FYI, the demonstration in SF attracted over 100,000 people, and was addressed by Martin Sheen, Joan Baez, and other prominent advocates for peace. A breakaway march of about 500 people spray-painted "No More Lies" across the front of the Chronicle's offices, and went on to smash open the front doors of the INS office in protest against the recent illegal detentions of several hundred men of Middle Eastern descent, who were arrested in Los Angeles after showing up voluntarily for a summons to register with the federal agency.

Rich, I appreciate your serious engagement with these issues. However, I strongly disagree with your reasoning.

Rather than hijack the thread, I've posted my response to your ideas here.

This was the first protest I've gone to since his daddy was in office, I think. My very oldest memory is of protesting, and Bush senior was in office then as well, though as vip. My dad and stepmom and baby brother came down from central PA on a chartered bus. I thanked the cellphone gods for their gifts as it allowed me to find them in the midst of how ever many people that was.

So polite. So confusing. So many people saying the same thing. So many different sub-protests. So very very cool. So cold.

lyagushka, your post is encouraging. It's fun to go to these rallies and see the kids dancing and drumming, but it was people like your parents who showed the Nixon administration that the Vietman action was futile and would never have the public behind it.
This has got to be the first time I've heard my

I try to keep my head out of my rectum.

Nicely said, Rich.

I guess for me there are two primary questions:

1) Will invading Iraq and overthrowing the current regime make the world a safer place for me and other Americans?

and

2) Are we morally and legally justified in invading Iraq and overthrowing the current regime?

I have seen little evidence to convince me that the answer to either of these questions is yes. Furthermore, the constant obfuscation and lies of people who would link the 9/11 tragedy to an invasion of Iraq has begun to convince me that such evidence simply does not exist.

If you have a solid argument, you don't need to make up shit to support it.

---JRC

Ian,

Thanks for a thoughtful post. While we have differences, there are some areas of agreement...

1. I absolutely agree about the danger of wahabbism. And I would add that US policy has specifically supported the export of Saudi fanaticism when it has supported our strategic Cold War interests (ie. in fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan). Whether on balance this was good or bad is still unclear.

2. House of Saud oil leverage: I honestly don't believe that increasing Iraqi oil production will lead to any real decrease in that leverage. I also don't believe that this administration has any intention of doing anything to annoy the Saudis _even if we didn't need their oil_

But in the context of a war with Iraq: even if your scenario in #2 is totally true, I don't believe that we have a moral or legal right to invade one country in order to secure their oil in order to tell a second country to sod off (though I agree that the Saudi's are near to the top of countries and non-governmental entities who should be told to sod off).

3. I don't believe that Hussein has substantive contacts or interests in al-Qaeda or their interests. He is a secular leader who is nearly as opposed to al-Qaeda as we are. In fact, historically WE have supported al-Qaeda far more than Hussein.

4. With respect, while it is true that through conquest we could gain a useful base in the middle east, that is a horrible reason to go to war. And, that is a blatantly illegal reason to go to war.

5. I agree that working to keep nukes away from Hussein is a Good Thing. But remember that _we_ pulled the inspectors from Iraq. They were not kicked out. We chose to disengage in order to provide him with the rope to hang himself. But that is not a valid reason to go to war.

6. You have two points here, both of which are true, except that 1. I don't believe that we will do what is needed to rebuild Iraq. I believe that we will quite literally go in, steal (yes, steal) the oil, and tell the people to sod off. History supports that view, as that is exactly what we did in Gulf War I. We encouraged the resistance, then left them to die. and 2. Even if your scenario is correct: we do not engage in foreign wars because we don't like the government, even when the government is really bad.

The Wrap up...In fact, I do not believe that we are currently at war. I believe that the language of 'war' is being used in order to control the American people. I do believe that Bush, et al, are evil men, but not that they are pushing war _only_ for personal profit. I don't believe that we 'got what we deserved' on Sept 11, but as a country we have engaged in countless acts of agression on other peoples in the world that have been far worse than what happend on 9/11. We did create al-Qaeda in its current form, but not the Wahabbist movement from which it is derived. And I don't believe that America is a fascist state, but it seems obvious that we do violate our own principles and crush the rest of the world under our boot when it serves our interests (I spent a year in Chile under Pinochet _we created that mess_). And I don't believe that the world is the same as it was in 1941, but I don't believe it is as different as you believe.

As for another solution: We can't have a 'solution' until we define the problem. It is my belief that the problem is our fear of Iraqi offensive military capability. The focus on WMD's is, to me, absurd. Ten artillary shells of mustard gas are far less dangerous then 50,000 trained troops. While one suitcase nuke or dirty bomb is more dangerous and far scarier. But we have an inspection regime that has the power to continually inhibit effectively all Iraqi development of WMD's.

That is what we have a right and a responsibility to do.

We should also work torwards a permanent moratorium on arms sales to non-allied countries. And we should be more cautious as to who those allies are. The professionals whose job it is to determine who our friends are seem to be incompetent, and that fact won't change with an Iraqi 'regime change.'

Big Lie? You mean this, I think:

1. Our real problem is Saudi Arabian money freely spent exporting fascist Wahabbism and supporting groups like al-Qaeda.

2. Right now, the House of Saud has oil leverage. Toppling Hussein will free up Iraqi oil fields (producing only a fraction of their capacity at the moment), which will eliminate Saudi oil leverage. We can then tell them to sod off without sacrificing our entire economy. If necessary, we can go in and seize their oil fields, cutting off their revenue. No money for terrorists=fewer planes flying into buildings, fewer blown-up nightclubs, and so forth.

3. Toppling Hussein will greatly reduce the possible provision of chemical, biological, and potentially, nuclear weapons to stateless groups like al-Qaeda that have sworn to destroy America.

4. Toppling Hussein will give us a strategic base in the region, freeing us from having to beg use of airspace and bases from other semi- and outrightly-hostile Middle Eastern countries. We will then have strategic muscle in place, which we can use to deal with the other states which overtly support violence against us, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Sudan.

5. Toppling Hussein now, before he has nuclear capability, will prevent the kind of limited set of options we now have with North Korea. If we allowed Hussein to develop nuclear capability, he could hold us at bay while he swept across the entire Arabian penninsula. That would be bad.

6. Toppling Hussein will free the Iraqi people from the grip of a fascist megalomaniac who kills them with impunity. We can administer their oil fields to produce income which will be used to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure. This rebuilding will not include the construction of palaces or WMD stockpiles. If we follow the pattern established in Japan after WWII, in about 40 years our blighted automobile industry will face stiff competition from cheap, well-made Iraqi cars and trucks...I for one would love to see something like that happen. Accomplishing this will take at least 10 years of concentrated American effort in the country, dedicated to establishing democratic institutions and undoing the damage of several decades' worth of murderous oppression.

Of course, none of this will make any sense if you don't think that we're at war, or if you believe that Bush and his cronies are evil men seeking to lead the nation into war for personal profit, or that we deserved what we got on September 11, or that we somehow created the Wahabbist movement that spawned al-Qaeda and those who share its goals, or that America is a fascist state dedicated to crushing the entire world beneath the heel of its imperalist boot. It also won't make any sense if you think that the world is the same today as it was in 1941, with tidy states neatly declaring war on each other with clearly defined armies.

Then again, perhaps there is another solution to the problem. I'd honestly like to hear it.

Ian, while I have feelings about 9/11, your equating 9/11 with Iraq demonstrates the sucess of the Bush administration Big Lie policy. In this case, the Big Lie of equating the actions of an evil Fundamentalist Islamic group (which the United States brought into existence as a specific and fundamental part of our Soviet era foreign policy) with that actions of a power hungry secular dictator.

Saddam has no, or nearly no, connection with 9/11 or al quada.

And My United States does not engage in unprovoked attacks on other countries.

Edited by author 01-18-2003 03:35 PM
Yeah, I read that. It's bunk, with little application to the world we actually live in.

As a society, we do everything we can to minimize deaths from automobile accidents, airline crashes, and natural disasters. Claiming that "only 3,000 people died" and that the actual hazard level is low is a fatuous excuse to pretend that there is no real risk of similar attacks by like-minded people armed with far more effective weapons. It behooves us to do everything we can to minimize or eliminate that risk. Treating these deaths--caused by an ideologically coherent group with a global reach, the stated goal of which is to destroy America--as somehow equivalent to "natural" fatalities is an exercise in sophistry at best.

This isn't some statistical game where the goal is simply to compare the number of murdered American corpses with those resulting from "natural" causes. You could just as easily say, "So the smuggled nuclear weapon killed 500,000 people around Boston harbor. 500,000 people die each year from cancer, and we don't get upset about that, do we?"

This comes from a perspective rooted in the prejudicial notion that all violence is always irrational, and that people who think that violence is sometimes necessary are therefore irrational. It's a nice perspective to indulge in, but it's only possible when you're surrounded by "irrational" people.

Ian: This helped me see things in perspective.

I pulled my head out of my rectum the day 2,600 people were burned, crushed, and blown to pieces less than 600 yards from me.

How about you?

My senior citizen parents are driving three and a half hours to attend this protest. My dad's a West Point grad and Vietnam war vet. I think my mom actually voted for papa Bush. They live in rural PA and are not the most worldly people you've ever met, nor by any means liberals, let alone bleeding heart liberals. They're equally bewildered by popular support for the current administration and hopping mad about the erosion of civil liberties and the mind-boggling war-mongering. God love 'em. When is the rest of this country gonna pull their heads out of the collective rectum?