military capabilities to protect their oil interests if the US were no longer involved in the Middle East, so the US stays involved even though it doesn't need to from a purely economical standpoint.

No question that oil is a factor here, but it's far from the explanation. Occam's Razor is often a good principle to follow, but it often doesn't apply in foreign relations, where things are usually more complex than they seem.

If I get some time, I'll try to find some links to back up what I've been saying. Rest assured, this isn't a theory I've developed just by sitting and spinning things over in my head.

08 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Could the war be about this:

1. Saddam was developing weapons and thumbing his nose at the U.N. and U.S.?

2. Saddam was aiding terrorist?

3. Saddam was a ruthless killer?

Is it possible? Or *must* it be something less noble?

08 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

Sure, it *could* be, Don, but I really doubt it.

1. Israel, for example, is developing weapons and has been thumbing its nose at UN resolutions - including ones that the US voted for - for years. Just one example. Pakistan, an alleged ally, does the same thing.

2. Saudi Arabia is aiding terrorists. Not to mention, I've never seen any evidence about this regarding Saddam. Just accusations.

3. Didn't seem to bother us 13 years ago. Doesn't seem to bother us with regards to Turkey's treatment of the Kurds, Russia's activity in Chechnya, or with folks like Pinochet, Marcos, Bautista, Samoza, Mubarak, etc.

Every argument that's publicly been offered - and remember, they've changed many, many times, anytime counterarguments were offered - fails the test, as far as I'm concerned. They just don't hold up. I've come to the belief that Iraq needed to be confronted and that war was probably likely and inevtiable someday, but I still don't get why it needs to be done now, and why it needs to be done more or less alone. Some of the rhetoric coming from the administration itself also points to more going on here than the "official" reasons. Again, when I have time I'll dig up some links.

08 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Don,

with regard to the three points.

1. If Saddam actually had any nuclear weapons, this war would not be happening - I don't see any rush to go democratize North Korea. All this is going to lead to a new round of arms excalation as smaller countries out of favour with the US begin to see that actually the best form of protection is arming themselves to the teeth. That's great for the arms industry after they post-Cold War trough that they hit, but not so grand for the rest of us.

Joseph Rotblat was arguing the same point about the missile defence shield. it will never be 100% effective, even advocates of the scheme admit this, so let's say it runs at 90% effective. Logically, if you increase the number of missiles that you have tenfold then you can get exactly the same number of missiles through the net as you could before. More escalation.

2. If you've got to your age Don without being able to recognise a smokescreen campaign then I'd be really surprised. There has been no evidence of terrorist links whatsoever and the only suggestions of any terrorist activity were in the north of the country, you know, the part Saddam didn't have control over.

3. Yes he was/is a ruthless killer. Then again Kissinger's carpet bombing of Cambodia is pretty high up the list and he's still being offered work by the administration. Saddam was also a ruthless killer who had used chemical weapons on people when the US continued to supply him with such goodies as VX gas.

It seems to me that just about everyone has managed to make some kind of a horse trade as a result of the "War on Terror" ™ - it even got the Russians a pass on Chechnya, because now the Chechens aren't fighting for their freedom, they're just another group on the list of "known terrorists". Just like the Israeli administration tried to go for a slam dunk as part of the "War on Terror" ™

Steve,

With regard to the oil. US production currently accounts for less that 40% of consumption and that figure is falling fast. Mexico and Canada are very short term solutions, neither of which could totally support US oil consumption. The Canadian and Mexican fields will be among the first to go down because the reserves there are not that large. Yes, the US only imports a quarter of it's oil from the Middle East. Is that figure going to start rising dramatically in the next 15 years? Yes it is. The last places that will be pumping oil on this planet are all in the Middle East and those supplies will be of enormous importance within the next 20 years. So, effectively: Yes, of course the US needs to remain involved in the Middle East because in the next couple of decades the oil reserves of that region will be all that's left.

And yes, I am familiar with the neocon arguments, I do find that extraordinarily troubling, but they are not the reason for this conflict. Principle is always a poor second to necessity.

09 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

My God, Paperhead, you're right. This is terrible! They ought to be shot dead for dancing in the streets. No ... wait ... that only happened under the Hussein regime -- the one you are defending.

09 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Your low sarcasm is unbecoming Don. I am not, nor have ever been, an apologist for the Hussein regime - something I have made clear in countless posts here at SVN over the past few months.

Questioning the motives of the US administration does not automatically makes me a defender of the Hussein regime, no matter how much you want all of that "with us or against us" rubbish to be true.

You disappoint me Don.

09 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Well Paperhead, which is it?

Is our action good or bad? Can you answer that question? I can. It's good.

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

oh, here goes the black and white again. Don, no shades of grey in your life? men are so prone to black and white *sigh*

09 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

In some ways Don, I'm quite envious of your black and white worldview. In other ways, I'm not.

How can I answer now? Ask me when the dust has settled. Ask me if and when Iraq becomes a functioning stable democracy. Until that happens, I can't answer that question.

Do I still think the motivations for this administration waging this war are still economic? Yes I do.

So, can the Turkish Kurds expect your full support against the Turks now?

09 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Oh, there goes the wishy-washy again. Alisha, no right and wrong in your life? Effeminates are so prone to wishy-washy-ness. *sigh*

Works both ways, my dear friend.

09 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

There's nothing wishy-washy about seeing a complex situation for a complex situation. There is something dumbass however in seeing a complex situation as something simple. *sigh*

So is this a steroid day?

09 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

Is our action good or bad? Can you answer that question? I can. It's good.

I can answer that question too, Don. It's both. Now, how is that possible? It has to be either-or, right?

I wish I could view the world in such simple terms, too. Things rarely are all good or all bad. And, keep in mind, we're talking not even 12 hours yet. We don't know what the aftermath is going to be like. They were cheering in the streets of Sofia and Bucharest nearly 15 years ago too, but it hasn't been all bread and circuses in Bulgaria and Romania since then.

And, also keep in mind that history has more than a few examples of people cheering the presence of a military force in the short term and turning against them later. A good article in the Guardian points out that everyone in Belfast welcomed the British soldiers at first, too.

No question the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. That doesn't mean what comes after is going to be great. The Russians thought they'd be better off without the czar, too.

22 Apr 2003 | Thought For The Day said...

People are trying to make the reasons for the war far too black and white here.

There are many, complex reason for this war, that go back some 15 years, and whose conceptions co-inside with research carried out by Rumsfeld, Wolfiwitz et al. which in various forms has been called the Project for the New American Century:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

and Shock and Awe:

www.dodccrp.org/shockIndex.html

The situation we see today is described with almost spooky accuracy in these documents. Have a read and see what you think....

24 Nov 2003 | Brenda said...

Just a quick compliment - I stumbled across this site (while looking for an explanation of a TV clip I saw in which Jon Stewart promised to start every future show with the Canadian national anthem) and read the postings. I was really impressed with the level of discourse - it's refreshing to see an honest exchange of ideas on the internet, rather than stupid jingoism and knee-jerk reactions. Remember when the internet first gained prominence, and all the hope people had for it as a tool for communication and open exchanges? Mostly I've been disappointed since then, but I really admire sites like this. It's easy, and pointless, to endlessly post to people you agree with - it's difficult, and admirable, to exchange ideas with people you don't agree with, in a respectful manner. Thank you.

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